What’s in Your Patchbox?

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Valkyrie

32 Cal.
Joined
Dec 26, 2007
Messages
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Like a vehicle, it’s not very often you’ll find gloves in a glove box. And I haven’t met many folks that actually keep patches in a patch box. Personally I had never kept anything in it until two years ago and I accident dry balled my rifle in the woods and had left my ball puller back at the truck. So now, I keep a jag, patch worm, ball screw and a few cleaning patches in case I need to swab the bore.

How about you?
 
Spare flint and wrap.
Small piece of bee's wax.
Small, (no collar) ball puller.
Vent pick
One .570 round ball
A little ittle paper cartridge of powder
And a couple pillow ticking patches.

Even if I forgot everything else,..as long as I have my rifle, I know that I still have one shot left.

One time I had the flint orient itself terribly, and it jammed my box lid....it took a lot of messing with it to get the lid open. Now I am more careful about how I pack my box.
 
OK....so I have built several rifles in the last few years and I never quite know what to do with a patch box. I have never kept patches in one. And I have never actually made two the same size. The size, at least for me, is determined by the aesthetics of the butt architecture and they just don't come out any sort of standard size. I haven't had the time lately to work on some of the more involved projects I have on the bench, but the other day I got the urge to make up some items for the patchbox on the copy of the Jim Chambers rifle I did a while back. The patch box on that rifle is one of the largest I have made and I thought I could fit one of my Gunner's Mates shooting tools in it...and I could. The only problem is that the tool won't fit in a .36 bore. So I re-machined a few critical parts to fit the bore. It won't assemble into the single tool any longer, but it fit easily in the patch box with a little tow and I made a little ticking bag for the ball puller and worm.







Well, I liked the way that turned out, so I wanted to put one of the complete tools in the box on the .58 caliber English rifle I made some time ago now. The only problem was that this rifle has one of the narrowest boxes I have made and the "T" handle for the tool would not fit. After a little thought, I cut away a notch on each side of the box and got the "T" handle to drop in. A little more tow and the body of the tool taken down into two pieces and it all fits fine.









This seemed to work out so well, I did the same thing to the copy of Jim Keebler's .54 caliber rifle that I built (the one with the sights made out of a meteor)....








And one more....a walnut stocked .50 caliber I made back in 2014....







With the tow in the box, none of this stuff rattles around. And I always have everything I need to service each rifle....without even looking... :)
 
OK....so I have built several rifles in the last few years and I never quite know what to do with a patch box. I have never kept patches in one. And I have never actually made two the same size. The size, at least for me, is determined by the aesthetics of the butt architecture and they just don't come out any sort of standard size. I haven't had the time lately to work on some of the more involved projects I have on the bench, but the other day I got the urge to make up some items for the patchbox on the copy of the Jim Chambers rifle I did a while back. The patch box on that rifle is one of the largest I have made and I thought I could fit one of my Gunner's Mates shooting tools in it...and I could. The only problem is that the tool won't fit in a .36 bore. So I re-machined a few critical parts to fit the bore. It won't assemble into the single tool any longer, but it fit easily in the patch box with a little tow and I made a little ticking bag for the ball puller and worm.







Well, I liked the way that turned out, so I wanted to put one of the complete tools in the box on the .58 caliber English rifle I made some time ago now. The only problem was that this rifle has one of the narrowest boxes I have made and the "T" handle for the tool would not fit. After a little thought, I cut away a notch on each side of the box and got the "T" handle to drop in. A little more tow and the body of the tool taken down into two pieces and it all fits fine.









This seemed to work out so well, I did the same thing to the copy of Jim Keebler's .54 caliber rifle that I built (the one with the sights made out of a meteor)....








And one more....a walnut stocked .50 caliber I made back in 2014....







With the tow in the box, none of this stuff rattles around. And I always have everything I need to service each rifle....without even looking... :)
Envious of your engraving. Something I have yet to master.
 
Ramrod accessories (e.g. ball puller) belong in my flint wallet in my rifle bag.

Patchbox:
5 balls
5 pre-cut dry (spit) patches
5 cleaning patches
Spare flint
Spare leather flint wrap
 
Last edited:
Tow and worm, greased patches (3), over-powder wads (3), .530" balls (3), spare flint and leather jaw pad all wrapped in a 5" square of .018" ticking to hold it together without rattling.
 
I like the aesthetics of a patch box but I don't put anything in them. It's all in the shooting bag. If a rifle doesn't have one then that's ok but if i add one it's purely for the appearance.

Nothing of mine comes anywhere near the beauty of those by @davec2
 
OK....so I have built several rifles in the last few years and I never quite know what to do with a patch box. I have never kept patches in one. And I have never actually made two the same size. The size, at least for me, is determined by the aesthetics of the butt architecture and they just don't come out any sort of standard size. I haven't had the time lately to work on some of the more involved projects I have on the bench, but the other day I got the urge to make up some items for the patchbox on the copy of the Jim Chambers rifle I did a while back. The patch box on that rifle is one of the largest I have made and I thought I could fit one of my Gunner's Mates shooting tools in it...and I could. The only problem is that the tool won't fit in a .36 bore. So I re-machined a few critical parts to fit the bore. It won't assemble into the single tool any longer, but it fit easily in the patch box with a little tow and I made a little ticking bag for the ball puller and worm.







Well, I liked the way that turned out, so I wanted to put one of the complete tools in the box on the .58 caliber English rifle I made some time ago now. The only problem was that this rifle has one of the narrowest boxes I have made and the "T" handle for the tool would not fit. After a little thought, I cut away a notch on each side of the box and got the "T" handle to drop in. A little more tow and the body of the tool taken down into two pieces and it all fits fine.









This seemed to work out so well, I did the same thing to the copy of Jim Keebler's .54 caliber rifle that I built (the one with the sights made out of a meteor)....








And one more....a walnut stocked .50 caliber I made back in 2014....







With the tow in the box, none of this stuff rattles around. And I always have everything I need to service each rifle....without even looking... :)
Nice job on the inletting of your brass patch box, especially with the roundness of the stock!
 


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