patched conicals

[oomcurt]

This may sound crazy...but was thinking about what some say that a 1:48 twist is better for conicals than round balls. Well, would it be practical to cast an what I am going to call an elongated round ball..sort of like a ball-et only with no lube grooves, hence the patch? That way one would not get the leading problems and I would think it should be a hell of a lot cheaper than buying conicals.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Designing the ball/bullet wouldn't be hard. Designing the patch would be tough. Round patches bunch up as there's more material to fold in at the top. You could paper patch it, but the rifling would tear the paper on loading unless you used a false muzzle.

I believe Pope used to load bullets from the muzzle even with his cartridge target rifles using a heavy blotter paper patch. He'd then shoot 200 yard groups (with peep sights) that were about as big after five shots as they were with the first one.

 

[rabjr]

I've been wrapping .0011 paper around conicals for years now with great success. However this is only for the first shot, it enables me to use a loose fitting bullet without fouling the barrel first. Unpatched conicals are fine for follow up shots.

The .0011 paper is just like cigerette paper and very delicate. The .0024 paper if I remember right is closer to money paper and might be usable for what you want. But continual loading in a fouled barrel maybe diffacult.

 

[gmww]

Check out my Better mouse trap attempt in Percussion. I describe how I've made the ball-et you describe. I'll put up a link in a minute.

Heres the link:

Making a Ballet