.490 balll and .010 patch?

[Norseman]

Anyone had any good results with a green Mountain Barrel in .50 cal utilizing a .490 ball and .010 patch? The reason why I am asking is that if the old timers did't use a ball starter (almost none found in artifact form). Should'nt the ball expand upon ignition somewhat? I have tried .495 with .010, .490 with both .015 and .018. Very dificult to load even with short starter. Many old rifles were coned at the muzzle to facilitate thumb pressure loading. I am thinking on trying the .490 and .010 patch combo. What do you all think?

 

[jtmattison]

I've tried it. .010 was too thin for my rifle. It kept blowing patches all to heck. You could try it with a felt wad over the powder. I never tried it.

HD

 

[sparsons]

I got a Green Mountain replacement in my Hawken this year. I am using .495 ball with .018 patch and 75 grains of 3f.powder. The ball is a little hard to start at times but once started goes down fairly easy. That is the combo the guys at Cain's suggested I use and I find it works well for me.

 

[jdixon]

I probably have the same barrel as you, shoot it a lot. As Dawg already stated, I believe you will be blowing those .010's all to pieces. A felt wad would eliminate this but; I believe your accuracy would suffer regardless. The best patch and ball configuration I have found is the .018 w/ the .490. I have pushed the .018 with the .495 and it does all right but it is a little too much of a pain to load for my taste, no appreciable difference in accuracy.
That is interesting what you stated about the short starter and that it possibly was not a tool of the day. Never have looked into that, it is such a simple concept I assumed that the old boys would have figured that one out.

 

[Doc Arroyo]

I have used a .490 with .015 patch for about 15 years with my rifle. .010 was to thin and I could get .020 to load. .015 worked and shot great, but a short starter was nearly a neccessity.

So I coned the barrel. No short starer and the same reliable accuracy! I will keep nearly any gun that can shoot better than me! :winking:

 

[Le Grand]

Norseman, In that Green Mountain barrel the rifling grooves are deeper than .010", so that thickness of patch won't fill the grooves. That thin of a patch will be burned through every time you shoot. At least get some .012" or .014" material and cut some of your own patches to get those thicknesses a try. Le Grand

 

[paulvallandigham]

NOrseman: Remember that in addition to filling the gap that exists between the ball and the bore diameter, which is land to land, you also have to have a patch thick enough to fill the grooves. The reason a .010" patch blows out for most of us is because it is not thick enough to fill the grooves, which often run from .006 to .008" deep. So, I have also been using .015 to .018" thick patching in my .50 cal. shooting the .490 ball.

If you want it to load easier, cone the muzzle with one of the tools that Joe Wood sells. The nice thing about coning, is that you only open the crown up to the groove diameter, so that the coning eases and centers the ball and patch onto the lands as its pushed down the barrel. That keeps most patches from being cut on sharp lands, and loads the fabric into the grooves from the start. The coning does not affect accuracy adversely. Target shooters decided to use a flat crowned muzzle and short starters, and even false muzzles to load their balls and conicals into the barrels for best accuracy. But, then, they did not have muzzle, or crown, protectors made out of delrin, back in those day, to help center the ramrod, and protect the crown from friction caused by the side of the ramrod being rubbed against it. Of course, if those old shooters took their time, and used a hand over hand technique to load those guns, instead of pushing the whole rod down in one stroke, or pulling it out in one stroke, there would have been no rubbing against the crown, either. We had the muzzle protectors made of brass, before the synthetic ones came out, but I don't know how common they were in the 19th century. I do know that Harry Pope, the famous barrel maker, promoted their use on his barrels when a false muzzle was not used.

 

[Tumblernotch]

I don't know if this comparison works or not, but I shoot a .40 cal GM barrel. For years I used a .395 ball with .021 pillow ticking and got good results. The downside was that I needed a shortstarter which wasn't a big deal at the range, but I wanted something that would load faster in the woods. Back in the Summer I bought a .390 mold real cheap from a guy and started experimenting. To make a long story short, I settled on the .390 and .018 ticking (unwashed; I never did any good with washed ticking, don't see the p'int in it). I don't have to shortstart and my groups have improved. I have switched to the lighter ball and patch for even my target shooting. Now, the situation might be different with the .50, but it certainly won't hurt for you to experiment.
:thumbsup:

 

[Claude Mathis]

I have used a .490 with .015 patch for about 15 years with my rifle. .010 was to thin and I could get .020 to load. .015 worked and shot great, but a short starter was nearly a neccessity.

