marmotslayer said:
You are wasting time and energy to create round patches solely to emulate an unnecessary commercial product. Cut em at the muzzle or cut em square!
Many of us have gone through a "round patch" period and subsequently moved on. :haha: do yourself a favor and leave the idea behind! The sooner you do that, you can get on to other fixations, such as black powder solvent vs Water; shoot in vs lap it; 1:48 vs 1:66; horn on separate strap vs attached to the bag strap; short starter vs no starter; PRB vs conical (or comical, depending on which side you Land on); wood rod vs metal rod; cap vs flint; move vs redheads; smooth vs rifled; spit vs lube; my lube vs everybody else's; square rifling vs round; adjustable sight vs fixed; .40 vs .45 vs .50 vs .54 vs .58; weight vs volume; PC/HC vs everything else; paper patch vs naked; reload every night vs leave it till the end of the season; 75 yard sight in vs 100 yard sight in; chronograph vs no way will I chrono; 2f vs 3f; Swiss vs every other powder ever made; Claude's opinion vs yours (not really an option on this one); compressed vs not; swamped vs straight; maple vs walnut; free classifieds vs pay classifieds; boiling water vs room temperature; WD 40 vs everything else; ............ My head is starting to hurt, somebody else needs to finish this! :shocked2:
yes ... you don't really need round patches ... somewhere in a land far away, someone did the arithmetic, and determined that the patch was spinning at about a zillion rpm when it left the muzzle, at which time the spin makes the patch spread out to the maximum extent possible, after which it flies into still air at well over the speed of sound, leaving the bit of rapidly cooling cloth to flutter to the ground. end of problem. the shape has no effect (other than
theoretical) on the eventual strike of the round downrange.
there are other much more important things about which you should worry:
solvent
vs. water (warm - not hot water. no question)
shoot
vs. lap (shoot, unless you have unlimited money, in which case, send me a PM: I'm your new very best buddy)
1:48
vs. 1:66 (that depends upon the rate of twist in your barrel, but I like barrels which are straight shooters)
horn on strap
vs. horn on bag (horn on bag, but do what works best for you)
short starter
vs. no starter (whazzat? whazza 'starter?')
PRB
vs. conical (PRB, unless you're shooting a BP ctg rifle)
wood
vs. metal (wood, duh, unless Brown Bess or military WBTS musket)
cap
vs. flint (is this test for our class?)
.40
vs. a bunch of other stuff (i like the .40, but it's admittedly not enough gun for moose or elk)
smooth
vs. rifled (depends on the load, I suppose)
spit
vs. lube (lube: if it's good enough for Dutch Schoultz, it out to work for me)
reload every night
vs. leave it... (reload it: if you can't be bothered to fire, clean and reload at the end of the day, you should rethink your time management)
and so on ... I'm sure I've irritated everyone here, and we left out the ever popular lead
vs. leather flint wrap
so: if I were in your position, I would make square patches using one of those clever round cutter gadgets and a plastic board. you should get your own circular gadget, and your own board, and keep them with your gun stuff. this way, your wife/girlfriend/significant other will never confront you with, "honey, what happened to my [fill in name of incredibly esoteric and expensive tool here]?" (this is lingo for: "you dumba$$, you broke/damaged/lost my [...esoteric and expensive tool] and you'd better 'fess up and offer to get me a new one right now if you know what's good for you")
if you want, you can get into cutting patches at the muzzle... this allows you to use a patch knife, and it looks way cool, and it works just as well as any other patching method. and it will make you thin, rich, and sexually attractive.
:rotf:
make good smoke! :grin:
Oy vey!
