I can't stand it anymore, I have to try this PP thing again now that I've found this forum and found out what I tried years ago wasn't really the best way. I've been reading up on the numerous "newbie" threads trying to get the basic idea of the CBPP, I'm coming up with more questions than answers, so let me ask some that have come to mind with my first "real" foray into this art.
I'm going to try this with my Winchester model 70 in .270 Winchester using the 6.5mm Cruise Missile cut down one band (148 grain), and I bought some Office Depot 100% cotton vellum paper with the fine grid for the purpose, it's .0028" thick. The rifle has a groove of .277" and a bore of .270" and has been decoppered, but has never been fired with cast or patched before.
First, I keep seeing posts indicating to use a boolit just over bore diameter, .001"-.002" or so, and to patch to .001" or so over groove. Sound like a good place to start?
How does alloy hardness/toughness/composition play into this? I'm assuming one can push softer alloys faster with a PP, and that super-hard boolits aren't desireable. Any general guidelines for this?
Paper? I figure the Vellum paper is mentioned so much that it's hard to go wrong there, what do you guys think?
Angle of ends? I've seen everything from 30 to 45 to 60 degrees, any consensus on this? I tried 45 degrees and it seems to work ok, but I'm clueless here.
Direction of wrap in relation to rifling. I gather that it really doesn't matter. Anyone find that it does?
Method of patch application. I see dry, wet, thinned glue, dry with pasted edge, etc. I made about 20 tonight with just plain water and as-cast boolits, no lube on the boolit, is this a "try and see" thing to see if the patch comes off correctly, or would I be better off using some sort of lube film on the boolit?
Speaking of lube, I cut the tails and ran them through a .278" H&I sizer while applying slight lube pressure, this put a little bit of Felix lube in the groove areas and compressed the base nicely, leaving a .279" finish. Looks great, but who knows what the gun will think. How about the eggspurts?
Tails. I twisted them tight and laid them out to dry, they wanted to unravel a bit, but stayed tight on the edge of the base. I guess that's good enough, once dry they were stable. I see folded bases in some pics, but for a .272" boolit that would be tough to get right. is there any advantage to having a little base showing, like about the size of the spure hole?
How far up the boolit to wrap? This boolit has a long nose, I wrapped just above the break in the ogive even though the long nose patches up to be just over bore diameter. Does anyone shoot a "bore rider" with the bore-riding portion patched, or is the object to just patch the bands on such a boolit?
Throat fit? Typical guidlines for a good fit apply I assume, any tips?
Chamber neck fit. This one has me buffaloed. Some people patch the boolit up to fit a fired case, some size the case for "normal" neck tension on the boolit, some use the groove diameter to determine patched boolit OD or size-to diameter. I experimented with seating some boolits and did the latter, with .003" neck tension on the .002"-over-groove patched/sized/lubed boolit, looks great but again, IDK. It would take another full wrap to fill a fired case.
Some of you use filler, some don't. I use a lot of Dacron and slow-burning powders with regular cast, but this undersquare .270 makes me a little nervous with something like wheat bran. I don't see a lot of direct references to NOT using filler, so what are you folks doing?
Finally, I get that PP'ing is not for low-velocity stuff, so I'm assuming I should start with starting loads for J-words, and not ten grains of Unique! Sound right?
Whew! That was long-winded. Did I miss anything I know it's a long road of experimentation like any cast boolit endeavor, but I'm trying to get my ducks in a row as much as I can in the beginning, and try to get pertinent info to this caliber in one thread. Any and all tips you guys have would be greatly appreciated!
Gear