Torn patches!

[ETipp]

My brief quote selection referred to the part about cleaning patches not being sliced. I meant that a loose fitting cleaning patch might not get cut whereas a tight fitting cleaning patch might.

Understood. No problem.

My reply was geared more towards the latter.

 

[Justin.44]

I do have some of that #40 cotton drill cloth. I could meet up with you and share about 1/4 yard.

@IanH, JoAnn's Fabrics will have their % off coupon on their website and they will deliver to your house if they can find it in the Texas Hill Country.

Thanks for the offer! I signed on here this morning briefly before work but hadn't been on since, and I just got home from the range. I would've taken you up on that but didn't see it. I have a plan to go tomorrow and get some from JoAnn's so I should be good.

What I found today at the range.. I tried the denim first and about broke my hand getting it short started! I Literally needed a hammer to seat it. However, it didn't tear or burn at all. That being way too tight to comfortably load, I went back to the ticking but tried putting 50 grains of of cream of wheat between the powder and patch/ball and sure enough every patch was perfectly fine. I shot a respectable group at 50 yards with that load. Of course I don't want this to be the final solution to my issue but it does rule out the rifling or crown cutting them. I think the drill cloth should be just what I need.

Thank you all for your tips. I have a tendency to fret over stuff like this and automatically assume the worst! The good thing about this is that it got me to the range 4 times in under a week!

 

[DillyJamba]

Drill cloth worked for me! Held up a lot better than the ticking I was using.

 

[Justin.44]

Drill cloth worked for me! Held up a lot better than the ticking I was using.

Good to hear!

 

[Ballshooter]

Corn meal is awesome cream of wheat is as well. You could try a felt wad too. I like to use a thin patch and a wad or corn meal for a no short starter load. Accuracy has been very good.

 

[necchi]

Thank you all for your tips.

I'm sorry Justin that your having these troubles and I've ment no harm.
In all my years of shooting local vous competition one of the stiffest I've faced was with a friend with your rifle,, he/we never had your troubles.
I'm talkin cutting strings at 50yrds, an punching center of a playing card at same.
There are others of the same ilk in our competition , that shoot the same gun in 50 or 54 and more with T/C's or CVA that do not have these accuracy problems at 50yrds. All of us are loading in front of each other, and nobody is using cornmeal,,
I wish I lived near you to help, honestly.

 

[Justin.44]

I'm sorry Justin that your having these troubles and I've ment no harm.
In all my years of shooting local vous competition one of the stiffest I've faced was with a friend with your rifle,, he/we never had your troubles.
I'm talkin cutting strings at 50yrds, an punching center of a playing card at same.
There are others of the same ilk in our competition , that shoot the same gun in 50 or 54 and more with T/C's or CVA that do not have these accuracy problems at 50yrds. All of us are loading in front of each other, and nobody is using cornmeal,,
I wish I lived near you to help, honestly.

It's all good. It is strange but in my other rifles this same ticking is fine but this one doesn't like it. I'm not going to keep using a corn meal buffer between the powder and ball, it was more of a test to see if it would keep it from burning through. That tells me that I probably just need some better patch material for this particular rifle.

 

[#blackpowderbill]

Cheap material like others noted. You need to check the thread count on the material bolt your patching comes off of.

Also using old blue jeans as patches is a consistent material. Since jeans wear thinner in different areas.

 

[Indy Durtdigger]

Corn meal is awesome cream of wheat is as well. You could try a felt wad too. I like to use a thin patch and a wad or corn meal for a no short starter load. Accuracy has been very good.

I've taken to a dry over powder patch or felt wad in everything I've dug back out the last year I've been enjoying this hobby again. Wish my uncles and I had known of this simple yet highly effective technique 30 years ago when ML were the thing to use for deer hunting in our state.

 

[flatcreek]

I have a lyman trade gun in 50 and have been struggling with it for quite some time. Good groups some time and poor a lot of the time, some cut or torn patches. Have tried many different thing and really never got any definitive answers until yesterday. Put up 2 targets at 50 yds and shot 3 shot group, not good about 4" and 2" to the right of the bull. Looked at the patches and looked ok, maybe just a little tear in one. Shot 3 more at the next target had 2 close high left next low right 4" or 5" away. Picked up the patches and they were tore up. I was using some new to me .020 material with mr flintlock. I was cutting at the muzzle and had moistened the patches earlier and they where getting real dry. I got my bottle of mr flinlock out and gave the strip 2 squirts on the end I was loading. The next 6 shots where in a 2" or smaller group and even moved to the bullseye. Which isn't bad for 74 year old eyes and I'm happy with it. Guess my patches have just not had enough lube, I had always swabbed between shots and very little of whatever lube I was using. Wetting them up cured the torn patches.

 

[hanshi]

The amount of lube on the patches can really make a difference. I've always used well lubed patches with enough lube so that some of it squeezes out on the muzzle crown. It makes seating a prb easier. As for patches I've used many different materials and can't ever recall all of them. Blue and brown mattress ticking - about .018" compressed - worked better than pillow ticking. I tried "cotton duck" , about .020" compressed, and it worked very well. Finally I tried both heavy canvas (.023" to .024" compressed) and denim which was about the same and felt as if I'd found the Holy Grail. For some reason the denim and also the thinner cotton duck seated with more protest than the .024" canvas. I polished the muzzle crown on all the rifles and really like that canvas. The fired patches are usually still clean and white and I've re-used fired ones in the next load.

