Shredded patch

I've had my new .50 Great Plains Rifle to the range 3 times now, and it's shooting great ”” better than I could have hoped for ”” right out of the box. Been collecting spent patches and everything looks just as it should after shooting Olde Eynsford 55 grains, using Ox-Yoke .015 pre-lubed patches with a .490 Hornady ball. However, on the third trip to the range, I found one patch that was torn in two places. Should I be worried, or was it just a weak patch and the fact I haven't shot the GPR enough to break it in? I'm not getting any torn patches while cleaning. Going to shoot with .015 Eastern Maine Shooting Supply tough linen patches and .018 mattress ticking patches today at the range, with TOW mink oil. No pre-lubed patches today. Made me wonder about the pre-lubed patches though, even though my targets have been really accurate while getting used to the rifle and sights on the bench.

GPR are notorious for this when new. You may continue to shoot as you have been and somewhere around 200 shots the problem should disappear. Or you can "lap" your bore, but to me that is just extra work.

With one bad patch and everything else good I would say the gun is good and one patch is flawed. Go with the averages.

The quality of pre-lubed patches depends largely on how old they are.

The lube tends to break down the cotton fibers.

It does take a long time for this to happen and no, I don't have any empirical data to say how long this takes. I will say that some of these pre-lubed patches have sit on the dealers shelves for years. I bought some of them once at a good deal marked down price. Many of them blew out when they were fired.

As for breaking in your barrel, you can do like others have mentioned and fire 200+ rounds of patched balls or, you can speed up things by getting some steel wool.
Wrap a small amount of it around a cleaning jag and run it up and down the bore.
Every 10 or so strokes, change the steel wool so it will continue to do its thing.

Although the steel wool is about the same hardness as the bore of your GPR, running the steel wool up and down the bore will round off the sharp edges on your guns rifling grooves.
It doesn't remove any of the rifling or wear the bore at all but once the sharp edges are dulled, the gun shouldn't rip or tear any more patches.

Well, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

The sharp corners where the rifling grooves meet the chamfer or crown at the muzzle can also cut patches.
That's why on all of my barrels I've used a small piece of "wet/dry", black colored silicone carbide sand paper pressed into the mouth of the muzzle with my thumb. Rotating my hand back and forth will grind away the sharp edges leaving a smooth area which won't rip the patch when the patched ball is started into the bore.
I often leave this bright but if I want to conceal my work I touch up the bare metal with some Birchwood Casey Perma-Blue.

and it's shooting great ”” better than I could have hoped for

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One patch?? As long as it is shooting good, I say no worry for one. If the tearing increases, then you need to investigate why.
Flintlocklar :grin:

I would go with the JB bore paste.
It's a really mild abrasive and won't harm your bore.
I smoothed mine out that was shredding patches so bad I had a hard time finding them, and looking intently, saw something lying on the ground that looked like bird feathers....Picked it up and surprise, surprise, it was what was left of my patch.
Took me about two range sessions and a lot of elbow grease, but my patches are purty enough to use over if that's all I had in an emergency.
Improved my groups as well.
I don't think you need to use anything that will scratch your bore since it shoots well already.
Just needs some mild breaking in.

Range session went very well today. No torn patches, all looked very acceptable. I'm now thinking it was just a bad patch. I used pre-cut .015 linen Eastern Maine Shooters Supply patches and I added TOW mink oil to them and there was no tearing whatsoever. Accuracy of this GPR is outstanding ... now, if my eyes were as accurate as my rifle, I would have had 5 center cuts instead of 2 on this target. Still getting used to the buckhorn rear sight, but I'm getting there. Wanted to shoot at 50 yds. and 100 yds. today but we actually got our first heavy rain since last October and it was so derned muddy I almost lost a boot just getting to 35 yds. Tracked big-time chunks of dried mud all over the kitchen so now I'm in trouble with the wife. :idunno:
Turns out, I was worried for nothing on the patching.
Gentlemen, thanks for commenting and indulging my paranoia.

Good shooting!

Take a look at your muzzle crown for sharp edges that may be catching with you use of a short starter. Might be worth while to do some relief at the crown.

