Fundamental question on paper patching

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TexasMac
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Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by TexasMac »

As a "greaser shooter" (no prejudicial comment intended :wink:) I wipe between shots with a water-soluble oil mixture. Of course the bullets also carry lube which aids in lubing the bore and also helps to eliminate blow-by. The fouling & lube that wiping removes is sufficiently replaced by the lube in the wiping solution & conditions the bore for the next shot. If it wasn't than I'd get leading which I don't. I do pre-lube the bore prior to the 1st shot but wiping is only used afterwards. So this brings me to my PP question.

I've wondered about the use and or need of grease cookies when PP'ing. I understand most if not all PP shooters use a grease cookie or a felt wad soaked in lube. But since the bullet is wrapped in paper I'm assuming the grease cookie's role in preventing blow-by is less important. BTW, I'm also assuming a wad is used to protect the base & help prevent blow-by. The cookie's main purpose is to keep the fouling soft between shots when blow tubing because the bullet is not carrying lube. If I understand the role of the grease cookie, shouldn't wiping between shots with a water-soluble oil result in similar benefits as it does with greasers, thereby eliminating the need for a grease cookie with PP. Since wiping with a water-soluble oil solution removes most if not all the fouling & conditions the bore for the next shot, what is the advantage of the cookie in this situation (when wiping)?

Wayne
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Don McDowell
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by Don McDowell »

Grease cookies are generally used only for hunting type loads. One notable exception to that is my shooting partner Eddie Hayes uses a grease cooky
I use a felt wad that has a dry lube incorporporated into the material in the manufacturing process
I use those on top of a regular wad
I also have found that some rifles shoot better with the exposed patch wiped with a drop of jojoba oil with the excess wiped off with a tea towel. That process is explained in the 1875 Remington catalog
A good wiping routine is absolutely necessary to maintain target accuracy no matter how you stuff the inside of the case
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TexasMac
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by TexasMac »

Don,

Have you tried shooting PP without the dry lubricated felt wad? I.e., only using a regular wad and wiping between shots.

Wayne
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Don McDowell
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by Don McDowell »

Yes I have, but I couldn't find the accuracy I did with the thin felt wads I use.
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ian45662
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by ian45662 »

I shoot with no lube at all. Just powder wad and paper patch bullet. I wipe between shots with the BFD gophers and a 2.5” flannel patch that follows the Gopher. Myself personally I don’t know anyone who is using a grease cookie for their match loads. I don’t think I do anyways.
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by Kenny Wasserburger »

No grease cookie here in my match loads, never have and zero need for one. The results speak for themselves. The 5@200 record I am especially proud of.


I do use them in my hunting loads with a totally different bullet and paper. 4 dead buff in 6 shots 2 trophy bulls went down a single shot each.

I do use a Sagebrush Products felt wad in my match loads mainly for a spacer, it has been part of my wad stack for some time.

Kenny W.
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Distant Thunder
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by Distant Thunder »

I do NOT use grease cookies in any of my paper patch target loads. I also don't shoot greasers! I've moved beyond them.

I chamber a round, shoot, wipe and repeat. I use bore pigs and a water/oil mix that cleans and lubes the barrel between each shot. Accuracy is outstanding.

My loads are all assembled pretty much the same for the 3 rifles that I'm using in competition. As an example, in my .45-70 Hepburn, my Creedmoor rifle, my clean fireformed cases are primed with Remington 2 1/2 LP, 83 grains of 1 1/2 Swiss is slowly drop tubed into the case, I seat the .060" LDPE wad and compress somewhere around .080", I then finger seat my bore diameter paper patch bullet. This rifle has a tight chamber for bore diameter paper patch bullets, no neck sizing is needed. I do neck size my .44-77 with the bullet in place. In both rifles the bullets can be pulled with just my fingers and reseated the same, but won't fall out with reasonable care during normal handling.

I believe having a bullet that fits the chamber and bore of your rifle is the most critical thing in achieving match winning accuracy. I have had as little as .001" difference in bullet diameter make a big difference in the accuracy. For that reason I like to size my bullets in a custom made push thru die after patching. This give them a very uniform custom fit to my bore.

Matching the bullet length to the twist rate and velocity is also very important, especially as the range is extended.

Using an alloy that will resist nose setback for the bullet design and velocity is another important consideration.
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by bruce m »

good post jim.
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TexasMac
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by TexasMac »

Hey guys,

Thanks for correcting me. Obviously I was mistaken about grease cookies and can only offer my ignorance of PP'ing as a defense. So now I have another question for you knowledgeable PP shooters.

I have a rifle with the following chamber, throat & bore dimensions:
Chamber neck ID: 0.436"
Transition step angle: 12.75 degrees
Freebore diameter: 0.411"
Freebore length: 0.190"
Leade angle: 1.5 degrees
Leade length: 0.165"
Groove diameter: 0.409"
Bore (land) diameter: 0.400”
Assume using brass with 0.011" walls (0.022" inclusive)

OK, let’s assume the case diameter will shrink 0.001” when fired, resulting in a fireformed diameter of 0.435”. Subtracting the case wall thickness of 0.022” results in a case neck ID of 0.413”. Taking this a step further, if I wrapped a 0.400” bullet with 2-wraps of .002” paper (totaling 0.008”) the bullet would be still be quite loose in the case by 0.005”. So let’s consider another scenario.

Start with a 0.405” bullet & add 0.008” of paper, resulting in a patched bullet diameter of 0.413”. Will a 0.413” patched bullet slide through a 12.75 degree transition step into a 0.411” diameter freebore without any problems? And if it does, what happens when that now 0.411” patch bullet is forced into 0.409” groove diameter bore with a land diameter of 0.400?