Canvas makes a rather tight prb load, but I can still use the wood underbarrel rod to load them. Plenty of lube makes the job easier. The best thing about the tight loads is that I never have to swab out the bore until I get home and start cleaning. A series of, say, 40 shots keeps the same poi from the first shot from a clean bore to #40; accuracy never changes nor the poa. The tight prb wipes the bore with every load and only one shots worth of fouling is there at any time.

 

[IanH]

Of course I don't want this to be the final solution to my issue but it does rule out the rifling or crown cutting them.

No, it doesn't, it only confirms that damaged patches are the larger source of your accuracy problem. Think about it.

 

[Sam squanch]

CREAM OF WHEAT! CREAM OF WHEAT! Used in my rifle - IT CAN’T BE BEAT! Make you shooting opponents FEEL THE HEAT! Over the powder, CREAM OF WHEAT! Seriously- I can use a looser patch ball combination, and still get great hunting accuracy, with easier loading.

 

[Mad L]

I always shop for Linen Ticking for patches as it seems to not give me shredded patches.
I once bought Cotton at Hobby Lobby for a project because it was all they had, but when I cut up the scraps for PRB patches I saw my first shredded and blown out patches. Switched to some Ox Yolk patches I had and all was fine.
Latter on I grabbed some uncut strips I had and headed to the range: shot my pre-cuts (ones I made not bout) then turned to the strip - it 'felt' flimsy but I proceeded to shoot, my shots were off but I thought I was just getting tied (darn getting old) BUT THEN when heading down range I saw the blown out patches!?
I took a closer look at the ticking strips and realized they were two different weights (as felt between my fingers), switched to the 'stiffer' strip and all was fine again (both were red stripe).
Got home and checked my stash, sure enough some of the Cotton strips got into my Linen bag.
I fished out the Cotton (by feel, it is very noticeable) and tossed it out. Have not had trouble since.

Personally I use TOW Mink that I mix with pure Bear Oil, sometimes I just use a patch wetted with Bear Oil. With TOW/Bear mix I just wipe one side (barrel side) and rub in slightly with my fingers.
I always look for my patches and other then the Cotton ones I have not seen a problem.

Reference: Pedersoli .50cal
.49 ball with .01 patch
recently switched to .48 ball with .02 patch (roughly, I don't own a caliper)

 

[Caterpillar Hunter]

Or try this:

https://www.onlinefabricstore.com/47-inch-aca-blue-ticking-fabric-.htm
Good stuff. This ticking mics out to 0.015 inches after washing.

 

[oldwood]

Most patch thickness problems can be instantly solved by getting a cheap compression micrometer , and learning to use it correctly. Don't buy the mic. that looks like a duck beak , as that kind doesn't measure actual crush thickness of cloth. Get a compression mic , the kind that tightens the fabric between two pressure points. For instance , precut patches from packages , like sold in most m/l catalogs , using a compression mic. , measure thinner than is stated on the lable. My .50 cal. longrifle likes .012 thick patches , that say .015 on the pkg.. If I try to use the patches labled .018 on the pkg. , I get ripped patches laying on the ground found in front of the shooting bench , and the accuracy is bad. The .018 labled patches are actually .016. Again , this guessing , and confusion can be eliminated with a cheap compression micrometer. Patching that "feels" like a certain thickness , can be completely incorrect , from what's actually needed. Hope this helps.

 

[TRGRHAPY]

Hey everybody, first let me preface this by saying that I know there is a very similar thread going right now by @DillyJamba about basically the same issue. I started my own out of respect for him. I didn't want to hijack his thread as he works out his issue. Coincidentally, DillyJamba is a member of my gun club and the rifles we are having patch issues with are both .54 Lyman GPR! I've had this rifle for about a year and did encounter some torn patches a while back that I thought was resolved by smoothing the crown.

So this past Saturday I went out to practice for the 100 yard bench match we were having the next day at our club. My load was 70 grains 3F Goex, .530 cast ball, .018 pillow ticking, moose milk for patch lube. The 10 or so shots I took were all over the place, with about an 8" group. I walked out and searched for my patches and every one of them had a tear. I came home and ran some pieces of Scotch-Brite pads up and down the bore, hoping that might smooth out any burrs or sharp lands. Afterwards I doubled up cleaning patches so it was really tight and ran them up and down and there was no tearing whatsoever so I was pretty sure it would be resolved. The next day I shot in the match and did terrible, I was still having the same problem. Yesterday after work I went out to the range to try some different stuff and attempt to figure out what was going on. I tried less powder, different pillow ticking, different lube, etc.. Nothing helped much. Since we have a CO2 tank at my club, I decided to short start a ball and blow it out to determine if it was being torn at the crown. Checked that patch and it was fine. Then I dryballed one, fully seated and blew that out, it wasn't torn either. It appears that the problem isn't with the rifling being sharp. I'm wondering what to try now and why it's happening? Some kind of filler (corn meal/cream of wheat) between powder and patch? Or a wad between? A more robust fabric for patching? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I'll be heading back out tomorrow evening to give it another shot!

I'll put some pictures below showing my patches that are torn, as well as the ones that I blew out with the CO2. Thanks! -Justin

Would love to know the culprit and the remedy! I never thought of running a "3M scotch-brite" pad/patch down the bore before...but certainly makes sense!! Any resolution yet? As you said...any buffer between powder n patch, etc? Very late in reading THIS entire thread but sounds like good advice from this "muzzleloaders think-tank"!