Unburned powder stuck to fired patches and other revelations.

[m1garand_man]

In my effort to maximize accuracy and discover the source of my random fliers I have noticed some things.

1. No surprise the tighter fitting the patch and ball combo the fewer fliers I get.

2. Some of my tightest groups I shot today were with patches that apparently had slight holes in them where the rifling rubbed. Granted better groups were shot with thicker patches but I thought that a hole in a patch no matter how small was fatal for accuracy.

Finally it seems that some if my fliers may be caused by some of the powder charge not burning. I have been picking up patches that have a thick coating of unburned powder on the bottom of them. Wierd thing is that while I though the grease in the patch was causing some of the powder which touched the patch to not burn the majority of my patches are clean when picked up and there is no decearnable difference in the amount of lube from one patch to another. What gives?

[Old Ford2]

Hi,
Here is my  2cents on your patch issue.
I have several calibres that I shoot, each gun has it's own concerns.
The best remedy to keep patches intact, without burn through or scorch bypass, is to have an over powder wad.
I cut round wads from various hole punches that match each caliber.
The wads should be slightly larger than bore size.
I soak each wad in melted bees wax & olive oil, let them cool on wax paper ( easier to pick up after ) then put them in plastic bags for my shooting pouch.
You will be surprised on the improved groups. The barrel seems to be much cleaner after each shot as well.
Almost forgot to mention the wads are cut from 1/8" wool felt ( NOT PLASTIC or SYNTHETIC material ) they will melt in your barrel.
I hope this helps.
Fred

[smylee grouch]

Is that un- burned powder really powder or fouling ejecta? Can you burn that powder? Save those patches and try to burn the questionable stuff and see if it burns like powder. Seems odd that you would get that on random shots and not all shots with every thing else the same in your load.

[little joe]

Is that un- burned powder really powder or fouling ejecta? Can you burn that powder? Save those patches and try to burn the questionable stuff and see if it burns like powder. Seems odd that you would get that on random shots and not all shots with every thing else the same in your load.

Good idea

[stikshooter]

For your information poly wads (DO NOT ) melt in your barrel ever ! If  can find them I use them ,(believe in recycling) as I shoot Thousands in muzzle loaders and every one tends to use them in black powder cartridge . My self included and if they messed my Sharps barrel they would not be found in my wad stack / just sayin have fun Ed

[Daryl]

The cuts are caused by too sharp a muzzle crown - usually.  that can be remedied by polishing the machine angle cuts at the muzzle's surface.
This picture is a little overboard on the polish, but shows what is meant by polishing the cut angles - they do not remain.
This one was done on a lathe - very easy that way.



This is all that is necessary and can be done with the end of your tumb pressing the abrasive paper or cloth into the bore.

[m1garand_man]

Is that un- burned powder really powder or fouling ejecta? Can you burn that powder? Save those patches and try to burn the questionable stuff and see if it burns like powder. Seems odd that you would get that on random shots and not all shots with every thing else the same in your load.

It is definately unburned powder. I hit those patches with a torch and while the powder had soaked up some patch lube overnight it whent "poof!" Each time. 

[m1garand_man]

The cuts are caused by too sharp a muzzle crown - usually.  that can be remedied by polishing the machine angle cuts at the muzzle's surface.
This picture is a little overboard on the polish, but shows what is meant by polishing the cut angles - they do not remain.
This one was done on a lathe - very easy that way.



This is all that is necessary and can be done with the end of your tumb pressing the abrasive paper or cloth into the bore.

I'll take a look at that. I need a lathe with a larger hollow in the head stock so I can put things larger than 3/4" dia through it.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

You can do it without using a lathe.  Place a corner of 220 grit paper or cloth over the muzzle, stick your thumb in to the barrel as far as it will go, rotate the barrel one way and your thumb the other.  Make twenty back and forth partial turns, then turn the barrel 180 degrees around, and repeat.  Do this with 320, and then 400 and you'll soon see that your muzzle has lost the sharp corners of the machined 'crown' and has a wonderful polished look.  The whole affair will take up 5 minutes of your day, with each barrel.

[snapper]

Do you think that the cutting happens when you load, or as the ball leaves the muzzle?  If from loading, have you ever pulled a loaded ball/patch to see if it has cutting? 

Fleener

[m1garand_man]

Do you think that the cutting happens when you load, or as the ball leaves the muzzle?  If from loading, have you ever pulled a loaded ball/patch to see if it has cutting? 

Fleener

I don't know and haven't pulled enough bullets to find out.

It only happens with my .0145 patches and doesn't happen to everyone of them.

The concern for me is minimal anyhow since I get the best accuracy with a tighter fit anyway. I found that a .495 ball with a .018 patch shoots best so far. My barrel is a 7 groove rice and the bore measures .515 nominally on each groove / land (odd number of grooves so they oppose each other across the bore). As a side note it has always been my belief that a odd number of grooves helps to compensate for bullets being slightly out of round since one land will push the bullet into the opposing groove.

