Ticking

[hortonstn]

I use a .20 canvas for ticking mainly because I don't have to worry about blown patches.
I was told to hold patch up to the sun to see if you could see thru it if so this was bad.
I've read about 40 drill, pillow ticking, these usually show daylight.
Am I wrong in thinking this is bad?

[Pukka Bundook]

I guess if daylight shows through, gas can also leak through, but the patch Is compressed in the bore when loaded.
I'd think as long as it's tough it might work.
I use some very old Irish Linen pillow case material, that you can't see daylight through, and it worked in everything inc. a one in 48 twist  .54 with 120 grains. Shot like a house afire. No stripping.

[recurve]

  #40 drill  .018 doubled washed hot high dryer heat(less. heat .015)


  10oz denim  .020-.022 depending on how you wash it

  canvas
you will not know what works till you try it and please note what ever you buy it will tighten up when washed and dried  higher heat will tighten the weave
and the lube you use

[MuskratMike]

I have used pillow ticking (both red stripe and blue stripe) for decades. They work just fine as precut greased patches.

[smylee grouch]

Some times your " patching " can be cut when you load and you might   "think" it, the holes are because of the wrong patch material. You also can cut patches if the short starter shaft or stub are too big in diameter.

[Daryl]

IF there are cuts by the lands, 9.9 times out of ten, that happens when initially seating the patched ball into the bore. Smoothing the muzzle's crown will stop this with
any decent patch material.
This one done by our Brian Barker.

This one by D. Taylor

This one by DaveC2 Dave made a tool to do this.

One By me

[hanshi]

Polishing the sharp edge on the rifles crown will almost always stop patches from being cut.  I found that heavy canvas patches (.024") not only make a snug prb but also resist burning.  In fact most of these fired patches look new and unfired and I have used them again with maybe a bit of added lube.  Cotton Canvas Duck also does well often with fired patches appearing almost pristine.  One of the better materials for patches is "mattress" ticking which runs about .018".  Pillow ticking is thinner than the mattress ticking but seems to hold up nicely in most cases.

The mattress ticking I've been able to find can come with either blue or brown stripes.  The red stripe material I found was so flimsy that holding a patch up to light was like looking through a screen door.  So far the canvas material I've been using makes the best patches although some barrels find it a bit too much for the wooden ramrod to seat.  Any prb that resists seating with the wood underbarrel rod is useless in my opinion.  It is rare to find a barrel that won't allow mattress ticking patches to seat super easy. 

[hortonstn]

Is that mattress ticking .018 compressed ?

[Pukka Bundook]

Hanshi,
I got a mattress ticking at a farm sale years ago, and am still working on it!
Its the blue stripe. Nice and soft as it had been washed plenty.

[Daryl]

If you EVER find ticking looks like this, BUY all you can. It worked well in every gun I own, and Taylor's, Leatherbelly's(RIP buddy) and Hatchet Jack's guns as well.
Hatchet Jack bought the rest (1/2) of the huge bolt, then moved 400miles South of us after we found the sewing store could not get any more. Not sure why he moved.

[Canute Rex]

Maybe this is obvious, but consider the rifling depth.

A larger bore Coleraine barrel has drainage ditches about 0.016" deep. Use that red ticking (barely 0.014" in my experience) and you'll get some blow by gases and inconsistency. You need a solid 0.018".

Then again, if you are shooting an old Thompson Center, the rifling might be only 0.012" and the red ticking will do just fine.

The point is to not only get compression on the lands but also keep it snug in the grooves.

[Don Steele]

One other point to consider when we’re talking about patch material integrity. I’ve used a lot of generic Walmart striped “ ticking”. These days, I only rarely shoot my flintlocks beyond 50 yards, with mild “ target” loads. A while back, I needed to get ready for our club’s 100 yd match. I decided to increase my powder charge and see how it might help. After firing a few shots, I walked down range to check my patches and discovered that the material I use with great success with milder loads was being utterly destroyed by increased powder charges.
Just something to keep in mind.

[Daryl]

The higher the charges, the "better" integrity of the material is needed.
Don is spot-on in his assessment of that particular patch.  The higher the pressure (load)
the tighter the combination must be.
I have found 10 ounce denim, currently at .021" is thick enough in all of my rifles with a .005" undersized ball(under bore dia.)
for ANY powder charge one might use.
I would not even consider using anything thinner, in any gun, except maybe the .36 Rice barrel, if using .360" balls. Then, some
.018"/.019" material I have, does well. These are all compressed numbers, in calipers, as tightly as I can squeeze the jaws together
between fore finder and thumb.

[Dphariss]

I have used pillow ticking (both red stripe and blue stripe) for decades. They work just fine as precut greased patches.

Much of it, maybe all of it, is foreign made and is, in my experience, often too loose weave and weak for shooting patches OR for its original use as pillows and feather beds

[Leatherbark]

I can see daylight through all the ticking and canvas at J0-Anns including the No. 40 cotton drill. The red striped ticking is around .013 in thickness as is the blue striped.  Now the Blue striped mattress ticking is much thicker and is around .018 after washing but you can still see the daylight through it.  Their canvas is around .022 and it does okay.  The best patching material I have found is stone washed canvas from Shri-Lanka in the form of Cabela's canvas shirts.  It is around .019 and only itsy-bitsy teeny weenie flickers of daylight.  Below are a few fired ones lubed with bear oil and fired with 65 grains of 3g Goex and a .490 ball. But whatever you use smooth up the muzzle like in Daryl's pictures above.

