patched ball tightness and blown patches

[john4645]

If its possible to leave the powder charge amount out of this, what do you think has more impact on blown,burnt or patches with holes in them - a tight fit or a loose fit in the barrel, this pertains to smoothebores.

 

[roundball]

If its possible to leave the powder charge amount out of this, what do you think has more impact on blown,burnt or patches with holes in them - a tight fit or a loose fit in the barrel, this pertains to smoothebores.

Loose fit
(unless the P/B combo is so tight that you're hammering them in and splitting / tearing the patch material in the process)

 

[paulvallandigham]

The powder causes the burned patches. Some people avoid burned patches by switching from FFFg, to FFg powder and increasing the load of FFg to get the POI to the same POA they used shooting FFFg powder. The patches with holes usually occurs with rifles, but since you are asking about smoothbores, patches with holes tend to occur with you are using too thick a patch or too wide a ball, and tear the patch when loading. Sometimes there will be holes caused by burrs on the muzzle of the barrel. To fix the later, you chamfer the bore or polish off the burrs.

To fix the former, you go to a small ball diameter, or to a thinner patch. The thinner the patching, however, the greater the chance that it may catch on fire as it goes down the barrel.

If you have to use a thinner patch, to keep it intact, use a card wad, or filler between the powder and PRB to protect the patch. For large bore smoothbores, like a 20 or 12 gauge fusil or fowler, a 50 grain volume throw of corn meal is very cheap, and works just fine to seal gases, and protect the PRB. If you are also shooting shot loads, you probably already have and use overpowder cards. If so, just use one of those on top of the powder to protect that PRB, and use the corn meal for corn bread.

 

[scroggwe]

OK, I hate to ask a dumb question here, but...what difference does it make if the patch is burnt or torn? Does it affect the accuracy or some other such thing? Somebody enlighten me here please.

 

[dlemaster]

Bill
Here is an anaology that might help. The patch acts somewhat like a gasket around the ball. What happens to an automobile engine when you blow a head gasket? You lose power, and the engine will not run like it should. It can cause more damage as time goes on. Same with the blown or burned patch. At the least you will lose some of the power but more importantly the accuracy goes to pot because each shot will blow or burn differently from the others. The patch acts as a gasket to seal the pressure from the gases and carries the lube that will keep the fouling soft which makes the gun easier to reload.
Hope this helps.

Regards, Dave

 

[musketman]

If its possible to leave the powder charge amount out of this, what do you think has more impact on blown,burnt or patches with holes in them - a tight fit or a loose fit in the barrel, this pertains to smoothebores.

To add to the equation, an unlubed or improperly lubed patch stands a greater chance of burning through than a lubed patch, there is nothing there to protect the fibers from the blast...

Also, old weathered patching material will rip easier than brand spankin' new cloth, the weaves loosen over time and can even dry rot, I have had this happen to me before and I thought it was the gun for the longest time...

 

[scroggwe]

Thanks for your answer Dave. That makes perfect sense.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Also, when a patch burns, gases melt the lead ball, distorting its shape, which contributes to inaccuracy.

Before we had inexpensive chronographs, the old timers studied their used patches by collecting them off the ground in front of the bench at the firing line, to see what was happening, and determine if they were getting consistent performance from the Patch and ball combination. If so, then they would increase and decrease powder charges, to find a sweet spot, and then they might try using FFFg powder instead of FFg powder, or vice versa, to see what worked best in their gun. Finally, the target shooters began using overpowder wads and fillers to protect the patching, particularly when firing heavy loads of FFFg powder in the larger caliber " Slug " guns. When the group sizes of slug gun shooters started to shrink at long ranges, men shooting PRB guns at much shorter range started using the same approach to see if they couldn't get better accuracy with their guns. They did.

Always use an adequate lubricant on your patches. Try to lube the patches you will use at the range at home at least a day before, so the lube has time to even out over the patch. You can help this process with a few short bursts in your microwave, set on Time defrost, rather than on cooking.