[m1garand_man]

At this point I'm still at a loss as to why there is unburned powder on my fired patches. I am starting to become skeptical however that the small ammount there has any appreciable effect on accuracy. I mean how much gas does a grain or less of powder really generate?

[smylee grouch]

Would it be possible that there is excess lube on the bottom of your patch thus soaking up the powder so it can't burn?

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I seriously doubt that what is on the patches is unburnt powder....surely it must be fouling left after ignition.  To get unburnt powder you would have to fill the bore to the muzzle with powder, in which case, a percentage of it would theoretically become projectile, rather than propellant.  Incidentally, don't do that.
Your photo is inadequate for me to be able t determine if it is fouling, or unburnt powder, but I am very much in doubt of the latter.

[Darkhorse]

If you are sure that it is unburned powder then I would look to my lube. Too much or the wrong type can saturate the powder where it contacts the patch to the extent it doesn't ignite. Your process to lube the patch needs looking at.
The easiest way for me to check a patch for muzzle cutting is to seat a patch and ball using a large enough piece of cloth to get a hold of, then by holding the cloth on both sides you can pop the patched ball out of the muzzle. Then you can examine the patch for cuts.

[Daryl]

If you are sure that it is unburned powder then I would look to my lube. Too much or the wrong type can saturate the powder where it contacts the patch to the extent it doesn't ignite. Your process to lube the patch needs looking at.
The easiest way for me to check a patch for muzzle cutting is to seat a patch and ball using a large enough piece of cloth to get a hold of, then by holding the cloth on both sides you can pop the patched ball out of the muzzle. Then you can examine the patch for cuts.

Both Taylor (on smoothing the crown) and Darkhorse make good points.  The one about using a strip of cloth, punching the ball into the muzzle then extracting it will show if seating the ball into the bore is what is cutting it.

I find the statement that only the 14.5 thou. patch cuts, while the .018" patch does not, - interesting in a contradictory way.(tighter patch not cutting is the contradiction to what is normal)

From that, I would assume actually firing the load is what is cutting the patch, however when such a thin patch is use, burnout is normally the problem- thus contradiction again.

If you are using a thick grease for lube, that might explain how there could be powder stuck to the patch. Something like lip balm would do that. Some people add Camfor oil & sell it as "Bore

Butter". I expect a thick coat of that might do what is happening.

There are much better lubes for hunting lubes - like Neetsfoot oil, or Track's Mink Oil which is a grease. I have never seen ANY fouling nor heard of actual powder granuals stuck to the base of a

fired patch, prior to this thread.

Something is dreadfully wrong with the loading and it is not the amount of powder.

For simple target shooting, many guns give their best accuracy with a water based lube. This cannot be used for hunting as a wet patch in your bore will start red-cancer.

[m1garand_man]

I guess I initially missed what the difference between a tear and a burn through might look like. The thinner patches are also smaller in diameter and have a looser weave than my thicker ones. The holes essentially look like spots where the threads in the weave are spread apart and turned brown from singeing. These thinner patches are for .40 to .49 caliber and barely cover the ball past the equator. The spreading of the fibets occurs where the lands contact and is probably because the weave is relatively weak close to the edge of the patch.

I am probably using too much lube and the his occured the this me though to be honest I don't know what the right ammount is. I allow my patches to soak up as much as they can when submerged in molten lube as a stack of patches. Once the bubbles stop I pull the stack out and let it cool. I should probably squeeze out the excess a bit but I don't want to over do it. Again, I'm not sure how much I should be using and decided to utilize variable "P" for plenty in my equation.

[smylee grouch]

Some times people will compromise the patch when they use the short stub on a short starter but if your patch is too small in the first place or if the weave isn't tight enough you will have problems like your having.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

If you are using pre-cut patches, I think the diameter should be sufficient to come to the top of the ball, as when you cut the patch from a strip at the muzzle.  Having the patch come to just the equator will result in patches that do not at some point seal between the lead and the bore, and cause burn out and excessive fraying around the periphery, both of which cause flyers and inaccuracy..

[Hungry Horse]

A couple of things to consider are, patch material degradation from age, or exposure to sunlight ( this happens to cotton material, not linen). And patch lube make up, application, amount. IMO, the best way to get consistency in your shooting, is to get the patch saturated with hot lube and then blot it to remove excess lube. I am not a fan of commercially produced lubes, exotic oils from the supermarket, or stuff that isn’t specifically designed to be used as patch lube. Patch lube made from venison tallow, with a little bear grease added to keep it soft, is the best. It will shoot all day in 100 degree plus weather and not plug up. JMO.