[Daryl]

If you EVER find ticking looks like this, BUY all you can. It worked well in every gun I own, and Taylor's, Leatherbelly's(RIP buddy) and Hatchet Jack's guns as well.
Hatchet Jack bought the rest (1/2) of the huge bolt, then moved 400miles South of us after we found the sewing store could not get any more. Not sure why he moved.

[oldways]

          I'm not to far from Joann's in Hudson Ohio. I went there to buy some patching material, ticking, cotton canvas and cotton duck canvas. It is surprised me to see how much of a difference there was in the thickness of the same types of material depending on where it came from. India, Pakistan and from wherever, 3 to 5 thousands.

[AZshot]

In my patch material hunt, I've found that you have to measure each bolt of cloth to be sure, they vary.  I had some red striped ticking from Joannes that was about .018 and worked well.  Bought it 2 years ago.  A few weeks ago when they were about to close in my town, I had my wife stop by and buy another yard of the red striped.  It felt thin and flimsy.  I measured it, it was .014. 

[Daryl]

The Joannes in Yuma, Arizona had 11 ounce denim. That would work in All my rifles and 20 bore fowler with ball.

[hortonstn]

Daryl, do you wet this denim?

[Daryl]

Wash new material twice, once with soap, once without soap, then hot dry in the dryer.
WWWF + a tich of oil, couple ounces of Neetsfoot oil per quart of winter windshield washer fluid - slows evapouration in the hot summers here and the fluid doesn't freeze
when shooting in the winter time.
No matter what lube is used, the patches are wet, not just damp.
I also sometimes spit lube them and again, WET. Dragging a patch over your tongue is not spit lubing a patch.
Neetsfoot oil or Track's Mink Oil for hunting.
I suspect the 11 ounce would measure about .024".
For years I used nothing buy 12 ounce in my .69, as it would not shoot anything thinner. In the last 10 years or so, I found it would not shoot the very much thinner
10 ounce denim. That ball size is .008" smaller than the bore which is a true .690". I also shoot .690" balls in the .69 using the same .021" denim patch. Due to the amount
of lead moved when seating into the muzzle, you have to want to seat it there. After introducing this combo into the muzzle, it is easily pushed down to the powder.
Currently, I use 10 ounce. The material I bought a year of so ago, measures .021" compressed.
The previous few meters I bought, measured .0225". So different makes do measure differently.
The current 10 ounce shoots well in all my guns, including with .690" balls in my .69 calibre rifle
or with .495's in the .50 and .360"(as well as .350") in the .36. I use .595's and the .021" in my .615" bored 20 bore smoothie.
They are only snug for the first 4" of the bore, then drop easily due to the choke.
There is ZERO gas cutting of the patches, which I expect is due to the balls actually obturating.

[hanshi]

Starting some 60 years ago I used t-shirts for patches then graduated to pillow ticking later on.  This material always had blue stripes and measured "around" .015".  One day I ran across a bolt of something called "mattress ticking" at Joannes that measured .018" and bought a couple yards of it.  Pillow ticking worked pretty well across a range of calibers but would also sometimes fail to hold together and/or escape being burned.  At the time I had a very accurate .40 swamped GM barrel riding on a late Lancaster style stock and decided to carry out a head-to-head test pitting pillow vs mattress ticking.

For most of the loads there were no truly astonishing ballistic differences between the two types of ticking used to patch the balls.  Starting with 30 grains of 3F, five grains were added to each load up to the final load of 60 grains.  But the final charge at 60 grains really knocked my hat off. 

A favorite load of mine was always 40 grains of 3F patched with pillow ticking.  Velocity with pillow ticking was near 1700 fps and had an sd of (5)!  When mattress ticking was substituted for the pillow ticking results were virtually identical with 40 grains of 3F.  But when the powder charge reached 60 grains - another favorite load - the average velocity with pillow ticking patches was 1850 fps.  Imagine my surprise as the chronograph registered an average of 2150 fps due solely to the use of .003" thicker mattress ticking!

I think mattress ticking is still pretty good for patches assuming it is quality material.  But the best patching material I've found so far is unbleached heavy canvas.  I ended up with a nice supply of this canvas by chance and use a lot of it.  For most of my rifles I prefer it above anything else.  Fired patches are still usually white, without holes and reusable.  But it isn't for all my guns.  My .62 flintlock smoothbore has to have .010" - .012" flannel while a couple of rifles and a pistol thrive on ticking.

Just a word about lubes.  Back when I still was able to deer & small game hunt I really liked TOW mink oil.  It is probably the best one for hunters, like I was, who leave guns loaded.  But that's no longer an issue, so as a result I've been a fan of Hoppes BP Lube for going on 30 years.  There are other very good ones including "spit patch" but at some point in aging one's production of that neat and handy lube slows down.