Anybody shoot 32 cal without patches...strange but accuracy is better

[BigBossMan]

OK..I know this is crazy but my 32 cal long rifle shoots better without the patch than with it.  I am using straight Cabela's 32 round ball.  Is this crazy or what?  It was an accidental find...I ran out of patches and tried it at the range.  The ball is really tight.  I do not have a micrometer.

[Odinbreaker]

If you keep up this practice watch your barrel for leading also maybe why your Round balls are so tight.

[BigBossMan]

Thanks....good thoughts

[Ironwood]

The size of the ball is usually noted on the box they come in.  Should be something like .310" or .315".

[flintlock]

Dang...Your shooting must have been pretty pitiful to begin with...

What did the patches look like after you shot them???

[BigBossMan]

Odinbreaker....I appreciate your response,  I did have excessive lead fouling and that was with the patches prior to shooting without tem.  Flintlock, I do not normally respond to sarcasm or vain attempts of humor.
It was a serious question and got a couple of serious answers.

[coyotejoe]

With a properly patched ball the lead never touches the bore so if you were getting lead fouling the patches must be shredding to bits in the bore. You should be able to pick up fired patches and they should look good enough to use again. You don't give us any info as to ball size and patch thickness and these are things you absolutely must know. For patches I mostly use pillow ticking, the striped cotton cloth from Walmart which mikes about .018" thickness and try never to use any patches thinner than .015" because thinner cloth is just too flimsy to withstand the stress of being rammed down and fired out of a gun. The first thing you need to do however is get the lead out. Wrap some medium coarse steel wool around a .30 caliber bore brush and scrub the lead out, it will take some serious scrubbing but work it until you no longer see those shiny flakes coming out.

[Ironwood]

When buying patch material be sure to get the 100% cotton pillow ticking.  The real pillow ticking will have blue and white threads like in the photo.  Some imitation pillow ticking just has the stripes printed on.

 

[Odinbreaker]

You can also use some JB  bore paste on a green scotch brite pad. I  cut to size this will remove lead and also polish the bore so it loads easier and reduces leading in the future.

[IMshooter]

Interesting topic.  Back when I was a kid I built a .45 cal. Hawken and also had a repro 1860 Colt.  I discovered that the slightly oversize bullets (.451?) for the revolver worked like a charm in the rifle w/o using a patch.  I think I used 30 grains of BP - it was whatever the pistol flask threw.  Many a cottontail was taken with that load. 

[Odinbreaker]

That is the way you load a BP revolver with over size bullets My 36 cal uses 375 diameter bullets that a little is trimmed when loaded.  Revolver  and rifle are two different animals.