Round ball and patch question?

[DEACONLLB]

I have this TC grey Hawk 50 cal. that is new and I put a like new walnut stock on it have never shot it so am thinking on using round balls and was wondering what patch to use. The balls are the Hornaday 490 and the patches that I see pre lubed come in 5-10 15 and 20 thousand and as the TC have tight bores dont wont it to be hard to load. Will be using tripple 7 and thought of starting with 60 grns so would like some info. please.

Deaconllb

[PA-Joe]

Start with the 15. Since it is a new barrel you will be cutting patches for the first 20 or so balls.

[Landngroove]

I shoot many tradional T/C .50 ML's with a Hornady .490 PRB. I use pillow ticking material from Wal-Mart. I buy a square yard of the pillow ticking with either the blue or red stripes. Using the striped lines as a guide I cut strips 1 1/8"  in width, the length of the material. Then cut those strips into 1 1/8" squares. Use a pair of sharp scissors. very easy to do, and these shoot very well. They are about .018" in thickness. If you do this, wash the pillow ticking material first to remove any sizing. I use Hoppe's #9 Plus Black Powder Solvent And Patch Lube on the patches, but you can use your favorite lube.

[coyotejoe]

I agree, why limit yourself to buying those things in plastic bags, you can buy a yard of material that will make several hundred patches for the price of one bag of the pre-cuts. Those things sit in the store so long the lubricant breaks down the fabric so that the patches tear or cut very easily. And the convenience factor is zero, perhaps even less.
 I cut my patch material into long strips and hang a strip from my shooting pouch. After dropping powder I lay the end of the lubricated strip across the muzzle, start a ball just below flush, gather up the material in my left hand and with a sharp knife in the right I slice off the excess material. I thus have a ball perfectly centered in a patch no larger than it has to be. For 90% of my shooting the lubricant is spit because I've never found anything better, it's free and I never forget to take it along. I don't swab the bore between shots because with spit patch it is being swabbed with every load. I just wet the end of the fabric strip in my mouth before laying it across the muzzle. Buying material by the yard gives me a great variety of thicknesses and weaves from which to choose what works best in one particular barrel.
 But for starters the .490" ball and .018" pillow ticking patch with spit lube will load easily in a T/C barrel. T/C barrels are not "tight", they consistently mic .500" land to land. However, T/C and others do have shallow grooves only about .005" deep so the groove to groove diameter runs only .510" or less. This is because they are a "compromise" bore for use with both patched ball and conical bullet. A true roundball barrel like "Green Mountain" will have grooves more than twice as deep. The same .500" land to land in a Green Mountain barrel may run .526" groove to groove and thus can use, in fact NEEDS a thicker patch.
 Do be sure to avoid synthetic fabrics, use only cotton or linen. Linen is a harder material which doesn't compress so much as cotton so you'll want linen fabric a bit thinner than cotton. Linen fabric of .014" loads tighter than cotton of .018" thickness. Linen will hold up well with loads or rough bores which reduce cotton patches to lint balls.

[Winter Hawk]

I too use strips of pillow ticking, start the ball over the patch material then cut flush at the muzzle.  It sure beats fiddling around with trying to get the ball centered on the patch!  Ive used spit many times in the past, now I use olive oil.

Instead of trying to keep from cutting patches by shooting, you can take a "green scrubby" and cut it into patches, wrap one around a bore brush, lube it a bit, then run it in and out of the barrel a hundred times or so.  You will probably have to change the patch every so often.  It won't round out the rifling like lapping compound or the like, but it will smooth out the sharp edges so you're not cutting patches.  I read about that years ago, have done it on a couple of rifles now with good results.

Above all, have fun!

-WH-

[srussell]

i used pillow ticking in 15  thousand .490 round ball and 70grains of 2f for hunting with my 50 cal gray hawk. use 18 thousands  ticking and .495 round ball with 50 grains of 2f for target  shooting the 19thou. and .495 go down to tight for fast follow up wile hunting. if you have problems with it blowing patches just put  half a sheet of l tissue paper under the ball till it gets broke in. not saying you wont but i never had any problems with mine in either the .50 are 54 cal.  have shot all the way up to 90 grains in both. have fun

[mcwoodduck]

I have a greyhawk and use Pillow tickleing.
.490 ball and 64 grain of Pyrodex R/S.  The book said 80 grains of black.
Gun shoot to the sights.
With this load I have never moved the sights.
I would shoot a Black powder shoot at the club with sillohuettes out ot 100 yards.  The load was more than enough to know down the steel targets.

[flintlock]

I buy pillow ticking in bulk also and make my own lube...

I would suggest you ditch the Triple Seven in favor of Goex or Pyrodex...In some guns, Triple Seven will burn through the patches which results in poor groups...

[Brazos_Jack]

Calculate radial clearance between the ball and the bottom of the rifling grooves:

(groove dia – ball dia) / 2

Then pick the closest thickness greater than this.

I prefer strip patches of the best 100% cotton I can get. Pillow ticking is OK, but tight weave, fine Irish linen is better. “Ox Yokes Originals” used to sell pre-cut strips of it.

I pre-lubed by melting Crisco in a shallow frying pan and running the strips through it to saturate them. I then lay them out on paper towels to soak up the excess grease. Then roll up the strips and put them in my possibles bag. I have a small patch knife in a scabbard sewn to the shoulder strap of my possibles bag. I load the ball flush with the first end of my sort starter and then cut the patch off flush.

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I agree, why limit yourself to buying those things in plastic bags, you can buy a yard of material that will make several hundred patches for the price of one bag of the pre-cuts.

Yah.  And I learned that if I was a single man, I'd be buying patch material several times per week.  If ever there was a place that a guy would have no shame in asking for directions it would be in Hancock Fabrics.  Makes for a good ice-breaker.

"Where can I find the pillow ticking?",  grubby ol' mountain man

"In the corner", cute purdy employee.

"What are you doing Friday. . . ."