What happens to patches?

[hanshi]

A "bore button" is a round felt wad punched out bore dia.(+ or -) used to go over the powder charge and prevent blowby, which is what burns patches. A wad of paper, hornet nest or cloth over the powder will do the same thing. Thicker patches don't suffer like thinner ones when the rifle is fired. But thick patches require smoothing the muzzle crown since torn patches usually come from seating in the muzzle.

I also find many of my fired patches could be used again; the frayed patch edges occurs as the prb is blasted into the air. I'm a proponent of tight loads for accuracy and better ballistics; torn patches just don't comfort me.

 

[Rock Home Isle]

I shot new gun, .72 double rifle cap lock recently for my initial sight in, noticed all my patches ended up about 15 yards out, completely intact. They looked so good I am tempted to reuse them. This struck me as odd because I have rarely found more than fragments of patches when shooting my other muzzleloaders, a .54 cap lock and .45 flintlock, although I have not really looked very hard. This is with all different types of patch types generally 0.1 or 0.15" either strips cut at muzzle or precut, usually prelubed, have not tried spit patch. The intact patches were precut, prelubed from Maine Powder House.
My question is: is this a good or bad thing to have intact patches, have I been doing something wrong all along?

When you patches look like they could be used again...that is a great sign that all is well inside the barrel.

I had a rifle that ate patches, I had fouling problems with the rifle and accuracy was not what I was used too. I took a tight fitting flannel cleaning patch and put some oil and some valve grinding compound on it and lapped the barrel of my gun.

Once I was done; my fouling issues went away, the patches looked like they could be used again and that gun could suddenly shoot five shots touching at 50 yards.

So yeah, if your patches look like they could be used again...that's a good sign.