Cut out a bunch of Wally World red-striped ticking in 1" squares. Tried'em in my .36 at the range yesterday. Grouping was terrible! :shocking: :shake: Went back to round patches and the group shrank to a respectable size. The .36 definitely prefers round patches.
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Square Shooting Patches
- Thread starter Bob J
- Start date
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Was the thickness and the lube used on both types exactly the same?
Reason I ask is that I've tried both round and square patches and saw no difference...any excess material is up past the centerline of the ball and should have no effect.
One time at the range last year just to see what would happen, I centered a ball on a huge 2.5" TC cleaning & seasoning patch that was plastered with Natural Lube 1000, started the ball into the muzzle an inch, folded all that excess sticky material back and forth over the ball and then seated the whole thing...it center shot the target just like the previous 40 shots had done...flared open like a parachute as soon as it exited the muzzle.
Same lube, same almost same thickness. Believe Wally World red stripe ticking to be .015? I switched to precut .015 Ox-Yoke cotton patches and group was much better. With .018 pre-cut ticking and same lube, group was even a little tighter.
I've tried the square patches,just to see if it made a measureble difference.Didn't seem to change grouping or point of impact.It may be that the thicknees difference is what closed the group for You? I seldom use pre-cut patches,I like to cut them at the muzzle.
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Aside from being too thin I have not had a problem with patches effecting accuracy. Square , round or size. I started in 1971. Mostly worn out jeans and real pillow ticking soaked in Crisco melted in the microwave. I think that it should not burn ( a light brown scorch is fine ), and is not too hard to load, the working part of it forms to a proper fit and function. If it is way too thick the rifling will cut it and it will be hard to load. Good luck! :imo: :grey:
Well the consensus seems to be that the shape of the patch doesn't affect the performance (except in my case :
. But maybe the .36 just doesn't like Wally World red-stripe ticking. At 50 yards the group went from about 6" with square-cut red ticking to 1 1/4" with TC pre-lubed .018 round patches.
. But maybe the .36 just doesn't like Wally World red-stripe ticking. At 50 yards the group went from about 6" with square-cut red ticking to 1 1/4" with TC pre-lubed .018 round patches.Well the consensus seems to be that the shape of the patch doesn't affect the performance (except in my case :
By the way...just continuing to think about possible differences, was the 'sizing' washed and dried out of the wally world pillow ticking before you lubed and used it?
(PS: TC .018" prelubed pillow ticking patches are excellent for me in my rifles with my loads...for the past couple of years whenever I've stumbled across good buys on them I've snap them up...a few bags here, a few bags there...and before I knew it I had built up a strong inventory of both sizes on hand)
The ticking was washed 3 times and line-dryed. Think I'll stay with the TC patches for now. The gun will probably do even better than the 1 1/4"groups if it weren't for the fellow that shoots it :: But like Birddog6 says, 1 1/4" at 50 yards will head shoot a squirrel at 25 yards every time :haha:
Landngroove
45 Cal.
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2005
- Messages
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Were you able to recover a spent patch to see if it had burnt out, or otherwise how it looked compared to other round patches you have shot? Could be lube, or material tightness, that was different.
No I didn't. But here's the interesting (puzzling) thing; the square patches went down with a nice firm pressure when loading. The TC round patches are thicker and require a very stout slam on the ball starter, yet they grouped the best.
There's your difference right there...the thickness of the material is different...and yes, generally a tighter patch/ball combination gives better accuracy.
I'll use .015" plain lubed cotton patches for weekend plinking if I've bought them at a low price somewhere, but when I sight in for hunting, it's always with the thicker/stronger more accurate .018" prelubed pillow ticking patches.
