Size of paper patched bullet

[Tonibaruch]

I have a Tryon match rifle, 0.45 caliber, twist rate 1:21

I am going to try various conic and minie bullets from 310 to 500 grains, all of Pedersoli production. Their caliber goes from 0.450 to 0.451.

I'm wondering which bullets I should use with paper patching.
Which caliber (any mould to suggest?) and, maybe, which particolar bullet shown particularly effective in somebody's experience on a similar barrel to punch paper at 200-300 meters?


Tb

 

[CivWarBlacksmith]

From everything I've read, paper patches work best with slug type bullets loaded through a false muzzle. Conicals and minnies work best greased with out a patch.

 

[Tonibaruch]

From everything I've read, paper patches work best with slug type bullets loaded through a false muzzle. Conicals and minnies work best greased with out a patch.

And what a false muzzle is?

Tb

 

[bingo1952]

Don't forget the British designed Pritchett bullet which was a hollow base minie style without grease groves and was paper patched. I cut a mould for one probably 20+ years ago and they work as well as the French minie but no better. The only advantage they may have over a grease groove style is there is no lead in contact with the bore.

 

[boar]

A piece that you set on muzzle, sets in pin holes, and you load thru it so you don't wear out your first end of your barrel. You take off when you shoot. Most match rifles have them. Dilly

 

[Idaho Ron]

You will NOT need a false muzzle. You will need to know what your measurment is on the lands and in the grooves. You will need to wrap with two wraps of paper. I use 9# onion skin paper. Two wraps will give you about .008" in diameter. So you should be looking for a bullet in the .443" range, and a hollow base is even better. You can also do what I do. I use a .459" bullet. Mine is a Lee 459-405-HB. I size them to .454, then to .451, then I wrap them with two wraps. After I wrap them I size them again to .454, and then again to .451 This method is what I do for hunting loads. I am sure that for long range target past 300 yards you will need to use different methods. A false muzzle is not needed. Ron

 

[Zonie]

Tb:
Many muzzleloading target rifles did use false muzzles and yes, they are removable and were usually aligned with the bore by precision fit pins.
They often had shallow grooves cut at 90 degrees to each other across the outer face of their muzzle to align the paper patches. The bullet was then pushed down thru the false muzzle, picking up the paper patches as it went.

As Idaho Ron says, they are not required to shoot paper patched bullets.
That is because there is another type of paper patched bullet.
In this case, it is as Ron said, a bullet with paper wrapped around it.

This picture shows this type of paper patched bullet.
The paper is applied damp and when it dries it shrinks and grabs the outside of the bullet.

Also as Ron said, the bullet must be smaller than the bore size to allow for the two wraps of paper.

As there are two wraps of paper around the bullet the bullets size must be reduced under the bore size by 4 times the thickness of the paper.

In the case of a .450 bore, if the paper being used was .0015 thick, as it is in the dress makers pattern I used on the bullets shown, the unpatched bullets diameter would have to be .450-(4 X .0015) or .444.
Because ramming a bore size bullet down a barrel is not easy, I like to make it .001 smaller than the calculated size, in this case making the bullet .443.

When the undersized paper patched bullet is fired obturation causes the bullet to expand forcing the paper and itself out into the rifling grooves.

Because there is a limit to how much the bullets size will increase due to obturation, these bullets do not work well in rifles with very deep grooves.

 

[Idaho Ron]

Zonie, what are those bullets you have there? I have seen you post them before. Ron