Patched 54 cal mini balls

[leon8711]

Gents,
I have some TOTW 54 cal. mini balls that look like they would put the hurt on an elk. The problem is they are so undersize if I turn the muzzle down and tap the stock a couple times they fall out. I am trying to avoid blowing myself up so I was thinking about trying to patch them with some .010 I have laying around as I am not setup to paper-patch. Anyone tried this?

 

[longcruise]

Do you mean .010 cloth patching?

 

[leon8711]

yup, .010 cloth patch

 

[ZUG]

I would paper patch them -- not hard to do -- look on YouTube.

 

[BrownBear]

I would paper patch them -- not hard to do -- look on YouTube.

That works well according to a bud in the same boat. He's done a lot of experimenting, and in the end came out preferring to wrap his with teflon plumbers tape. Easier to load with a tight fit for good accuracy, and no greasy kids stuff from handling. He ended up putting a lubed felt wad underneath just to keep fouling soft for repeat shots.

 

[Zonie]

If the Minie' balls are just a few thousandths smaller than the guns bore, they can easily become dislodged by a few jolts on the gun.

Trying to patch these with cloth .010 thick could make the slugs darn near impossible to ram down the bore.

With a roundball, very little of it is compressing the fabric. For instance, a .490 diameter ball with a .010 thick patch on it shoved into a .500 diameter bore will only have a contact length where it is trying to engage the bore of .100 long. A bit less than 1/8" where the cloth is actually being compressed.

Also, the spherical shape of a round ball doesn't offer much resistance to being deformed when a lot of pressure is applied to its outside in a small, .100 long length.

A Minie' ball on the other hand has a LOT of surface area trying to engage the bore.
Maybe 3/8" to over 1/2 inch long that's trying to compress that .010 thick fabric.

The cylindrical shape of the Minie' also doesn't provide a lot of space around it to deform into except for the grease grooves.
That makes compressing the bullet a lot more difficult.

These things working together can easily make the Minie' almost impossible to load when it has a cloth patch, even if it is well greased.

As for paper patching, I suppose forming a cup shape with your thumb and then placing the slug into it before ramming it down the bore could work but even this might not be easy if the existing slug is only clearing the bore by 3 or 4 thousandths of an inch and the paper is .003 thick. (There's paper on both sides of the slug so the slug diameter increases twice the paper thickness).

While talking about paper patching, one should notice that many of those who do this, run their patched slugs down thru a sizing die to reduce the patched diameter to just under the bore size.

The other way to paper patch is to use a slug that is Way undersized. For instance, I use a .390 diameter PP slug along with some .0015 thick paper.
As the paper patch is actually two layers thick, each side of the slug has .003 thickness of paper on it. This increases the patched bullet diameter to .396 which is a nice, easy push fit into my Schuetzen's .400 diameter bore.
The pure lead bullets swell or expand when they are fired so the paper engages the rifling grooves.

 

[nkbj]

Zonie,
Glad you brought that up.
How much powder are you running behind those paper patch hollow bases?

ExSWO,
How much undersized are those minies for your bore?

 

[bpd303]

I would paper patch them -- not hard to do -- look on YouTube.

That works well according to a bud in the same boat. He's done a lot of experimenting, and in the end came out preferring to wrap his with teflon plumbers tape. Easier to load with a tight fit for good accuracy, and no greasy kids stuff from handling. He ended up putting a lubed felt wad underneath just to keep fouling soft for repeat shots.

I have teflon patched 50cal minies to use in a 54cal. Worked very well and were accurate to boot. Just had to figure out the right length of teflon tape for a snug fit.

 

[Zonie]

Zonie,
Glad you brought that up.
How much powder are you running behind those paper patch hollow bases?
...

65 grains of 2Fg black powder.

They feed this thing I put together a number of years ago.

 

[azmntman]

I would paper patch them -- not hard to do -- look on YouTube.

That works well according to a bud in the same boat. He's done a lot of experimenting, and in the end came out preferring to wrap his with teflon plumbers tape. Easier to load with a tight fit for good accuracy, and no greasy kids stuff from handling. He ended up putting a lubed felt wad underneath just to keep fouling soft for repeat shots.

I have teflon patched 50cal minies to use in a 54cal. Worked very well and were accurate to boot. Just had to figure out the right length of teflon tape for a snug fit.

No barrel sludge from the tape??

 

[longcruise]

I tried patching some "loosish" maxi balls in a .50 TC Hawken. Used worn thin t shirt material. Went down hard, but no harder than a tight ball.

Accuracy was pretty good.

All in all, you might be better off getting a mold that Will drop a larger minie.

If you are going to paper patch, you may need a smaller minie. Or, you could run your present minie through a sizer and then paper patch.

 

[nhmoose]

I used EZ-Wider papers on a Lyman 54 Minnie that kept falling out of my TC Renegade. Wrapped and tuck tail into base then dipped in melted beeswax.

They shot great and did not move after loading.

 

[AZbpBurner]

Not sure why you think you need a minie for elk. You'll never be underpowered with a .54 cal PRB

 

[Tom Compton]

:thumbsup:

Yep, 90 gr FFg and a .535 RB will do the job if the shooter is on target.
TC

 

[nkbj]

Lee made a .533 diameter minie that always looked as though it needed patching.

Just punched it up.
They still make it. 410 grain.
Bet that would make the GPR sing and sting.