Made some RB patches

[Ed Smurf]

I saw a Youtube video where a fellow made RB patches using the inner race of a bearing and a large hardened steel ball. But being the cheap bastard that I am I thought I could do it with stuff I already had. So with lots of spare time.....
I already had made a punch for leather from a 1" rigid electrical conduit pipe. I used the outer O.D. as the cutting edge for the size of leather I needed, but it can be made from black steel pipe nipples probably.

Denim makes good patches if you can't get pillow ticking. Old pair of jeans.

I place the material over the pipe and GENTLY tap at the cutting edge with a hammer.

This works well for 50cal, I will try them in a 45 cal although they may be too large.
Note: I make about 10 at a time then I resharpen the cutting edge of the pipe. I'm not sure if a plastic mallet or some other kind of striking instrument would work because it would be nice to keep the edge for a longer time. Also will the mallet be destroyed in the process?

 

[sail32]

Try using the appropriate size cleaning patches, same result less work.

Lube with plain water so it cleans the bore when loading.

 

[fingers284]

Just yesterday I built a couple "card wad" cutters for BPCR loading for 458 & 379 that would work very well with what your doing with out having to sharpen anything as there is no "steel-to steel" contact at the cutting edge, just steel to material. Mine required a bolt & piece of pipe of appropriate size and takes about an hr to build. I am lucky to have a few appropriate hobby machining machines around to use but any friend or local machine shop could build on of the size you need probably out of scrap cut-offs they have laying around.

 

[FishHog]

I do similar, but use a piece of hardwood. Harder the better. Cloth on the wood, cutter over top and hit the bottom of the cutter with the hammer. You need to move to a new spot on the wood every couple times, but doesn't hurt the cutting edge

 

[goldidig]

That's what I do too FishHog. I got a set of hole punches somewhere. A whole range of sizes. the bigger ones work good for my .50 and .54. I think i may have got them years ago at Princess Auto. They work great.

 

[uberti77]

Question : why not square?

 

[pistolero_libre]

I have shot homebrew square pillow ticking patches. They work and i was not abke to detect any loss of accuracy at 20 yards with my .36 single shot pistol.

 

[stovepipe699]

I’m glad to know I can use denim, lots of old jeans around. First to find a RB mould though.

 

[oldstarfire]

I’m glad to know I can use denim, lots of old jeans around. First to find a RB mould though.

NOOO! Those ripped up old jeans are worth a lot of money! And if dirty, then, well.....$$$$

 

[stovepipe699]

NOOO! Those ripped up old jeans are worth a lot of money! And if dirty, then, well.....$$$$

There goes my plan out the window lol!

 

[Al Bear]

Question : why not square?

Bingo! There is no evidence that round patches make a round ball fly truer than with a square one.

 

[Al Bear]

I’m glad to know I can use denim, lots of old jeans around. First to find a RB mould though.

If yer lucky, you’ll find a mould ( like mine) that drops a .5 ( not .490 or .495) ball ... then you could shoot it without a patch.

 

[flintyboom]

I've found that square patches work just as well, as round ones. Maybe they make a difference in a chunk gun shoot, but for offhand square was always easy. I use pillow ticking. you snip it to the width you want, then rip a big strip, and cut into squares. If you wanted to use the round patches with your cutter, you could try cutting the patches on an old plastic cutting board. Works good for cutting wads too.