A gentleman at the Hunting and Fishing Show showed me some of his paper patching setup and results.

He was paper patching swaged .440" diameter bullets up to .450" diameter and firing them in a 45-70 Govt. caliber rifle (bore/groove = .450"/.458"). These rounds were loaded in resized, neck-expanded or unsized cases and propelled by a case full of black powder under wax paper, a grease cookie, and card wad (working forward in that order to the bullet). He had a couple of recovered bullets with nice rifling marks and no obvious gas cutting.

I was kind of surprised. I had been under the impression that a paper patched bullet needed to be bore diameter and the patch brought it up to groove diameter.

This gentleman pointed out a big advantage to patching up just to bore diameter. More powder. A cast bullet's driving bands (well, the first one that ends in a grease groove) will contact the lands of the rifling and if there were any more powder behind the bullet, the round wouldn't chamber. These bore diameter paper patched bullets are bore riding (when they are chambered, and if there is more powder behind them, they can slide up into the barrel a little further to accomodate it.

This gentleman gave me a catalog from which you can buy .440" and .450" swaged lead paper patching bullets, so I suppose I can try both sizes now.

H. C.

H. C.

Henry,I too was at the show.Wish we coulda hooked up.
Digital Dan plays around with paper/patch bullets.
Give him a shout.

Hey pt,

Have a good time? I learned a lot this time. Finally bought me a blowgun. Every year, I kick myself the day after the show for not buying one. This time, I took one home, and to be honest, I don't know why I need it. Any ideas?

I ought to get me one of those accuratereloading ball caps.


H. C.

He has to be useing a soft lead and useing the
black powder to bump the bullet to bore size. As far as I know this will not work as well
if at all with smokeless powder.

Remember that using Black Powder and soft lead bullets, the explosive force of the black powder will "bump up" the slug to fill the lands and grooves. That's why black powder is considered an explosive and smokeless a propelent. That said, I shoot just about exclusivly with smokeless in cartridge guns. I like to use a slug about Bore (land) diameter and patch it up to groove diameter. After patching, when it's dry, I spray just a touch of ATF on the patch. I then run it through a push through sizer die about .0005" to .001 larger than the groove diameter this part is subject to the vageries of the particular rifle. The Ruger single shot in 45/70 seems to like .0005 over the Gibbs in 45/70 likes .001 oversize. The NEF I'm working with I have not figured out yet. The bullets I'm working with are cast 20 to 1 , I have not used any swaged bullets to any great extent. Make sure your barrel is CLEAN as long as you only shot paper patched it will stay clean.

Hope this helps you a little.
When the weather warms up I will start in on my testing again.

P.S. Watch the paper you use try to get 80% to 100% rag type paper .0015 to .002 thick. Some of the very thin stuff you see that's used for carbonless forms has a bunch of stuff in it that will not help the barrel even though it's thin enough.

Gregg and Ed,

You're absolutely right, and I neglected to mention that important detail. These were soft lead projectiles. They were propelled by black powder. These were cup based bullets, but this fellow did not twist the paper into what Paul Matthews' book delicately describes as a "tit". The paper overlapped the base of the bullet far enough it folded slightly farther than halfway across the base.

I have been hesitant to use black powder cartridges in my Handi-Rifle, and maybe I'm worrying about nothing. The barrel will be easy to clean. The action is kind of sealed up and hard to get to. Does black powder firing residue work its way backwards and cause rust in the firing mechanism?

H. C.