So I coned the barrel. No short starer and the same reliable accuracy!

My experience exactly.

.490 ball
.015 patch
Coned muzzle :thumbsup:

 

[Slamfire]

I have a pair of shallow grooved .50s, one prefers an 0.018 patch with a .490 ball, the other refuses to accept anything that thick. I've been forcing 0.015" patches right down its QLA muzzle with my thumb, and then using a short starter to get the patch seated in the rifling. :v

 

[2172]

I use a .49 ball and a .010 patch in both of my Lyman's..have never seen a blown or burnt patch..when I tried to load with a .017 or .015 ticking, I had to use a mallet on the short starter...Hank

 

[paulvallandigham]

Hank: Have you miked the bore and groove diameter on your barrel, and have you miked the ball you are using? Is it really .490? Its nice to know your patches are not burning. What powder are you shooting, what load are you using, and what lube do you use on the patch?

 

[Frank/Pa]

Hornady makes a .480 swaged round ball that you may want to try. I have used it with a .015 patch in a Colerain barrel and it loads easy and shoots good.

 

[PreglerD]

I'm shooting an original smooth bore long rifle in .50 with coned muzzle, .490 ball and 0,5mm patch, think it is o,o2''. works pretty good. Because of this post I now knew that old guns have coned muzzles to make loading easier.

 

[paulm]

The point in washing the patch material is to remove the sizing put on the cloth at manufacture. If you spit lube, the sizing tastes like manure!

 

[Tumblernotch]

Yeah, I've heard others say that, but I reckon my tastebuds are shot because I've never noticed it myself. Some also say that it tightens the weave in the material and makes it better, etc. In my experience with washed ticking though, it didn't help a bit, in fact my groups opened up a little. I'd rather be lazy and not do the laundry and shoot better. :grin:

 

[Tumblernotch]

I've seen coned barrels on old guns, but I've seen a lot more old originals that had no coning at all and these didn't have false muzzles either.
:thumbsup:

 

[blacksmithshoppe]

Hornady makes a .480 swaged round ball that you may want to try. I have used it with a .015 patch in a Colerain barrel and it loads easy and shoots good.

I agree with Frank, your better to use a small ball and a thicker patch. In my .54 I use a .520 ball and a .020 patch or just the thickest tow linen I can find, works good.
Jeff :thumbsup:

 

[2172]

Paul, thanks for the questions..I haven't miked either the bbl or the ball...I will do that. I use Wonder Lube or Bore butter...I've been playing around with Balustrol but am not pleased so far....Hank

 

[paulvallandigham]

Hnak. For what its worth, I missed the fact that you simply describe using a .49 ball in your .50 cal. gun, You need to know that Hornady, and some other suppliers of swaged round balls make both .490, and .495 balls. The description you give about how you load that ball makes me think you are using the larger, 495 ball. I also have experienced the near impossibility of loading that larger diameter ball with a .015 to .020" patch! like all guns, this is a sport where accuracy depends on paying attention to thousandths of an inch! Anybody can dump some gravel down a gun barrel with wadding and some powder behind it, and " Shoot something " with it. That is hardly the point of the exercise. What makes for an accurate, but easy to load " compromise" is a slightly smaller ball diameter, made of pure lead, and a thicker patch material, with good lube. When I bought my .50 cal. I bought a box each of .490 and .495" diameter swaged round balls. I could hammer the larger balls into the barrel with a .010" patch as you describe, and get very good accuracy, Provided the patch did not tear on the rifling in the new barrel, or blow out from the gases. I was also trying both FFFg and FFg powders under those balls to see what combination would give me the best performance. I discovered that FFg was less likely to burn through the patch than FFFg powder, BTW. Now that I am testing overpowder wads, and fillers, in the gun, I will eventually go back and try FFFg powder with the wads or fillers to see if I can't get even better accuracy now. It never ends.