Shooting patches for .40 cal

Will be getting a rifle with a .40 cal Green Mountain barrel soon. Wondering what diameter patch to use for a 40 caliber ---- I use pillow ticking in my 50 cal. and cut them into strips and then into individual square patches. Plan to do the same with the 40 cal --- just need some idea as to proper size. Thanks Rick

 

[Birddog6]

1.25" wide is adequate.

 

[CrackStock]

Rick,

How big are your precuts for the .50?
Keep it simple, just start with a few of your .50 patches and adjust later. I shoot both and only had some precuts for the .50 and I did not see a difference.

Of course, I have gone to simply cutting at the muzzle...

CS

 

The circumference of a ball is 3.14 times the diameter, so a patch of twice ball diameter should be plenty.

 

Rick:

Leave the patch material in a strip, place it on your barrel with your ball on top, start the ball in just so it passes the tip of the barrel, cut the material off at the barrel. Your patch will be perfect every time. Your width doesn't have to be anything exact just wide enough for you 40 cal ball.

Rio

 

[pathfinderifh]

I agree with Rio, cut the patch at the muzzle,gives ya an excuse to git that really cool patch knife! Being able to justify the purchase to the little woman is half the battle :results:

 

[[email protected]]

I use a U.S. nickle ( 5 cents) as a pattern fer my .45
juest lay the nickel on the ticking and trace aroun it with a ink pen. THEN cut out the circles , this size should also work well with .40 cal.

*** WV SCROUNGER ***

 

[Birddog6]

Dang..... marking circles & cutting the out with sissors would take all week to cut enough patches to shoot one day ! ha ha ! I wanna cutbout a thousand of them suckers real quick & go on about other things.....

Also, I don't cut patches for each caliber. I cut & shoot square patches & have done so for 30+ years with success, shooting round ones only when I found them ridiculously cheap someplace.

1" patch will work on a .32, .36, .38 cal.
1.25" patch will work on a .40, .45, .50 cal.
1.50" patch will work on a .54, .58, .62 cal
1.75" patch will work on a .62, .72 cals.

I like the patch large enough that I don't have to screw around & make it perfectly centered every time I load it.

I cut all of my patches with a rotary cutter on a cutting mat & you can easily cut 5000 1" patches in about 15 min. depending on the material you are cutting. Some of it you can cut 8 layers at a time, some of it only 4 layers at a time. But even cutting 4 layers at a time & cutting 1" patches that is 2116 in one cutting. You can cut for a hour with it & have all the patches you can shoot for 3-4 years.

:results:

 

[[email protected]]

yaw.....das is tru. Faster is better, but iffin ya aint got one of them thar rotary thangs ya make do with whatcha
got....

*** WV SCROUNGER ***

 

[Birddog6]

I cut them by hand with sissors watching the ball games, etc. for years til I found out about the rotary cutter. You can get a small one at Walmart for about $15. or so. Use a 1" x 4 x 40" board for a guide, cut on a 40" x 40" piece of plywood for a mat & that will get ya by cheap & you will not believe how fast you can cut patches.

As for square patch vs round......... I cannot tell a difference. When you think about it, all that is holding the ball is what is aaround it in the lands & grooves, so those 4 lil corners sticking out make no difference at all, as the ball is not touching them anyway, they are just loose.

:results:

 

Thanks to everyone for the replys. I can now get to cutting some ticking. As always the forum is a huge help for most anything. Rick