Two days ago, I was helping a friend sight in his new-to-him flint rifle. It too is a .54 cal, and he had swaged .530" balls and commercial ticking pre-cut patches that according to the vendor were .018" thick. From a bench rest, his first two shots were touching each other in the two inch black bull's eye at 25 yards. I said to him, "looks like it's sighted in already!" Then his third shot was ten inches low and two inches left, followed by a forth that was worse. I asked him if I could load the next shot, his fifth, and he agreed. Using a steel range rod with a 3/8" drill rod shaft, I had to pound the ball down the bore through a fouling build up with way too much force. At the shot, I watched for the patch, and recovering it found it to be completely burnt and shredded. I cleaned the rifle with a jag and cotton flannel using water, and removed the black soup from the bore. Then, I got out five patches of my own MEASURED cotton denim material, 8 oz, at .018" thick, and we loaded again. This ball went through the bull's eye touching the other two balls, and the rifle continued to shoot like this for as long as we wanted to shoot, without cleaning. He wanted to try his patches again, and wet them more thoroughly but again, the bore fouled and his accuracy went for a @#$%/!!. To demonstrate the difference in the two patch materials, I held up two patches, his and mine, to the sky. You could clearly see through his patch. This tells me that his patch material is not up to the job, and he will need to acquire some proper material and cut his own patches, both easy to do.
