How thick is too thick

[kc_urrutia]

I had been shooting .490 roundball with a .005” patch, as I was a beginner and thought things needed to equal .500 since my Hawken is a .50 cal. I have since learned that’s not the case . Dang noobs! Accuracy just want there. I bought some pillow ticking to make my own patches, but they are pretty thick - .020-.022” thick using my calipers. Will this cause a dangerous scenario of being too tight and basically be a bore blockage? I hd to removed a patched ball from my barrel as I tried to see how they fit for sh*ts & giggles, and it wasn’t inherently impossible to push down to the breach, and once I got the ball puller threaded in good enough- came out with (and I’m guessing) approximately 35-40ish pounds of pulling pressure. The ball was squished, so am thinking- since the lead is soft and has give to it- it’s not completely actually being jammed in the barrel…. It r am I missing something here and asking for a big boom?

 

[snapbang]

As far as too thick a patch, I dont believe that is possible. At least until you cant get it down the barrel. But I would still make sure it is firmly against the powder.

 

[drpatton]

Will this cause a dangerous scenario of being too tight and basically be a bore blockage?

No. As long as the patches are lubed, they will do fine. Check your fired patches. Look for cuts or burns which go through the patch. If either is the case go to a size larger. A .005 patch seems light, but as long as it's not being eaten up by the powder or the rifling, and retained good rifling marks in the patch, then it's fine.
A patch which is too tight for accuracy will still fire.

Look at your fired patches. They are the key to it all.

 

[smokepolehall]

Ok lets figure , .490 + 5 =..495 which still is less than bore measurement on lands. So depending on depth your bbl 's grooves. Usually rb bbl's run from .10 to .18 deep. So lets say your groove is .018 n. take the ,480 ball now we have .028. .020-.22 should fit snugly. If you can get the prb down onto the powder should be no unsafe shooting as long as its seated on powder

 

[451whitworth]

Ok lets figure , .490 + 5 =..495 which still is less than bore measurement on lands.

.490" + .005"+.005" = .500" The patch thickness is added twice

 

[drpatton]

I haven't heard of a groove depths greater than .013.
My understanding are most modern groove depths for Round Balls are .010 to .012.
Which rifles go .015 or deeper?

Again, my understanding is a competition barrel with a slow 1:70 or slower may only have a groove depth of .005

 

[Ninering62]

I had been shooting .490 roundball with a .005” patch, as I was a beginner and thought things needed to equal .500 since my Hawken is a .50 cal. I have since learned that’s not the case . Dang noobs! Accuracy just want there. I bought some pillow ticking to make my own patches, but they are pretty thick - .020-.022” thick using my calipers. Will this cause a dangerous scenario of being too tight and basically be a bore blockage? I hd to removed a patched ball from my barrel as I tried to see how they fit for sh*ts & giggles, and it wasn’t inherently impossible to push down to the breach, and once I got the ball puller threaded in good enough- came out with (and I’m guessing) approximately 35-40ish pounds of pulling pressure. The ball was squished, so am thinking- since the lead is soft and has give to it- it’s not completely actually being jammed in the barrel…. It r am I missing something here and asking for a big boom?

I read your headline & clicked on it, but once I saw that you weren't talking about women, I quickly found myself out of my realm & I have nothing actually helpful to add. Back to my beer now.

 

[smokepolehall]

I haven't heard of a groove depths greater than .013.
My understanding are most modern groove depths for Round Balls are .010 to .012.
Which rifles go .015 or deeper?

Colerains standard is .016-.018 , GM is .010-.012, lets face it almost every bbl Company is rb driven. Just a very few bbl makers even make a shallower groove depth.

 

[deermanok]

You'll know soon enough if those patches are too tight.
I generally use between .010 up to .018 thickness patches depending on which gun.

 

[anonymouscowherd]

Too thick is too thick to shove down the barrel. Maybe modified to be "shove the 3rd or 4th shot down the barrel", depends on what ultimate end purpose is...

That said, time to expirement and see what works best for you.

I read your headline & clicked on it, but once I saw that you weren't talking about women, I quickly found myself out of my realm & I have nothing actually helpful to add. Back to my beer now.

Fat bottom girls make the rockin' world go 'round. Hell a dood with a PhD in astrophysics wrote that, he can't be wrong!