Took Zonie's advice and did a bit of 600 grit sanding at the crown after my first day at the range and I think it did a lot of good. I had read many good things about the GPR and about its accuracy before I convinced myself I needed to get one, and I'm a believer. I got myself a PRB dandy. :hatsoff:

Guys, don't use your thumb in a right/left rotational movement when breaking the edge of a muzzle crown as it produces a very inconsistent and rounded off chamfer.
What you want is a ball of some sort under a couple layers of emery paper or lapping compound usually on a spud for symmetric radial cutting,usually on a hand or breast drill.
Keep the pressure light so the ball does not cut through the paper. This will leave the edge clean and true symmetrically without rounding off the land corners.
Patched ball shooting will let you get away with more than bullet shooting in this regard but symmetry is always the preferred way to go in crown work.

You do it your way and I'll do it mine.

Actually, rounding off the land corners at the muzzle crown is exactly what I want to do.

If left sharp, they can cut the cloth patch as it and the ball is loaded into the bore.

Using the thumb can in no way actually change the angle or symmetry of the crown unless the person spends hours and more than a few whole sheets worth of sandpaper doing as I suggested.

I did it Zonie's way and it worked perfectly for me. I guess there is more than one way to skin a cat ... or a crown. :v

There is no possible way to get precisely the same chamfer angle all the way around and on each land end and corner, fore and aft, using the method you described.
A ball of some sort supports the cut angle in all three of these areas in a uniform manor that ones soft thumb anchored to a flexing wrist can never do.
The ball will also alleviate undercut on the land top from the emery paper bend over on the fleshy thumb.
I'm not guessing about this as I've seen the effect first hand of such methods through a bore scope.
Actually a brass ball with lapping compound is the professional way to do the job as emery paper bent over a ball or thumb will have folds to contend with but will work if a complete orbit/revolution can be accomplished in both directions.

SgtMaj said:

Range session went very well today. No torn patches, all looked very acceptable. I'm now thinking it was just a bad patch. I used pre-cut .015 linen Eastern Maine Shooters Supply patches and I added TOW mink oil to them and there was no tearing whatsoever. Accuracy of this GPR is outstanding ... now, if my eyes were as accurate as my rifle, I would have had 5 center cuts instead of 2 on this target. Still getting used to the buckhorn rear sight, but I'm getting there. Wanted to shoot at 50 yds. and 100 yds. today but we actually got our first heavy rain since last October and it was so derned muddy I almost lost a boot just getting to 35 yds. Tracked big-time chunks of dried mud all over the kitchen so now I'm in trouble with the wife. :idunno:
Turns out, I was worried for nothing on the patching.
Gentlemen, thanks for commenting and indulging my paranoia.

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Perhaps, if you posted the target a little higher, you would have most of your balls in the center! :wink:
Fred

Oh! By the way....nice shooting!

Thanks. I thought of that too. I was more worried about the crosswind on first three shots. I can't seem to do 2 things at once :rotf:
Disconcerting when I used to could see the target center a lot better. The eyes are not what they used to be. I still think I'm 45 and the eyes keep telling me something else. :idunno:

Personally I would not use emory cloth or sand paper on a muzzle of any rifle, but I'm not a gunsmith, and I try to protect or minimize any wear, natural or otherwise to a muzzle of a rifle.
Maybe that would be a good question to ask Mr. Hoyt, since so many here trade with him for barrel work, so I don't think he would lead anyone wrong.

[
Disconcerting when I used to could see the target center a lot better. The eyes are not what they used to be. I still think I'm 45 and the eyes keep telling me something else. :idunno: [/quote]
The difference in being young and old is.
What you could do all day, as to, it takes you all day to do. :grin:
Fred

Yeah, I'm starting to notice the same things when doing fine machine work or welding. The hands are not as steady and the dexterity is slipping some.

I do a lot of barrel and crown work in a lathe and use emery paper routinely on a ball or 45 degree brass lap tool for just such purpose.I've even done it with the thumb and fingers but have seen this method scratch the land tops with paper bend over which is why I caution against the back and forth thumb method.
Doing this work in a lathe keeps land ends and corners square and uniform for optimum accuracy potential.
It can be done accurately by hand as well if a ball of proper diameter is used.

Zonie said:

You do it your way and I'll do it mine.

Actually, rounding off the land corners at the muzzle crown is exactly what I want to do.

If left sharp, they can cut the cloth patch as it and the ball is loaded into the bore.

Using the thumb can in no way actually change the angle or symmetry of the crown unless the person spends hours and more than a few whole sheets worth of sandpaper doing as I suggested.

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I usually started off the crown smoothing by putting sandpaper around a pointy plum bob. Being pointy, it works for any caliber. But I always finish up with thumb and progressively finer grit and at the end using fine steel wool.

And I agree with the "rounded" land edges in the bore. I mean, that's what one gets with radius groove rifling; right? That way, no cut patch.