What do these patches mean?

[Carbon 6]

I use the blue stripe ticking from Walmart, no problems. I still say it's the way you are cutting. Use a good sharp scissors to pre-cut some patches and see if they still tear when fired. You need to identify the problem before fixing it. Don't just automatically assume the patching needs to be thicker. I can shoot patches thinner than 0.013 without any tearing problem. and I have shot 0.20 thick patches and shredded them. There is much more to proper patch material than just thickness. And I haven't even discussed lube yet.
As for the Havalon knife, you admitted it was dull. I haven't used that particular knife but I have not had good luck with any type of non-sharpenable replaceable blade knife.

Now, I knew you where cutting at the muzzle even before you said so (we were both composing at the same time.) If you look closely at your patches you will notice how your they all have a square shape, the tearing on all of them originates from one of the corners of the square. this is indicative of a dull knife pulling on the patching and stretching the fabric to the apex of the bullet as the last tiny bit of material is cut, and as you will notice that's exactly where the tearing stops. Stretching the fabric makes it thinner and separates the weave.

Try some scissor cut patches once. I'll bet your problem goes away.

One other thing to ask, do you wash and pre-shrink your patch material?

 

[Sparkitoff]

You could drop a cotton ball in before the patched ball. Get the 100% cotton cosmetic balls. While I don't use this as a practice normally, I did find it useful to see if a particular powder charge was causing patch damage. With this method, your patches may look "cleaner", but if the barrel has a sharp spot or your loading procedure is the culprit the damage will still show up. If the patches are in good shape after this experiment, you need either more lube or a different lube (first) and if no progress, a different patch thickness or material.

 

[Larry (Omaha)]

For sure get some thicker patching. My son in law shoots a GPR and he uses .018 cotton pillow ticking. If your town does not have thicker ticking go for some denim as long as it is tight weave 100% cotton. Sounds like you have the knife issue fixed. Good luck.
Flintlocklar

 

[Oregononeshot]

Gun has around 120 +/- down it. Yes fabric is washed and dried first. Does it have to be dried on a certain temperature? I just do medium heat. Hopefully my shooting today gives some more information

 

[ADK Bigfoot]

+1 on the barrel break-in. All of the Investarms barrels I have owned (Lyman, Cabelas, whatever) were really hard on patches for the first 100 shots. When the rough edges were smoothed out from use, the patches were fine (and accuracy improved.)

 

[renegadehunter]

The patches hadn't set around lubed for a long time? Only thing I didn't see mentioned.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Here are some pictures of my micrometer. The first is when it clicks, and won't go any further. The second is when I compress it down. Now I don't know how hard to compress, but I'm moving it quite a bit, maybe I'm going to far when I compress it?

Compress it the same amount with the micrometer jaws empty. If you get a negative reading - you are compressing it too hard. Or add that number back when you take the "compressed" reading. I never went in for that micrometer abuse method. It's an instrument, not a clamp.

Try seating a ball and pulling the charge unfired. How does the patch look? It may be you have a rough bore (or a sharp muzzle - rare).

But since the first three are good in your image I am thinking more that the fouling is what is tearing the patch. Use more lube or spit wipe after three shots.

 

[Oregononeshot]

Thanks guys. I had to work late today so I didn't get to shoot like I planned. Got a 4 day weekend so hopefully I can get out and shoot. I also want to go walleye fishing so I'm going to have to manage my time lol. These strips were just made up last week. I did however make a post about how my strips looked, because some of them did not look like the oil had evenly soaked into the strips. Maybe I used this strip when I shot. Hopefully I can get out this weekend I'll post updates if I do