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Joined
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I.M NOT SURE that's the right word but if you can remember when you had the hots for Mary Jean Kelly in the sixth or seventh grade and you, Illogically, tried to win her affection with paper wad fired out of your hastily made weapon of rather tightly rolled piece of paper?

You didn't just create the wad and blow it out of the end of that paper rol if you wanted distance or possible impact improvement by letting the pressure of held breath to suddenly escape. Wether the wad was wet or dry depended on what kind of young gent you were.
So too with internal ballistics. When black powder burns while very fast it is still a progressive process. the power builds as the powder burns and the amount of pressuring gases build. Now if you have a slick. the ball will begin moving as soon as that gas begins to build. It is quite possible that the ball will be out the end of the barrel before the powder has gone it's thing. This would be a bit of a waste of the powder and quite probably will effect the accuracy of a shot in the same way too small a powder charge would affect it.
Not having seen anything wrong with the Slickness is Better school of thought I was quite surprised when looking for a shot after shot consistent degree of shooting patch lubrication and discovered that the dry, less slick. the patch that I tested that the tighter the groups got.
Some time spent in though brought me back to thoughts of Mary Jean Kelly and the deadly paper wad shooter where allowing the pressure to buildup before release for distance, impact and a flatter trajectory.
With the dryer shooting patch the ball resists just a wee bit longer so the powder's gases have built a small extra amount to give greater distance and a flatter trajectory.
If that thinking seems to make sense to you then all the slick lubes become contraindicated, Unless you have learned to limit them in some way.

I'm sure two will agree and two or more won't but it worked for me
Dutch Schoultz
 
I wonder if the depth of the rifling may also play into this. Is it possible that slick lube and shallow rifling could cause less or at least inconsistent spin?

From my admittedly limited experience, it seems my TC Hawken .50 caliber, which has quite shallow rifling, prefers a dry or at least less slick patch. My Pedersoli Frontier .32 caliber has much deeper rifling and doesn't seem to care if the patch is wet, dry, slick, etc. at least for as well as these old eyes will do with iron sights these days.

Not trying to start an argument, just wondering what your thoughts are on this, Dutch.
 
I.M NOT SURE that's the right word but if you can remember when you had the hots for Mary Jean Kelly in the sixth or seventh grade and you, Illogically, tried to win her affection with paper wad fired out of your hastily made weapon of rather tightly rolled piece of paper?

You didn't just create the wad and blow it out of the end of that paper rol if you wanted distance or possible impact improvement by letting the pressure of held breath to suddenly escape. Wether the wad was wet or dry depended on what kind of young gent you were.
So too with internal ballistics. When black powder burns while very fast it is still a progressive process. the power builds as the powder burns and the amount of pressuring gases build. Now if you have a slick. the ball will begin moving as soon as that gas begins to build. It is quite possible that the ball will be out the end of the barrel before the powder has gone it's thing. This would be a bit of a waste of the powder and quite probably will effect the accuracy of a shot in the same way too small a powder charge would affect it.
Not having seen anything wrong with the Slickness is Better school of thought I was quite surprised when looking for a shot after shot consistent degree of shooting patch lubrication and discovered that the dry, less slick. the patch that I tested that the tighter the groups got.
Some time spent in though brought me back to thoughts of Mary Jean Kelly and the deadly paper wad shooter where allowing the pressure to buildup before release for distance, impact and a flatter trajectory.
With the dryer shooting patch the ball resists just a wee bit longer so the powder's gases have built a small extra amount to give greater distance and a flatter trajectory.
If that thinking seems to make sense to you then all the slick lubes become contraindicated, Unless you have learned to limit them in some way.

I'm sure two will agree and two or more won't but it worked for me
Dutch Schoultz

I'm with you on that; you need to get some resistance to build pressure, which leads to velocity at the muzzle. The loss of pressure as the ball moves prematurely results in less efficient powder burn and more fouling.
 
Lubed or not if the PRB is not tight enough to leave fabric impression on the ball then the round is too loose. Too loose can allow skipping on riflngs. There would be a setup for less spin.
I think the plank moments from start of burn to complete burn is beyond negligible. Lube on the patch in the area of contact of bore will be mostly non-existent, wringed out, at proper crush fit and it's proper fit that provides proper operation. After that it's all up to the quality of the barrel itself.
 
I'm on board with you, Dutch. I get better accuracy with extremely consistent lube application. Your "dry patch" method is probably the epitome of consistency.

Pretty easy to get an answer, shoot both patching methods over a crony and measure the speed at the muzzle.
Faster speed out of the muzzle is the flatter shot.

I have shot them over a chronograph and the story it tells is twofold. First, the tighter the patch the higher the velocity. Second, the more consistent the lube application, the smaller the SD. The other thing that promotes consistency is wiping between shots.