If you have not guessed by now, the rifle in question is a Browning .40-65 & the dimensions are typical of the many I’ve measured. The rifles have a very “generous” chamber generally requiring neck resizing & expanding as part of the reloading process. If PP’ing would allow finger seating bullets in a fireformed case it may go a long way to fixing some of the accuracy concerns I’ve experience with the chambering.

No doubt some will say that bullet bump up will solve the problems when using greasers. But expecting a 0.410” diameter bullet to bump up 0.415” then squeeze down in two steps to 0.409” cannot be good for accuracy which is what I’ve generally found after putting thousands of rounds through 3 of the rifles to date using many styles of bullets and loads configurations.

Wayne
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MikeT
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by MikeT »

TexasMac,

I shoot PP in a 38-55, 40-50SBN, 40-70SS, 40-82 Win, 45-70, and a 45-100. The Ballard Pacific 45-100 is the only rifle that has forced me to try a grease wad in the wad stack. I tested loads all last Summer; 85 to 95 grains of Fg O.E. powder, bullet alloys from 25:1 to 16:1, three different bullets [one was almost groove diameter], different seating depths from 0.060" to .370" and lastly four different primers. All loads leaded the barrel extremely bad, except the loads with a 3/16" lube wad. So I plan to campaign that rifle at LR with the lube wads. If it turns out to be a failed experiment, then I will have the barrel sleeved and rechambered with tighter tolerances.

Sometimes you just need to pay attention to what the rifle is telling you.
Keep on hav'n fun!
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Don McDowell
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by Don McDowell »

Wayne, the one thing you have to keep in mind with patched bullets, if the slick is to much over bore diameter, as it and the paper travel down the barrel there's only 1 place of the lead to be displaced and that's finning/cupping the base. A grease groove bullet avoids that by compressing into the grooves.
I never really have found anything good trying patched in the Browning/Winchester chambered guns. But my suggestion would be to use a .400 bullet, wrap it in 7 or 8 lb paper. Run the cases thru the size die, and use an expander that will open the case up to .001 over the wrapped bullet diameter. Put a good inside the mouth chamfer on the case, and go from there. One thing I have found a good place to start load wise with a gun that you have a good greaser load for is to add 2 grs of powder over the gg load, use the same wad, and add a felt wad no more than 1/8 in thick. The target will tell you what if any changes you need to make.
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semtav
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by semtav »

TexasMac wrote: Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:39 pm If you have not guessed by now, the rifle in question is a Browning .40-65 & the dimensions are typical of the many I’ve measured. The rifles have a very “generous” chamber generally requiring neck resizing & expanding as part of the reloading process. If PP’ing would allow finger seating bullets in a fireformed case it may go a long way to fixing some of the accuracy concerns I’ve experience with the chambering.

No doubt some will say that bullet bump up will solve the problems when using greasers. But expecting a 0.410” diameter bullet to bump up 0.415” then squeeze down in two steps to 0.409” cannot be good for accuracy which is what I’ve generally found after putting thousands of rounds through 3 of the rifles to date using many styles of bullets and loads configurations.

Wayne
Wayne.
That statement confuses me. My 40-65's were very accurate GG shooters.
I've got two .404 dia PP bullets I need to spend more time with.

I am about to work up a BP GG load for someone
This one below and a snover bullet load were my most accurate 8-10 yrs ago.
About to see if I can duplicate them again
This one was slip fit, the Snover was with resized brass.

40-65.jpg
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semtav
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by semtav »

I just measured the necks loaded, this one is .435 with a .410 dia bullet, the snover is .436 with a .411 dia bullet.
maybe you need thicker brass.
TexasMac
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by TexasMac »

Don McDowell wrote: Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:23 pm Wayne, the one thing you have to keep in mind with patched bullets, if the slick is to much over bore diameter, as it and the paper travel down the barrel there's only 1 place of the lead to be displaced and that's finning/cupping the base. A grease groove bullet avoids that by compressing into the grooves.
I never really have found anything good trying patched in the Browning/Winchester chambered guns. But my suggestion would be to use a .400 bullet, wrap it in 7 or 8 lb paper. Run the cases thru the size die, and use an expander that will open the case up to .001 over the wrapped bullet diameter. Put a good inside the mouth chamfer on the case, and go from there. One thing I have found a good place to start load wise with a gun that you have a good greaser load for is to add 2 grs of powder over the gg load, use the same wad, and add a felt wad no more than 1/8 in thick. The target will tell you what if any changes you need to make.
Don,

Your suggestion is essentially the same as 1st example of the two I mentioned earlier. Assuming the patched bullet bumps up in the neck prior to being shoved into the freebore it will enlarge 0.005". Will that much enlargement tear the patching? If it does not then it will be 0.002" larger than the freebore and 0.002" larger than the groove after passing through the freebore, which is essentially the same results as both examples I mentioned earlier. I was hoping to hear that squeezing the bullets down 0.002" twice would not destroy the patching nor result in fining. It's starting to sound like it's not a good idea to try patching the .40 Browning.

Wayne
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Don McDowell
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Re: Fundamental question on paper patching

Post by Don McDowell »

Wayne I think if the bullet is seated shallow in the case it probably won't be a very big problem, so long as at least the first 1/8 inch of the leading edge of the patch engraves the rifling when chambering. But you have to do with that just like greasers, find the happy medium for bullet fit in the throat and the rifling, but the catch comes by not getting so large that the bullet base gets buggered up.
Brians 404 diameter bullet might be a good option. I suppose you could order some precast bullets from BACO and wrap them up to see what happens, be a bunch cheaper than going thru moulds like they was cheap.
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