WHAT WORKS FOR ME.
For years now I have seen post here where people are making the same mistakes patching I have made over the last 40+ years of paper patching. So, like the title says, here is what works for me.
First of you must know the size of bullet you need to start with. That means slugging your barrel. No other way I know of to get the information you need to size the bullet. It need to be .001/.0015 over BORE diameter. If you can cast at that diameter, fine. If not you need to size the bullet to that size. Push through dies work best. One more step I use is to make a chamber cast so I can see the leade angle and measure the throat size. More on this later.
As for what bullet works. I have had my best luck with standard grooved bullets sized to the correct diameter. I have had, and sold, a number of smooth sided bullet molds over the years. The grooves give the paper someplace to grip and after drying and shrinking holds a bit more lube. If you use a “bore riding” design the nose needs to be the same size as the body. In most cases that will mean lapping out the nose section of the mold. I paper patch for hunting so I match my alloy to the velocity I am using. ACWW works good up to about 2600fps, after that you need to go a bit harder.
Now for the paper. Over the years I have tried ever type and weight of paper I could find. Now, I use only green bar printer paper. This is the paper that has the holes down both sides to pull it through a printer. It works as well or better than anything I have ever tried. I dip it in straight water and roll it on with a lot of stretch. NO overlap on the last wrap. A small gap (.010 or so) doesn’t seam to bother much, but a lap will distort the bullet enough to muss up accuracy at long range. I do twist the tails and trim after drying. I want the paper to cover and protect the bullet base. A gas check design seems to make it easier to twist the tail without tearing and shoots fine without the check. I let the patch dry overnight and then clip the tail, lube and run through another push through die to get the correct finish diameter. This need to be GROOVE diameter +.001/.003, or as large as will fit the throat. That’s where the chamber cast comes in.
For lube most anything will do. I now am using White Label BAC. I even tried lard once and that worked fine. Enough said on that.
For load workup or paper punching or plinking, I do not size the brass, just seat the bullet shallow and let the rifling finish seating the bullet. Get the best accuracy that way. For hunting I neck size and seat to where the round will feed through the action. I have the vest accuracy and velocity using a powder that gives me 100% plus load density. Hope this all helps someone get started with paper patching.