Look at your patches after being fired from either a smoothbore or a rifled barrel.
No, once in the zinc can only be electroplated out. (According to a chemist I know)
I agree.
Find data that says they do. I can shoot solid base 350-400 gr 40 cal bullet that are .010 under and they work fine shoot VERY well. But its in one of those unmentionables. So I understand bullet upset and can quote chapter and verse on elongated bullets and their ability to fill a bore before they start to move. I had an underhammer rifle at one time I shot Lyman 457125 bullets at about 525 gr with 70 gr of BP. Recovered bullets would show rifling marks all the way to the ogive. The barrel was cut by Ron long to have a .456-.457 BORE and the bullets were about that size and were pushed in with the thumb. They shot fine and the rifle would shoot pretty accurately to 1200 yards, but needed a platinum lined nipple. Even without a wad ( I was using lubed wads to soften fouling). Elongated bullets even solid base bullets upset very easily with BP even if relatively hard. I have not recovered a round ball that showed deeper impressions indicating it increased in diameter though the shadowgraph and strobe photos in Lymans original BP Handbook shows deformation in double ball loads and a 45 cal ball at 2220 fps is round at the rear but somewhat flattened at the front. Whether this is the result of acceleration or from the shockwave in front I cannot say. They say its the shock wave. ME? I dunno. If you want to do your own testing its possible to shoot balls into oiled sawdust ala Fredrick Mann in "The Bullets Flight From Powder to Target". If the box is 8 ft long or longer it might catch a ball with minimal deformation. But they are so soft in pure lead I cannot say for sure. I did recover a ball I shot a deer with from a pistol making 800 fps the ball was egg shaped and I cannot recall if the rifling marks were deeper than from a patched ball started in the muzzle over a strip of patch and then pulled out with the patching. Its been about 40 years back at this point. And it traveled about 24" though the deer and some marks could have been scrubbed off ????
My Lyman book is falling apart as well. The trans-sonic range is very high drag for any bullet. There are many factors but the way I have seen it explained the TIME LOST by the bullet determines wind drift. A bullet started at 1050-1100 will lose less time than if its launched at 1250 and runs down through the high drag sound barrier velocity range on its way to the target. Causing it it to lose more time (as compared to being fired in a vacuum with no drag which will give the shortest time of flight for any given velocity) compared to the slower bullet which will take longer but loses less time since it slows down at a reduced rate due to the lower drag. At least thats how I read it years ago. Its best to stay supersonic all the way to the target. But this is just not viable with BP and the round ball has such poor ballistics that even if well over the speed of sound to the target it will still drift a lot since it loses so much time. I have found his shooting my 50 caliber heavy rifle with 100 gr of FFF Swiss at 60 yards. With the long barrel it must be over 2000 and still at perhaps 1500 at the target but the wind moves it a LOT. There is almost nothing comprehensive on BP ballistics in general and even less for the RB. Most of the info I have, from experience, is for brass suppository BP rifles and while some of it might be valid here there are other issues with slow elongated bullets at long range that simply do not apply to the RB.
