.40 patch reading

[hanshi]

Long ago just as the few remaining dinosaurs gasped their last breath, I had a couple of rifles that shot well; nothing eye-popping, just well.  Back then I used old t-shirts for patching.  And while I had no complaints about accuracy the fired patches were usually scorched and many had daylight showing through.  I started using a dry patch for an op wad and the fired patches started looking very good.  But accuracy never improved significantly.

The fired patches shown in the OP looked a little better than my original patches did.  I mostly use canvas for patches now - a couple of guns require something else - and they often are picked up after firing for study.  Generally they are still white and show no, or very little, evidence of ever being fired.  But the crowns on my guns are smoothed, even the Rice barrels.  Loading is easy enough for me to use the wood ramrod with no problem.   

[Sweeney]

This is pocket drill 40 from Joanns (Guido, Vincennes did not have it but Bloomington did). Only got to shoot four quick shots off-hand because of deluge rain, 4 inches worth.

[alacran]

Hey Troy, the edges of the patching look frayed on one of your patches, but you cant see through them. Are you putting any lube on them? Spit is lube. I use bear oil on my patches. Before I got an ample supply of bear oil, I used mink oil from TOW, just as good.
Only 4 inches you must be in a drought.

[Sweeney]

I did use bear oil. 60 grs 3F. Will know more tomorrow after shooting again.

[Daryl]

Those patches appear cut from the lands. The one on the left appears to have failed completely. The upper one as well.
If you don't want to do it this way ie: thumb with patch inside to catch grindings and stone, Dave C makes a tool to cut it.



Emery or wet/dry paper crown




The muzzle below is cut with that tool. 

[hanshi]

Smoothing the rifles crown, using a good lube, using strong thick-enough patch material and the right size ball for a good, snug fit is usually the cure for patch problems.  This, assuming enough firing to smooth the bore, is about all I can think of for shooting success.

[Sweeney]

60 grs 3F. .395 ball with pocket drill 40. bear grease/some were spit. 25 yds, bench. First group 5 shots. second group 4 shots. target squares= 1". How far left will this put me at 100 yds? how much should I slide front sight to the left?

[Daryl]

X4, plus human error and any possible inaccuracy of the load.
You can move the rear sight a "tich" to the right, or front sight a "tich" to the left and re-shoot.
The actual distance can be worked out using math with the sight radius, etc, however I can move the sight
& re-shoot faster. In fact, I would already have done that.
As to the patches, appears to me, they are too thin & are still cutting on loading.

[Sweeney]

I will do that next session. Forgot to mention I did smooth out the crown as described. Have yet to try the heavy denim. But I do enjoy the ease of loading with this material.

[Daryl]

Looks pretty good on the crown, bit wider at the top than necessary, the lands look pretty good. What looks like a 'corner' to the groove might be a bit sharp - might just be the photo angle.
I loaded .320" balls in this muzzle with a .023" patch without a short starter - just pressing (forming) the ball and patch into the bore with the choked up on, rifle's 5/16" hickory rod. The end of the rod is a threaded and cupped commercial rod-tip form Trackofthewolf.
As long as you are not getting fouling buildup & have to wipe, you are almost 'there'.  The patches are holding up, but only for that one shot- - on the edge of failure. An increase in powder (higher pressure) will likely cause them to fail.




This .69's muzzle shows some rod wear in the middle of the grooves as well as over beside one land, at 11:00 o'clock in the picture. Currently, this does not seem to hurt the accuracy.
There have been 4 or 5 thousand shots through this rifle & mostly with .030"(12oz) patches and .682" balls.