I refill my brass box that holds my lubed patches after each range session so the lube has plenty of time to thoroughly penetrate all the patching materials evenly. I put a glob of lube on one patch, then put a clean patch on top of it, then put lube on the surface of that clean patch, then put another patch on top of that one, continuing on to make a stack. The bottom and top of the patchs in the stack do not have lube on them. However, the next day, all the patches will be thoroughly soaked in the lube. ( Wonder lube, or NL1000, whichever name you know the product by.) You have to find the right thickness of patching to seal the bore, before lubing is going to make sure you don't get blown patches, or burned patches. When everything is right, you can reuse the patches you pick up off the ground( although you won't want to do so.)

 

[john4645]

thanks, I am haveing trouble with this chambers officer fusil, I have used .600 balls with .10 to .15 patches and .590 and .595 and all different powder charges and 2f and 3f, the best combo I had was 80 grs, 3f .595 with pillow ticking around .18 but some patches still blew apart, and the accuracy was not the best. the lube that I have used has been mink oil from totw, and spit patches. I am going to go to the store and look for some tight material next and see how that works. I just think that the oatche should stay together, for acuracy and fowling purposes, am i correct?

 

[Java Man]

Have you tried any wads under the PRB? My fusil was fouling like crazy, till I put a 1/2 pre lubed cushoin wad under the PRB. Not I can shoot a lot with no trouble loading w/o wiping. And real good accuracy. 20ga, .595rb, ticking patch, 70gr 2f.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Javaman has the right idea. You can also just use the 1/8" over powder wad with a dollup of lube on top of it before you run the PRB down the barrel with the wad. The purpose is to seal the gases in the barrel so they can't reach the patching and burn or blow holes in them to go past. That hot gases will burn or melt part of the ball, and when the ball does not spin, it will wonder off who knows where when it leaves the barrel. So, for accuracy, you definitely want to keep that patch together in the barrel. Once the ball is out, the patch has done its job.

If you have a ball and patch combination that loads well, I would stop spending time on searching for different patching material, and either make some moose snot, or buy some NL 1000. ( Bore butter, or Wonderlube are other names it is sold as. ) You can mix beeswax with olive oil, and some liquid soap, to make the moosesnot. The combinatons vary depending on the air temperatures you are going to be hunting and shooting in. See other posts here.

 

[john4645]

I would really like to keep it simple and not use any cards or wads if i can help it. I did get some lehigh valley lube to try. I also would like to be able to use just spit patches also if i can.

 

[paulvallandigham]

With all Due Respcet, if you use the overpowder card, you can use a much more loose patch and ball combination, which makes loading the ball down onto the wad and powder much easier. I don't find loading a overpowder wad adds much if anything to the procedure. This is not a rapid fire rifle event you are doing. It is a slow, deliberative process- a gentleman's sport- if you will. If you want to shoot lots of bullets in a short amount of time, use a modern gun in Semi-auto mode, with a long magazine full of ammo. And, don't apologize for doing so. We all have days where shooting fast and furious is what rings our bell. When I am using my BP guns, however, I don't want to screw up the loading procedure and load a dry ball ( been there- done that, too many times ), or do anything else that will cause me to have to stop shooting to dismantle the gun to get a stuck ball out, or get a stuck cap off my gun's nipple, or whatever. These older styled guns have way too many things that can go wrong with them to let you hurry in loading them.

Loading a overpowder wad, and then a PRB takes me less than 15 seconds, these day, but you learn to save time by reducing non-productive movement of your hands during the process, NOT by cutting back on components you load.

 

[Wes/Tex]

An old trick I learned from Sam Fadala was to push down another lubed patch before the patched ball. He used the next size smaller patch than the ball required, e.g.: a 50 in a 54 etc. should work equally well in a smooth bore. My smoothie rule of thumb is a ball .020" smaller than the bore with a .017 lubed patch. Only need the second patch if the one around the ball burns. It's just a quick fix that works well.

 

[DrTimboone]

I hear the raves for moose snot and bore butter. :v HAs anyone here tried Lehigh Valley bore lube in their smoothie?? Results?