"Make-do" round ball patches?

[Naphtali]

Patched round ball shooters may experiment with using different patch thicknesses, or RB diameters, or exhaust their supply of either component. I expect that most of these shooters have [tried??] jury-rigging loads by using more than one patch when loading - that is, double patching thinner cloth patches to emulate the thicker patch they prefer or exhausted.

As best you can, patched RB shooters, how does such jury-rigging effect accuracy, consistency, and perhaps velocity?

[hanshi]

I've certainly done this before and it appears to work okay.  I prefer "one" thick patch but don't really worry about it if I have to use two, instead.

[Mike Brooks]

I tried it decades ago and didn't get as good of results as what I was hoping for.

[Maven]

Years ago when I was still wet behind the ears with respect to ML rifles, I used 2 patches of different material to get a perfect fit for the nominally .495" RB (.497" in fact) in my .50cal. Mowery rifle.  Accuracy was excellent, but went to a single.018" (compressed) pillow ticking patch when I could no longer duplicate my original, i.e., double, patch thickness.                                   

[smokinbuck]

Ran out of patches once years ago. Pulled my T shirt out of my pants and came home with a row of holes across my belly. Tried to use 2 at a time but didn't have a lot of luck, a good laugh but that was it.
Mark

[Hungry Horse]

My grandad said the only real whipping his mother ever gave him, was for cutting bullet patches out of his shirt tail.

  Hungry Horse

[Turtle]

 I watched a scruffy  good old boy with a ratty longrifle at a shoot use his t-shirt for patching because he forgot his. People made fun of him till he won!  At the prize ceremony someone gave him a new primitive shirt.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

Late last year, while shooting our trail alone, I ran out of patches, so I started walking back out, and along the way, picked up dropped pre-cuts that I found along the trail.  I used them all, and never missed a shot.  But I know that all the folks who shoot our trail use good and appropriate material for their patches.  Double patches, as when you are trying to use a .50 cal ball in a .54 cal rifle, don't work.

[Daryl]

As the target notation says, I used 2, .017" denim patches with a .662" ball in my .69.  That runs .662" + .034" + .034" = .730".  the groove to groove diameter of that barrel is .690" = .010"+ .010" = .710",  thus the .010" compression each side in the bottom of the grooves seems to have worked. Note, I used only a light 3 drams, 1,200fps load - low pressure lets you get away with this sort of Tomfoollery. Except for the flinched shot way off in the boondocks, not a bad 5-shot group at 50yards, 6 counting the 'flyer'- lol- tight-eyed flyer it was, too!

So- does it work - yes - IF you run VERY low pressures.  Increase the pressure as Taylor noted, and no - not bloody likely going to be happy.



Almost as good as normal patches and balls.



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