My .36 Frontier has a tighter bore than my other .36. I went with a .345 and it is my most accurate rifle I have . Get rid of the prelubed patches. Go to TOTW and get some mink oil and dry wool patches. You can lube them by dragging the patch over the can or melt some and soak them. A good lube and patch is how to get good results. I can shoot all afternoon without swabbing at all.
Nothing other than not wiping between shots ,I do in all my rifles and if it starts getting hard my accuracy goes down too. And I only own 45 and up so I can't imagine what your loading is like but your 1st broke ram rod in a small caliber rifle will be a teaching moment and you too will start wiping between shots !/Ed
That is something you can try if you want to use up those patches. It won't hurt anything. It's all about trial and error. I'd do it.
Is it just me? I am by no means any expert but that seems a little tight. 0.36" (bore) - .35" (ball) = 0.10" gap but the patch runs around *both* sides of the ball (0.10" + 0.10" = 0.20") so you are trying to squish 0.37" into a 0.36" hole. You're compressing your patch to 50%. I'd be inclined to compress it a little less (25%) with a .005" smaller ball. I know from EMI gasketing that compressive force goes up exponentially to asymptote about 50% but then I'm no expert on patching compressability. I'd be interested as to what others say here.
The answer is so simple that most think, that can not be, it must need some modern solution.
I never had a problem nor swabbing when using Pyrodex, black power had to swab with a wet patch after every shot. For lube I used that Crisco & bees wax. Someone commented that it's too hard. I didn't think about it, but I wet/soak my patches while it's still hot using about a 50/50 mix, eyeball measurement,...I did have to melt it before soaking patches.
Then how come every one Ive shot was a piece of falling a part piece of junk.
It does take some moderate effort to seat the patch/ball but nothing extreme.....I do have some .015" patches that I may try, but I will also lube the patches more as everyone has suggested.
I very interested in this topic but need a little clarification. You load ball & patch using olde Turkey followed by a swab and seating the ball with a patch with 1:5 ballistol:water ? Thanks in advance.
I was getting some parts from Taylors and saw Olde Turkey on their site. Never heard of it but figured why not give it a try. I think I could use a Ballistol/water damp patch under the ball with the same results. I'll give that a try next time out along with some ticking I bought and cut square. To clarify, for now, prior to loading, I clean the breech and bore with alcohol and dry it. Load the 1st ball seated on the Olde Turkey patch. Shoot. No swabbing. Next ball I load the same except I seat it with a jag on the ramrod that has a ballistol patch on it. That way the bore is getting cleaned with the loading stroke. No extra swabbing was needed. That worked for 16 shots which was all I was going to shoot that day. For me, I'm enjoying all the experimenting you can do with loading.
You must not be lucky. I have owned a few Pedersoli guns and all of mine were great shooters and built very well.
Lose the pre-lubes. Greasy patches are best kept for when you are only taking a couple of shots. (oil+carbon=asphalt) I use a soapy water lube and can shoot my .40 all day without wiping; the wet patch cleans the bore with each load. Lots of posts in the archive.
