Lube wars-the summary.

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this is moose snot


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This is your Rat on moose snot!!! :blah: :blah: :blah: :blah: :blah: :blah: :blah:



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ohhhhhhh man I KNOW what he feels like. In my younger days I woke up the morning of the "night before" looking just like that! :haha:
 
Yes - I use a 1/10" card wad on the powder, then a lube ball that will press out to 1/8" thick in the case, then one or two wax paper wads cut from wax paper with the wad punch, then the paper patched bullet that has the beeswax/vas or beeswax/neetsfoot oil lube rubbed into the aper patch. Moose Snot, made thicker by the additon of beeswax or reduction in oil, will also be a very good lube, I'm certain. The powder charge is compressed 1/8" BEFORE putting the wads in the case & NOT compressed with the wad, but by a separate operation using a die with plunger.
: The test is to shoot 5 rounds without cleaning or running a patch down the barrel between shots. In dry weather, you can blow down the barrel betwen shots with a blow tube, commonly used in BP Silouette competition. THEN, push a dry patch dwon the barrel. ALL of the powder fouing should be removed with NONE sticking in the barrel. If the fouling isn't removed, you need either more lube, or a different lube. I have tested this system in 3 1/4" .45 and.50 cals as well as 2 1/10" case .50's and .45's and 1.85", .50 cal case. They all shoot properly with Beesewax/Vas 60/40 and as accurately as the rifle or I am capable of.
; Now, dry powder fouling sticking in the chamber only means the lube is too hard. Dry powder fouling at the muzzle means there isn't enough lube for that case or load. Fouling sticking throughout means the llube isn't good enough, ie: it is a smokeless lube unsuitable for BP, or too hard - It just doesn't work at all.
; Paper patched bullets are the hardest to get to shoot, commonly.
; We have experimented with bullet size, right from being able to push the paper patched bullet down the barrel (pure lead only)& well undersized using the patch to bring it up to bore (not groove) dia. Much of the original Sharps ammo was loaded this way. Smokeless loads won't slug the bulelt sufficiently to shoot well wit this method, ormally. If you can't seat ammo in the chamber due to crusting fouling, this form of loading will allow multiple shots with ammo seated full length as the bullet/patch is only bore size. The .45 3 1/4" and .50 3 1/4" both shot into MOA using these undersized bullets.
; The lube ball is necessary as todays powder is dry burning & prone to caking, unlike the very good powders of the 19th century. Swiss comes as cloe to these great powders as we can get. GOEX is plum poor, but with the proper methods laid out, can still work well.
; My .50 2 1/10" on the .50 Alaskan case shot into 2 MOA at 450yds. off the hood of the truck, elbow rest, with this type of loading, but with grooved lubed bullets. I have a mould made for a 500gr. PP bullet in .50 but have't tried it yet. The shorter cases generally work better with grooved, lubed bullets due to lack of room for the wads and lube ball.
; O- the wax paper wads are necessary to prevent lube migration to the bullet's patch. If the patch gets "Wet" withlube, it might not leave the bullet right away, casuing a flyer- that's HAPPENS - take my work for this.
; Buy Paul Mathews books on BP Ctg. Loading - all of them. They are indispensible & necessary for the understnding of what is required & WHY.
 
Daryl,

I have all of Matthews' books and done a lot of experimentation with PP bullets over the years but had only marginal results. I pretty much followed both his and your instructions with results all over the place. The only thing I haven't done yet is try an undersized bullet but I recently built a swage and am planning to give that a try. The bullets come out at .443 and wrap to about .451. They are cast 1-20 and weigh 480 grs.

I have an old Shiloh, made by Wolf back in the 70's with the clearly defined freebore for PP. Quite often, the leading edge of the rifling will catch and strip the patch off so the bullet then goes to hell. I talked to the new owner of Shiloh and was told it needs to be rebarreled to the more modern style to properly shoot PP bullets. It shoots grooved bullets pretty well but I have always wanted to use PP - I'm just not in a position to get the barrel redone right now.

Maybe the undersized bullets will help or maybe there is a way to soften the rifling lead so the patches don't strip. Thanks for the response...Anvil
 
I had one of those dang things in .50 3 1/4"- Their idea of a PP Leade was all wrong- certainly not original. Because the leade is oversize in dia. the patched or naked bullet has to be the same size or very nearly so. Due to the stipping of paper like you found, these rifles generally shoot best with grooved lubed bullets cast at groove dia. or larger, and seated out as far as you can.
: Proper PP chambering has a nice 1 to 2 degree angle of throat with NO leade. The bullet is bore size WITH the patch. It can therefore be seated where ever you want it as it is in the rifling just waiting for the powder to bump it up to fill the grooves.
: Sometimes I wish manufacturers would leave well enough alone.
; Your bullet with patched dia. at .451 should slide down the barrel from the muzzle-If not, it is too large for a proper patched bullet for BP for a PROPER paper patched bullet chamber. Grooved Lubed bullets should actaully be .002" larger than groove dia., but the leade might not allow anything larger than groove dia. or .001" larger. Whatever you can get in, use the largest grooved bullet possible. THAT chamber might not shoot a PP bullet accurately - ever. Mine would shoot PP bullets into around 2 1/2", but grooved bullets generally went into from 1" to 1 1/2" using aperature sights, front and back. For a 50% reduction in group size, I switched to grooved 550 gr.(RCBS Mould) bullets for that barrel.
; My .50 McGowen had a short leade and therefore shot PP bullets as well as grooved, lubed bullets, perhaps better.
: Sorry- :shocking:this post sholdn't be here, should it. :nono:
: The same diameter ideas work in flint rifles withslug twists, for those 2anting to try pp bullets in their favourite Penn. rifle. ::
 
My muzzleloading Schuetzen loves Paper Patched bullets.

It has a .400 bore, 1:18 twist barrel and shoots .390 dia 335 grain PP bullets wrapped in .002 thick paper.
Two rappings makes the patched bullet .398 diameter which is just enough clearance to load.
I don't grease the paper until I am ready to load because I have found that if the grease actually soaks into the paper, the paper tears.
If you haven't seen the post about the rifle poke this link:
Schuetzen
 
Very nice custom rifle, Zonie. I have always wanted to build a custom slug rifle with proper twist. I was tring to get sme local BC boys with a rifling machine to make some barrels for me, but they got involved in slow twists & never came up with the 24" .50 cal I wanted with the Pope Riflng. They sent me a stub with Pope Rifling,(slow twist) in .58 cal, but never made a long barrel that I know of. I would have liked to shoot the 80" twist .58 with Pope Rifling & RB. It would have been perfect, an improvment on Forsyth's ideas for sure.
: The German Catolog I have shows a slightly similar Scheutzen (production) rifle in .45 or .44 cal with a backwards cap-lock with huge flash guard. It is extremely high priced, much higher than it should be for the apparent quality. It is also available is an almost together kit, for a couple hundred less.
; I might add that the underhammer cap locks in the catolog are Target rifles, similar (almost identical) to some in New Robert's book "The Muzzlelaoding Cap Lock Rifle". I don't know who makes them, but there would be a market right here in North America, I'm certain.
 
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