 

[user 30577]

If I have to pound the ball down with any type of hammer, it's too tight for me.

 

[smokepolehall]

If I have to pound the ball down with any type of hammer, it's too tight for me.

There ya go, evening having to hit your palm that hard on a short starter n hurts your hand its too tight

 

[drpatton]

Colerains standard is .016-.018

Remind me to stay away from Colerains. The deeper the grooves the easier it is for lead build up & the harder it is to clean.

Somewhere on here, in an older session on this forum, a few competitive round ball shooters said they like shallow grooves and slow twist rates.
Something like 1:72 is the best twist for .50 caliber with a .005 groove depth. I wish I knew here it was.

 

[smokepolehall]

Remind me to stay away from Colerains. The deeper the grooves the easier it is for lead build up & the harder it is to clean.

Somewhere on here, in an older session on this forum, a few competitive round ball shooters said they like shallow grooves and slow twist rates.
Something like 1:72 is the best twist for .50 caliber with a .005 groove depth. I wish I knew here it was.

This is some of the things that really are not exceptions to the rules of rb barrels. Each n every barrel is unto its self. You the shooter just have to work on it to bring what it (bbl) wants not what you want. Sometimes you n the bbl hit on the combo both of you really like

 

[drpatton]

This is some of the things that really are not exceptions to the rules of rb barrels

Barrels are made for what people want. The Hawken Brothers believed accuracy required a 1:48 twist and to achieve it, had to make their groove depths .012 to keep the PRB from stripping through the barrel. Hunters in the early to mid 19th Century ate them up. However, mathematicians and physicists in the later 19th Century realized the fast twist with deep grooves for accuracy was a fallacy. But people still wanted the fast twist barrels with deep grooves, so barrel makers still made them.

I don't pretend to know or understand Colerain barrels, but people must be buying them. I don't know if that groove depth is an option or standard.

It is a fact you can shoot a patched round ball through a 1:28 twist barrel if the grooves are deep enough, the size right ball and thickness of patches are used. That said, serious competitive shooters don't use those barrels. They use shallow grooved slow, twist barrels for a reason. They are extremely efficient and accurate.

It is true a shooter will have to deal the the barrel they have and make it work for them.

 

[drpatton]

I can see we are running headlong into the math to refute the myths.

First is the Greenhill Formula from Wikipedia


The second is the Miller Twist Rule which is more accurate that Greenhill's formula; However, both prove a slow twist rate is best for PRB and their answers are very close to each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_twist_rule
So, using Greenhill's Formula a Patched .490 round ball in a .50 barrel (I'll use that size instead of the .50 bullet obsturated version). comes out to 1:72 as the best twist rate.

With that twist rate there is no need for deep grooves to keep the bullet in the rifling, so shallow grooves are used.

 

[smokepolehall]

Yes indeed, what most don't understand about the grooves n twist rates is. You do not need huge amount of powder to get accuracy. More powder with any projectile is subject to leading/stripping patch n so on

 

[rangerod]

I read your headline & clicked on it, but once I saw that you weren't talking about women, I quickly found myself out of my realm & I have nothing actually helpful to add. Back to my beer now.

I always say big boned.

 

[bronko220002]

You got a lot of excellent info here. I will add to what BP Maniac said. If I have to pound it down its too tight. I want to give my ball/patch a just better than light rap with my short starter and a firm push with my ramrod all the way down to the charge.
As long as your ball is on the charge you won't have a safety issue.

 

[GoexBlackhorn]

Thread-starter has not been heard from - since late January. If that Hawkens is a T/C, mine seems to like 015 pillow tickers, lubed with just about anything I want to put on them.

Heck, one time I dropped my buttered patch in the wet woods.... atop of the weedy grass. I had a choice then. Should I use....
1) .... that moisture which still existed on top of that weed from the night before - as a different form of spit lube?
(or)
2) Open my brown bag lunch and lick the glazed top of my jelly donut I brought... and apply glaze to the pillow-ticker?

I chose the donut way and even fired the shot before returning back to deer camp.
I needed a couple extra patches to clean the bore that evening from stickiness. But the good news is that my bore did not smell of stinky, burnt blackpowder Goex. It had a good whiff of that darn jelly donut too.