You'll never know until you try. Every model and barrel has it's own special likes and dislikes. Some change over the course of their service life as the rifling wears. Things like lube type, quantity, loading methods, powder charge, make & granulation, ball hardness, etc. all effect accuracy and loading ease in addition to patch thickness. And that's just the variables you can control. Factor in rifling twist, depth, land profile, groove profile, smoothness, bedding, heat dissipation, etc. and you can see why accuracy varies from rifle to rifle.
A very tight combination can cost you more points than it earns you in a timed event. Otherwise, you generally get better accuracy with a very tight fit. I keep a small block with three balls that have only 0.010" dry patching and shoot with that quite often. It opens the groups 1" at 25 yards, but it sure is nice to load. My normal load is a .010" below bore sized ball and a 0.018" to 0.020" thick cotton patch.
I never did get the hang of measuring patching compressed. I can squeeze my empty Starrett micrometer enough to deform the jaws to -0.010" on the scale, so I rely on the built-in slip clutch and always stop on the third "click" when I zero it and then measure thereafter. Don't want to add torque variability and additional tools and measurements to an otherwise simple process. :winking:
What you might want to try is a small bottle of a moose milk type powder solvent and add two drops to the patch just before loading. It will make loading MUCH easier and may not adversely effect the accuracy . . . if you're lucky.