All factors that Dutch has been promoting for years.
 
The tighter the prb, the more accurate it's likely to be. That is as long as you don't have it so tight you have to pound it with a metal rod. Mine are tight loads but can be seated with the wood underbarrel rod. A bit of smoothing of the crown makes this possible.
 
My 50 caliber new englander shoots best with NO lube on the patch whatsoever. But I wipe between shots religiously. And with a rough slightly pitted bore.(yard sale gun, bought for $100) one ragged hole at 25 yards, opens up to about a 1 inch group at 50. Got lucky with that one
 
I use relatively thick cotton denim in a number of barrels. With normal pressure on a micrometer it measures about.022” (maybe.030” with calipers) thick, however, this is NOT the important measurement. What is important, at least in my opinion and experience, is the compressed thickness. In my 58 caliber radius bottom Hoyt barrels, using a .565” ball, .the 0155” that I measure compressed is about right.

Dutch may be old, blind, possibly decrepit and in the obituaries, but he knows his stuff. Looking forward to more of his posts.
 
THE DEEPER RIFLING WOULD REQUIRE MORE OR THE PATCHING AND MORE OF THE LEAD BEING EXTRUDED AND THEREBY ENGAGED IN FITTING THE PATCHED BALL TO THE BARREL WHICH COULDWELL PROVIDE MORE FRICTION OR RESISTENCE ALLOWING A GREATER BUILD UP OF PRESSURE BEFORE THE PATCHED BALL BEGINS TO MOVE DOWN AND OUT THE BRREL.
THIS IS AN INTERESTING NEW THOUGHT
ARE THERE ANY OTHER DEEP RIFLED BARREL OWNERS WITH SIMILAR EXPERIENCE?
DUTCH
I wonder if the depth of the rifling may also play into this. Is it possible that slick lube and shallow rifling could cause less or at least inconsistent spin?

From my admittedly limited experience, it seems my TC Hawken .50 caliber, which has quite shallow rifling, prefers a dry or at least less slick patch. My Pedersoli Frontier .32 caliber has much deeper rifling and doesn't seem to care if the patch is wet, dry, slick, etc. at least for as well as these old eyes will do with iron sights these days.

Not trying to start an argument, just wondering what your thoughts are on this, Dutch.
 
MY REGRET IS THAT WHEN I OPEN A NEW THREAD I GET A LOT OF GOOD ANSWERS WHICH I CANNOT READ BECAUSE OF BAD VISION EVEN WITH A 2 POUND MAGNIFYING GLASS. I HAVE FOUND NO WAY TO ENLARGE THE TYPE. IF THERE IS SUCH A METHOD PLEASE LET ME KNOW
DUTCH
 
MY REGRET IS THAT WHEN I OPEN A NEW THREAD I GET A LOT OF GOOD ANSWERS WHICH I CANNOT READ BECAUSE OF BAD VISION EVEN WITH A 2 POUND MAGNIFYING GLASS. I HAVE FOUND NO WAY TO ENLARGE THE TYPE. IF THERE IS SUCH A METHOD PLEASE LET ME KNOW
DUTCH

I use Opera browser, so I don't know if this works with others, but I can zoom the size of the page in to about 300 percent if necessary. Hope this is something that will work for you, Dutch.
 
WHEN CONVERSING WITH DUTCH, BEST TO USE ALL CAPS. EASIER FOR HIM TO READ.
WALK

THANKS FOR THE HEAD'S UP. AS AN RETIRED ENGLISH TEACHER, I GUESS I JUST NATURALLY TRY TO WRITE AS I TAUGHT, LOL! I'VE ALSO DISCOVERED THAT WE CAN INCREASE THE FONT SIZE THIS MUCH AND MAKE IT BOLD BY CLICKING THE BUTTONS ABOVE THE REPLY BOX. CHOOSE B FOR BOLD THEN THE SECOND A LETS YOU CHANGE FONT SIZE.

AS FOR THE ONES YOU RECEIVE THAT ARE TOO SMALL, YOUR BROWSER SHOULD ALLOW YOU TO ZOOM. HOW YOU DO THAT WILL VARY WITH THE BROWSER YOU USE.

MY VISION USED TO BE BETTER THAN 20-10. NOW IT'S 20-20 BUT MY ARMS SEEM TO HAVE GROWN SHORTER...HARD TO GET STUFF IN FOCUS UP CLOSE ANYMORE. IT ALSO MAKES IRON SIGHTS A CHALLENGE. WHOMEVER DUBBED OLD AGE THE GOLDEN YEARS WAS OBVIOUSLY YOUNG AT THE TIME!
 
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