Paper patching cast boolits

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sgnu

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Hi,

I’ve been looking at making up a batch of .30 cal 165 grain cast bullets and came across an article regarding paper patching. It has me intrigued as it eliminates the need for a gas check and you can push the lead bullet at typical rifle velocities.

Does anyone have any experience with paper patching their bullets? I’m looking for some pros/cons and typical velocities you all have gotten doing so.
 
I have done extensive testing with paper patched bullets in my Ruger #1 in 303.
The culmination of the testing was shooting a young bull elk with one of those bullets.
I used the paper patch forum at Castboolits as my main reference source.
 
Boolitcaster said:
I have done extensive testing with paper patched bullets in my Ruger #1 in 303.
The culmination of the testing was shooting a young bull elk with one of those bullets.
I used the paper patch forum at Castboolits as my main reference source.
Click to expand...

Excellent, I will check out that forum. Thanks!
 
I have done some experiments with paper patch bullets, they work well in the calibers i have experimented (.308" and .458").
I pushed a 180gr in 308 Win north of 2400 fps with no leading issues at all and accuracy around 2.5" 5 shot groups at 100yds.
The only drawback might be the amount of time you spend compared to have them lubed through a lubrisizer or powder coat them.
 
I only patch for black powder cartridge. No lead or copper to clean out of the bore is the positive, negative is the time it takes to cut paper and roll bullets. Time I got lots of.
 
I too paperpatch for my 30 calls. For my 303's it is easiest to use a 308 dia boolit, because once it's patched it is in the 312-314 diameter area. Perfect for filling the chamber.
I don't use a gas check because the few times I tried it tore the paper patch all to heck when I resized it to uniform my diameters. (I run almost all of my paper patched boolits thru a sizing die to iron out the imperfections and it smoothes the patch nicely.
Without the gascheck the base of the boolit is slightly related, and makes it easier for me to get a nice transition from side to base and get a nice roll to the paper.
Hope this helps
 
Lionel said:
I too paperpatch for my 30 calls. For my 303's it is easiest to use a 308 dia boolit, because once it's patched it is in the 312-314 diameter area. Perfect for filling the chamber.
I don't use a gas check because the few times I tried it tore the paper patch all to heck when I resized it to uniform my diameters. (I run almost all of my paper patched boolits thru a sizing die to iron out the imperfections and it smoothes the patch nicely.
Without the gascheck the base of the boolit is slightly related, and makes it easier for me to get a nice transition from side to base and get a nice roll to the paper.

Hope this helps
Click to expand...

My experiences as well. The one thing further that I did was size .309" bullets down to .304" prior to patching. Two wraps of my preferred paper adds .010" when dry.
 
Besides the above, a paper-patched cast bullet will wear the bore more quickly than a lubed cast bullet. That doesn't mean much when the application is hunting where relatively few bullets are shot, but can be a factor inj other applications.
 
sgnu said:
Hi,

I’ve been looking at making up a batch of .30 cal 165 grain cast bullets and came across an article regarding paper patching. It has me intrigued as it eliminates the need for a gas check and you can push the lead bullet at typical rifle velocities.

Does anyone have any experience with paper patching their bullets? I’m looking for some pros/cons and typical velocities you all have gotten doing so.
Click to expand...


Have you considered powder coating?
 
I tried it several decades back and it worked well in an M1 rifle.
However, I could get just as good results with proper lubed bullets, and abandoned it.
Now, I use powder coating exclusively, except when I get back into black powder shooting.
 
My efforts at paper patching small caliber cast bullets were dismal. They shot accurately enough but they are an absolute pain to wrap consistently if you're going to be making them in quantity.

Sooo to make a long story short, I needed something similar to paper patching but faster.

I had an unopened box of Kynoch 577/450, loaded with cast lead, paper patched projectiles. My thought was to pull one of those bullets to see how they wrapped their bullets commercially.

The bullets in the 500 grain box had GREEN patching on them. The patching was TAPE, very similar to masking tape.

I was surprised to say the least. Mostly because I sincerely doubt the paper peeled off the bullets after being fired.

The base of the bullets weren't covered, only the sides.

I later found some more Kynoch 577/450, loaded cartridges, but loose. They had ORANGE TAPE on the bullets and weighed appx 400 grains.

I gave masking tape a try. It worked very well with black powder loads, on large diameter bullets. I didn't have much luck with it with anything under 35 caliber.

I finally just settled on using gas checks for 30 caliber and smaller bullets.


I also tried using wax paper for patching, the idea being the wax would act like a lubricant. They also worked well with 35+ caliber bullets.

I didn't consider the effort put into patching small diameter bullets to be worthwhile. It would be OK for shooting small quantities but unless I'm hunting, I like to shoot large quantities.
 
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I don't shoot large numbers of Paper patch bullets either, too hard on the fingers rolling. I use a template from Buffalo Arms for my 45-70 bullets. Works great, but very time consuming. Now if there was a paper patching machine where I could crank out thousands at a time, I would shoot nothing but. Clean up is so easy compared to the others.
 
paper patching was one of the first factory positions that were offered almost exclusively to women. their small fingers allowed them to complete more bullets in a shift than larger fingered men could. Legions of ladies sat side-by side in "sweat-house like" conditions to satisfy the military contracts of the day....so if you could talk your wife/girlfriend into satisfying your shooting appetite...
 
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