patch cutter advice?

[coloradoclyde]

yours looks pretty slick to me... :grin: :thumbsup:

 

[Jim C]

What type of material is that in your photos? It looks pretty thick.

 

[Hunter John]

I read somewhere that when cutting square patches, a good rule of thumb is to cut them 2.5 * caliber. So, patches for a 45 cal should be around 1.125 (2.5 * .45) or 1 1/8".

With this in mind, I cut my patches:
.45 cal - 1.125"
.50 cal - 1.25"
.54 cal - 1.35" (or just eyeballing a bit larger than the 50 cal)
.58 cal - 1.45" (or just a whisper smaller than 1 1/2")

These sizes seem to work for me and result in little waste. Not a real science here; you're not gonna hurt anything using a 1.35" patch in a 50 cal....just waste material.

Personally I hate it when there's a ton of "extra" patch sitting over the top side of the ball after I seat it in the muzzle.

Anyone ever see accuracy go to he11 when there's a lot of extra patch sitting over the top of the ball after they seat it? I gotta experiment with this sometime.

Like others have posted, I've experimented using round patches vs square patches and could see no difference in accuracy, but the round patches just took a lot longer to cut.

 

[M. De Land]

I use the cotton shirt felt in my worn out Field and Stream work shirts from Costco. It's the best patch cloth I have ever found at .018, strong and very tight weaved.
I wear them until the collars and cuffs get ragged then cut then into strips and punch out the patches. The stuff is still tight weaved and remarkably consistent in thickness from one end to the to the other.
I punch the patches out and keep them in a large mouth plastic vitamin bottle that will hold eight ounces of water. My favorite patch lube is winter grade windshield wash without glyconal anti-freeze.
It consists of methyl alcohol, liquid soap and mostly water............ all top cleaning agents for black powder residue and it won't freeze in cold weather.
I put the cut patches in the bottle and just enough windshield wash to get them damp. So far it's the best combination I have found in my 50 years of shooting Muzzle loaders.

 

[M. De Land]

If your going to use square patches I have found they load easier if you nip off the four corners into an uneven octagon shape. The corners tend to fold over and hang up more on the loading jag very often in a fouled barrel, if they are not removed.

 

[M. De Land]

By the way the patch lube works excellently as a bore wipe between shots as well. The alcohol quickly evaporates the water in the wash and the soap mixes with the fouling to keep it soft.

 

[azmntman]

I've done that more often than not

 

[Grumpa]

Personally I hate it when there's a ton of "extra" patch sitting over the top side of the ball after I seat it in the muzzle.

Anyone ever see accuracy go to he11 when there's a lot of extra patch sitting over the top of the ball after they seat it? I gotta experiment with this sometime.

What I have seen is my ramrod get stuck in the excess patching - which ended that day's hunting!:redface: Do it once, and you'll be a lot more careful after that.

 

[Grumpa]

LOL! I have suggested Online Metals as a source, on a couple of other threads, after searching them out on the web, but I've never actually used their products.

Did you happen to chronograph your loads, and how did they compare with lead as far as accuracy and velocity?

 

[Grumpa]

Found your original post on testing the brass balls in .58 cal. Outstanding :hatsoff:

1611 fps with 120 gr. Ffg...."No problems... and extremely accurate and consistent."

 

[roundball]

Found your original post on testing the brass balls in .58 cal. Outstanding :hatsoff:

1611 fps with 120 gr. Ffg...."No problems... and extremely accurate and consistent."

Yes, very high quality, consistent, precisely manufactured brass balls...and the main noteworthy thing to remember is that brass is a little lighter than lead of course...those .5625" solid brass balls weighed 201 grains...halfway between a .50 & .54cal lead ball weight. Not a problem in the big .58cal with the large frontal area of a typical .58cal ball, and still at 201grns weight, its like a .50/.54cal on steroids.
Just have to be aware that if trying to find a similar / smaller ball that would fit in a .50cal bore for example, it might only weigh what a .45cal lead ball would weigh, etc.

(PS: they work perfectly with square patches and don't obturate, LOL)

 

[Grimord]

I run my press at really slow speed and don't seem to have the "torquing" issue that you mention. A really sharp edge cuts smoothly. So far I haven't had any problems, and it works for me. To each his own.

 

[Billnpatti]

Since it makes no difference whethere a patch is round or square, the simplest and easiest way to pre-cut your patches is to use scissors to cut strips of fabric which you then cut into squares of the proper size. If you prefer, you may cut your patches at the muzzle using your patch knife. For this, simply cut your fabric into strips of the proper width and then cut the patch at the muzzle.

To determine the proper size for your patches, multiply the diameter of your ball by three. So, for a .50 caliber rifle, your patches should be about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 inches wide. For a 20 ga. smoothbore, patches of about 1 1/2 to 2 inches would be about right. No wider or the patch could wrap around the end of your short starter and make it difficult to withdraw from the muzzle. Too much smaller and it becomes more difficult to get the patch properly centered on the muzzle so that it wraps evenly around the ball.

 

[Greenjoytj]

Keep nipping the corners and you'll end up with a round patch!

I caution everyone against using a square patch :nono: because you can't push a square patch down a round hole :grin:

Remember round patches are the hole'e grail :bow: of patches.

 

[Greenjoytj]

Anyone ever see accuracy go to he11 when there's a lot of extra patch sitting over the top of the ball after they seat it? I gotta experiment with this sometime.

I've seen slow motion video of PRB leaving the muzzle of a rifle. The patch was a flat spinning disc about an inch from the muzzle and the ball was a few inches ahead of the patch.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Anyone ever see accuracy go to he11 when there's a lot of extra patch sitting over the top of the ball after they seat it? I gotta experiment with this sometime.

Webb Terry once did a test (I watched) using oversize patches with a bench rest rifle. He increased the size until he had a fairly large hunk shoved down on top of the ball. Results were the oversized patches affected accuracy not at all. The cloth drops off as soon as ball exits muzzle.

 

[Hunter John]

Hmmm....very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Just for the heck of it one day with my .45 cal Seneca I'm gonna shoot a 10 shot string at 50 yards with my normal 1.125" square patches and then another 10 shot string with 1.45" square patches (58 cal).

I always thought that having a hunk of extra patch material over the seated ball would negatively affect accuracy, but I've been wrong about many things since taking up this sport.

 

[Zonie]

There's a couple of things trying to get the patch off of the ball as soon as it leaves the muzzle of a rifle.

Even with a 1:60 twist, the ball and patch are spinning over 16,500 rpm at 1400 fps muzzle velocity. The centrifugal forces cause the patch to unwrap itself from the ball and fling itself radially outward causing the supersonic difference in speed between the patch and the stationary air around the muzzle to bring it to a rapid halt while the ball continues on its way downrange.

 

[ohio ramrod]

While I have made many many punches for cutting round patches, square patches work just as well and have very little waste. Round patches leave a lot of cloth lost when cutting the round patches. A "paper cutter" works well for cutting the square patches if you don't have a steady hand to cut even sized patches with a sissors. :idunno:

 

[dikman]

I lay my material on a table and use a straight edge and pencil to draw parallel lines the width I want. I then use a pair of battery powered scissors (cost $5 on sale and work surprisingly well) to slice the sheet into strips (I tried a rotary cutter but didn't like it). I then lay two or three strips on top of each other and cut them to size with a decent pair of scissors.

Works for me.