  Hungry Horse

[Mad Monk]

The black crud on the patches is most likely the products of combustion from the burning of the powder charge.  Generally a charge of 3Fg or 2Fg is totally consumed long before the projectile leaves the muzzle.  You can tell by throwing some of the fired patches into a glass of water.  If the crud is indeed unburned powder you will see charcoal in the water.  On the other hand if it is just powder combustion crud it is 100% soluble in water.

As to holes in patches.  Look closely at the holes under a magnifier.  Usually those holes are caused by escaping gases in the rifling grooves as the patched ball moves up the bore.  The high velocity gases shred the fabric.  First the threads at a right angle to the direction of the travel of the ball.  Then the threads running in the direction of ball travel.  If you play with charge volumes in small increases of powder you can see a whole sequence of events leading up to what would be a total patch failure.  The high-velocity escaping gases are carrying a lot of powder combustion debris that is solid particles at high temperatures.

Bill K.

[smylee grouch]

Thank you Mad Monk for that interesting information.

[Mad Monk]

Smylee,

I had noticed that during very dry weather when I would pull a damp swab from the bore it would quickly turn grey and then white.  So I set up a thing out on our covered deck with used bore swabs.  Watching the color of the "crud" change with humidity. I knew powder grains did not act like that so I started washing the used swabs in warm water and looking for any unburned sulfur or charcoal.  Didn't find any.  Then started taking the crud apart to see what it was.

Bill K.

[m1garand_man]

Mad monk,

That was indeed a good write up.

As I mentioned before I took a torch to the patches in question and once they got hot enough to allow the lube to run off the particles ignited exactly the way black powder in the open ignights and a flame is put to it. Maybe it's nothing to worry about. My guess is that too much lube soaked some of the powder thereby not allowing that portion to ignight. My thought is that it can't ammount to a large percentage of my 80 grain powder charge so it probably won't make a big difference.

I'm going to run more tests next time I shoot and if I find any more of these patches with powder stuck to them I'll scrape it off and weigh it at the house to see what percentage of my charge doesn't burn. I'll bet it's less than 5%

[Mad Monk]

That powder grains against the patch are piking up lube is a distinct possibility.  Once the powder grain get contaminated with the lube they will burn only very slowly. Grain ignition is also effected.  So you may indeed be seeing unburned powder grains stuck on the patches.  You must then take a close look at what lube you are using and how much is held in the patch.  I had noticed this problem when I was using the common "grease" lube before going over completely to the Lehigh Valley lube for my patched ball shooting.  The "grease" lubed patches gave me fits in cold weather.  Sometime look at how you patches react to different temperatures.  The common lube was Ox-Joke Wonder Lube or the latter 1000 Shot plus.  When temperatures got down around freezing (32 F) the lube got hard and the patches would not always release from the balls.  I had balls carry patches through the chronograph screens and all the way to the 50 yard targets.  Then with the Ox-Joke lube when the temperature on the shooting bench went up to the high 80s or 90s the lube simply melted into a liquid.  "Grease" lubes that have distinct changes with temperature can be a problem in shooting.  Ox-Joke lubed patches at or below freezing would shed lube flakes when formed around the ball.  Then at high temperatures must of the lube would come out of the patch when you started the ball into the bore and compressed the fabric.  With the Lehigh Valley type lubes you don't get this change in physical properties/form with the temperature changes.

You might consider some form of thin wad between your powder charge and patched ball that prevents contact between the powder charge and the patch around the ball.  When I used "grease" patch lubes in PA's flintlock deer season we had this felt wads over the charge to prevent any lube migration from the patch to the powder grains in contact with the lubed patch.  Some shooters would simply take an unlubed patch balled up and load it between the powder and the patched ball.  The balled up patch or felt wad also helped to protect the patch around the ball.

There are a few things here you could experiment with.

When it comes to gas cut holes in patches you might want to look at what fabric you are using for patches.  At times that is almost a science in itself.  Look at what you are now using.  Hold some f the material up to a light and look at how much light comes through any openings in the weave.  Then take a magnifying glass and look closely at it again.  Are the threads running across the weave different in size than those running with the weave?  You learn to spot fabrics that simply cannot stand up to gas blowing by the patched ball as it begins to move in the bore.  This is why I stuck with the .018 #40 cotton drill cloth I bought at Jo-Annes.  Heavy thread.  Same size both directions.  Very tight weave.  This #40 cotton drill was originally known as pocket drill.  Used in the pockets of men's work pants.  Abrasion and cut resistant.  The .018 thickness worked for m in my .50 caliber ml rifles with .490 balls.  It was not unusual to pick them up and use them over again.  They also stood up to the gonzo size powder charges I had in some of my powder testing.  But in any event.  Put some time into looking very closely at various fabrics and you will learn why some take only light charges and some fabrics will stand up to heavy charges.

Bill K.