It's great to get them shooting young enough, that when the hormones hit, they don't forget what shooting is all about, and come back to it.
Rich- the patches show a bit thin- the brown spots where the grooves are shots blowby. They aren't burning yet, but appear to degrade as shotoing continues with more burning as-in the curled wad in the centre with the burn hole. The top left and top right patches show the brown scorching that eventually causes burn throughs.
4 pretty good shots on that target - the one off to the right could easily have been a burnthrough like the middel top patch in the picture - lower impact due to greater loss in pressure and off to the right due to distorted ball from burning gasses rushing by - or launched crooked from the muzzle by the uneven burning gasses out that side of the patch - which is probably the more common cause in ML's. It could just as well have missed the target as hit it. I have some of that coloured ticking that mic's .014" which I find too thin for a ball .005" under bore size.
I find that if all of the patches are re-usable simply by re-lubing them, from the first shot to the 50th, then that patch material with that ball size has the potential to give the rifle it's best accuracy.
