Paper Patching... Poor Man's Sabot?

[flmason]

Was reading about the history of the .45-70 in both 405 and 500 grain variants to get some feel for he capabilities of a black powder driven projectile as is typical in these inlines...

Seems paper patching was beneficial by some accounts. Reduced leading to boot. 

Anyone ever tried paper patching a conical ball in one of these inlines, or is it a bad idea?

Strikes me as a "poor man's sabot" to some extent. (Not having tried a sabot yet, what's unclear to me is if the modern plastic sabots get rifled on the way in the barrel, or do they just upset and expand at firing time?)

[Keith Lewis]

Your last sentence is correct. The Sabots load easy as they are supposed to be slightly less than bore diameter or slightly larger which engraves them a little. On firing the base expands to make a solid seal and with the resistance to movement that the heavy bullet has the sabot and bullet will tend to become fatter as the base tries to accelerate faster than the front will allow. The problem with paper patching for a front loader is the difficulty in keeping the paper on the bullet when loading. If a tapered base bullet was used and lubed to help loading with paper on the lead it might work. Never tried it myself.

[flmason]

Yeah, was thinking the paper could tear if not exactly the right thickness.

Decades ago, as a kid I read of double bench rest muzzle loaders, for match shooting, that used a conical type ball made in two parts. Front was hard lead to resist deformity when loaded, back was soft. I also believe the patches were a "X" shaped patch that exactly covered the majority of the projectile. It had no grease grooves, again, if I recall correctly.

Perhaps a similar strategy could work in inlines? Make an X shaped patch instead of plastic manufactured sabots?

Unfortunately, I can't recall the twist rate of those old bench rest match rifles.

[Double 30]

Paper patched bullets were used in military muzzleloaders, namely the 1853 Pattern Enfield .577 caliber and the .451 Whitworths. Both worked very well.The patch for both was trapizodal with the ends meeting after 1 complete wrap but not overlapping. The patched bullet was then dipped in lubricant and passed through a sizer for proper diameter. The paper was sliced by the rifling when fired ( not when loading, remember we are dealing with the basic minieball concept) and left the bullet shortly after exiting the muzzle. The Pritchett ball of the Enfield was a 550 gr smooth sided minie and the Whitworth was a 510 gr hexagonal solid base , but the effect was the same.This same principal was carried over to early breech loaders and there are many articles out there on paperpatching.
 For muzzloading, the cross paper method will require a false muzzle or you'll lose you mind trying to keep everything lined up while engaging the rifling. The old bullet rifles had some pretty quick twists, roughly comparable to our inlines today (1-28).
  To do this , you'd need a smooth side bullet significantly under bore diameter, paper patching , lube and a sizer to get it to bore diameter or alittle better.Some shooter slice the patch after sizing to aid seperation. Its alot of work but I bet it'd be alot of fun and a great learning experience!

[flmason]

Yes, the false muzzle part dawned on me after I wrote the post.

Might still be interesting to try out, but perhaps of no practical value? If the bottom line is that the twist of the current inlines will stabilize and unpatched or non-sabot conical... might just be wasted effort if you're not match shooting?

[Double 30]

Fun can be practical...Wasted effort? I doubt it. Its a good thing to keep old practices in use.It'd be different thats for sure and smooth side bullets are alot easier to cast than grooved designs.Besides, there is alot to be said for the satisfaction of shooting something that is so old but so different.Some folks cringe about sabots but don't know that the artillery has used the principal for 500 years and if a sabot is nothing more than a sub caliber adaptor then so is the patch around the roundball.The paper patch was a short lived but significant step in ammunition development.It was after all the precursor to the cupro-nickel jacket.  Have fun. Fun is worth it for its own sake!   

[anweis]

Wasted effort? I doubt it. Its a good thing to keep old practices in use.

If someone would have fun trying this, i have no problem with it. However, this is not practical and it is not something i see as some sort of culturally or socially valuable pratice that must survive. We don't use petrol lamps or whale oil lamps anymore, nor do we live in dugout huts. We don't use bear fat to lubricate door hinges anymore, either.
BTW, there are very good and inexpensive sabots out there, and TC has recently come out with a new model of improved plastic. Hornady has a .50 bullet for muzzleloaders that does not require a sabot. 

[flmason]

Well... the reason I was exploring the idea of paper cross patches was because I can't make my own sabots any way that I know, short of getting some plastics tooling.

The idea was to replace a manufactured sabot with something I can fabricate myself. Wasn't really trying to start a sabot vrs. patched debate.