Patch and ball. How tight?

[Daryl]

If patches are hard to find, they are usually shredded  & burnt fibers of  cloth. That has been my experience.
If your crown is nicely smooth, with no sharp edges but with rounded ones, loading is easy with tight combinations.
I used to load .400" balls with a .0235" mattress ticking patch in my .40 (.398"bore) without using a short starter, just to prove how easy it is to load a "proper"(imho) load combination.

[Daryl]

The higher the pressure AND the higher the velocity, the tighter the load must be.
I got good accuracy with .004" deep buttoned rifling in my first rifle. It had a .500" bore and groove to groove was 508".
I used a .495" ball and .022" denim patching. I had learned quickly about the benefit of a smoothed, polished crown over the machined crown as received  that would not allow a decent load without cutting the patch.
I also believe that .008" deep rifling is about all that is needed IF the ball and patch  combination is sufficient to show compression in the bottom of the grooves.
After this  its all about the power charge and lube.

[Kurt]

At the range today I worked up from 30 grains 2f to 35 and then 40. I took my micrometer with me and determined that folding the sheet material gave me a .015 patch and it loaded easily and shot acceptably. I had some other material that miked at .016 and this was less of a bother and in all aspects seemed to work as well. I shot about 20 rounds today and never swabbed the bore and had no issues. My last group at 50 yards was 4 shots into 2 inches which I know isn't great but that front sight is way down there on the 44-inch barrel, and it was overcast so coordinating everything in my 4-second to all blurrey was a challenge. 

At home, I cleaned the rifle using a breech plug scraper, a bronze brush, a jagg and windshield washer fluid, and baby oil (mineral oil). A flashlight reflects off the breech plug to show a nice clean bore. I have never used this combo of cleaning chemicals before so I'll monitor the bore in case, but Ballistal is mineral oil with a solvent and the windshield fluid I have used for years to swab between shots with no negative effects.

Today everything went well enough to make for an enjoyable day at the range until the badly needed rain showed up. I may not get back till next week now as the lawn will need mowing.

7/1824 I went back to the range, increased my charge to 45 grains 2F, and adjusted windage and elevation. I seem to have trouble doing elevation adjustments as I have this rifle shooting about an inch too high now, but I'll live with it for a while.

I want to endorse the use of windshield washer fluid as a cleaner. Today I ran patches in and out of the bore until they were clean and the breech and bore were bright and then I lubed with the baby oil. This seems a simple solution to clean up after another 20 rounds of soot build-up.

[hanshi]

Generally my rifle loads use a ball .010" smaller than bore diameter.  An exception is the .45 which I do have a .445" mold and use the .445" along with the .440" balls.  Patches are usually cut from heavy canvas and used in all but a couple of rifles.  The canvas patches are measured with a caliper and with me using both hands squeezing the jaws as hard as I can.  Resulting patches measure .023" to .024".  My .54 requires a thinner patch but also has the most shallow grooves of all the rifles, that being advertised as .006" deep.  This rifle is wonderfully accurate.

As best as I can figure all the square cut bores are in the .010" to .012" deep.  My three radius groove bores are said to be .016".  I use the same canvas patches in the .010" through the .016" rifling depths.  If I ever need a thinner material I normally go to mattress ticking or the thinner pillow ticking.  As I no longer hunt my lube of choice is Hoppes #9 BP Lube.

The loads I shoot are rather tight in my estimation.  "Tight", being a subjective description, is difficult to define.  In my case I define "tight" as "prb as snug as I can get while still safely seatable with the wooden underbarrel rod".  It appears to create at least some fiber compression in the grooves of both .010" to .016" rifled bores.  Canvas patches recovered are usually white with little evidence of being fired.  On several occasions I've used fired patches for subsequent shooting.  Being tight, each seated load cleans the bore of the previous shots fouling relieving me of the need to wipe the bore prior to going home.  The muzzles of the rifles have all been polished.

I think rifling from .006" to .012" to be all that's needed.  And while the radius rifled bores are, or said to be, deeper no trouble has surfaced while loading and shooting them.  The .54 is 1-66" (claimed), and the .32 & .36 are said to be 1-48".  The .45s and the .50 are under 1-60", probably something like 1-56" or so.

I   

[Daryl]

Kurt, if I might make a suggestion, research muzzle crowning. I use the end of my thumb and 320 grit wet/dry paper or Emery with WD40. I.put a patch an inch.onto the bore to collect "grindings & stone" particulate. Tweezers or needle nose pliers removes the cloth.
This allows much tighter loads than you've been using.

[Kurt]

Daryl.  I believe you are right in that a bit of a crown would allow me to load with a thicker patch, the bore has no recessed or angled crown now.  I tried a .018 patch yesterday and had to drive it in with the ball of my short starter. I shot two loadings doing this and decided it was not improving anything. Of course, there is little chance to tell if the patch became torn or the ball was distorted driving it in that way. In my research, I have seen some tools that use grinding compound that I may try. Thanks for the good tip.

[Daryl]

As to introducing an approximately 45degree angle to "start" the crown, there are tapered grinding stones with a 1/4" shaft to lock into an electric drill. I have started my crowns this way after shortening a barrel, or on a newly purchased barrel that has a sharp, flat muzzle.
I run the stone in, being careful to keep it "square" with the muzzle & only cut deeply enough to allow me to finish the crown with emery or wet/dry paper and he end of my thumb for the smoothly radiused crown. This crown is only 1/16th to 1/8" deep.

[Scota4570]

I tried something new to me.  After watching "everything black powder" on youtube, I changed how I used the rod. 

I tried a much looser combination.  The patch is soaked but not dripping with moose milk.  When I seat the ball I drop the steel rod on the seated ball three times from about 12".  On the third time I get a solid sound and the load has stopped compressing. 

The accuracy is good.  I really can "shoot all day" without swabbing. 

My issue with the need to swab often was probably because of a to tight combination.  The looser wet combo seems to glide over the fouling on the way down.  Upsetting the ball takes care of windage.  The wetted fouling is being swept out of the bore by the next ball. 

I wish I had figured this out 50 years ago.

[Daryl]

I guess if that works for you, great. "Throwing the rod" onto the ball was a step in loading muskets and rifles used by about all of the militaries around the world including the USA during the 1800's and earlier as well. If done on a hot day with a hot barrel, it also could cause an "ignition" of the powder  I suspect. I've seen people in BC do this with their ML's since the 70's.
On the other hand we've been using tight combinations for those 50 years and NEVER have to swap the bore, even when firing over 100 rounds in a days shooting.