How thick to paper patch

[rudybolla]

I have a small frame Swedish rolling block chambered in the old German target cartridge 9.5x47R.  Cartridges of the World says bullet dia of .375.  My bore, which is pristine, is .384.  Tried a 275 gr .380 FN bullet over 5o gr 2F Goex with poor results.  Thinking maybe a PP bullet might work, but closest is only .365 dia.  How thick is too thick for paper patching?

[Castaway]

Try two wraps of regular printer paper (20 lb).  Should get you up to 0.377" or better.   A good soft bullet over BP should obturate to make up the difference.

[rudybolla]

Thanks Castaway.  Seems I read on an earlier post that some paper is abrasive due to ingredients.  Anything like that in the printer paper?

[Castaway]

Can't talk to that one.  I've heard both sides of paper being abrasive but don't know the answer myself.

[JBMauser]

I am not a paper expert but I know that paper made to work with ink jet printers have addatives that prevent the ink from soaking in.  early ink jet paper had clay in it, I don't know what they use now.  Rag bond paper never works well in a ink jet as the ink soaks in and blurs so I think that it would be a consideration.  you can of course apply a wax based lube to your finished PP bullet to cut down on wear.  

Some time back Mike Venturino wrote the he had inspected the rifling on some old buffalo rifles and found that the leading edge of the rifling was worn round by PP bullets.  His conclusion was that paper was somewhat abrasive but that the amount was very little and only over many thousands of rounds.  Of course those boys were not using printer paper.

Of course if you want to go high tech, you can finish wrap your PP bullet with a wind or two of Teflon tape and have nothing to worry about.....  JB

[hdj2520]

try teflon plumbers tape. Pull it snug and wrap it out to groove dia.

[sqball]

 rudybolla,

  Regular paper is very erosive since it's made from wood slurry. In fact so erosive that valves, handling the slurry as it moves through the process, need to be made of special metals that were develoed just for the industry.

  In the old days you could get banknote paper which was, and still might be, a 100% rag based paper. You could wrap your bullets with dollar bills!  But that might be illegal so the next best thing to use today would be to find a 100% rag paper.

  You can also try the teflon tape method as mentioned, and you can also wrap your bullet with masking tape. I've never tried this but some say it works well. The claim is that if the patch doesn't leave the bullet exactly as it exits the muzzle it will affect down range accuracy. Using maskingtape the "patch" will stay on all the way to the target.

  There are two thoughts as to the diam. you should wrap your bullets to. Wrap so the bullet is just land to land diam. and the other is to wrap to groove diam. I prefer that latter as I feel any bump-up will not be even and the resulting lop-sided bullet won't shoot as straight.

[Lead pot]

I haven't wore mine out yet shooting a few 1000 PP bullets and I just looked down my barrel with my 15 power magnification Hawkeye Bore scope
I swage my bullets so there .002 patched under bore diameter, .004 over bore diameter when I breach seat them. One of my rifles has a lot of free bore over .300 those I patch to groove diameter.
My suggestion on PP is find the paper you want to use then then get a mould or swage die to match your bore and paper you want to use.
Any good Office supply store carries a good cotton or "Rag" paper. It might be hard to find the 9# rag paper any more but I pick up some 20# that is .0035 cotton, or go to Wally World and get a pad of Bienfang that is .002 or .05 mm thick and adjust to it.
I don't know were this teflon or masking tape came from but I bet they have never shot it with any accuracy, I tried it several years ago to see how it worked. It got me close enough for Deer but my Deer are seldom past 75 yards.

Kurt

[Castaway]

Question for sqball.  When you say regular paper, what do you mean?  What's your opinion on college ruled notebook paper whn it comes to abrasiveness?

[jhalcott]

  I tried that Teflon wrapping with so-so results. Rag paper is what you want to use. In HIGH end stationary stores you can find several weights. Each "weight" is a different thickness. You can size your bullet down to get the correct diameter after patching. for example 2 layers of 20# paper is 4x.003 or .012" . Your bore is .384 -.012 is .372. Size the bullets to .372 or .373,wrap them load 'm and see if that helps.Another thing to try is a double coating of Lee Liquid Alox.This MIGHT be an easier fix than paper patching.ESPECIALLY if you fingers are old and or arthritic.