burning patches

[Tom A Hawk]

Hope you guys can help me again. I am shooting a fussil 20 gauge flintlock with 80 grains of 2 f black powder and .015 pillow ticking patch lubed with bore butter. Shoots a good 4 inch group at 30 yards maybe not great but not to bad. Problem is the patches are almost incenerated or some even still smoldering, I have shot 50 and 54 cal. rifles with same load and find my patches still in good shape never any burning on them. Any ideas I can try? I am thinking this is not good for grouping of balls  which are .585 plus double .015 patch which is .615 my bore is approx. .607 I would think that would work, but I must be doing some thing Wrong. Thanks for any help.

                                                                       tom

[Fletcher]

Smoothies will often blow more fire around a patch.  You can try it tighter, and grouping may even improve.
Larger ball, thicker patch.  Way back when I was turned on to a water based lube for range and trail walks.
It does not burn the patch and self cleans after every shot.  It was called Ol' Thunder.  It worked so well that
I bought the company.  Pm me your address and I will send you a trial size bottle no charge - just tell your
friends if you like it.  Tell me if you don't    

[sse]

It worked so well that I bought the company.

I had no idea...!  I've used that stuff for a cleaner and like it...

[Tom A Hawk]

Fletcher,
          Thanks for info. I am going to try some other loads and see if that helps, like 1/2' felt wad lubed. and a few other things I do want to deer hunt with it this season. Thanks again for your kind offer on Ol' Thunder I did check out your web site and got the info I wanted, for what ever reason the P.M. did not seem to work for me, most likely me not to good on computer.
           Real nice looking arrows also.
                                                                            tom

[trent/OH]

My Brown Bess smolders patches quite a bit more than my rifles. I don't know what to attribute that to, but here are a few observations.
1) I've been using denim for Bess, versus ticking for rifles. Since denim is frequently used for flint and steel firemaking, maybe denim burns more readily.
2) A patch for 75 caliber is Huge compared to a 32 or 40 caliber, so there is more "square inchage" to catch alight.
3) The spin of a patch as it exits the barrel may have something to do with preventing the smolder from beginning.
4) A musket charge has a lot more powder in it to initiate a smolder than does a small caliber powder charge.

Maybe someone with training and experience in fire science or textiles could offer insight.

[Stormrider51]

I shot muzzleloading rifles for a very long time.  I thought I understood at least most of what there is to know about shooting them and how to get best accuracy.  Then I decided to give smoothbores a try a couple of years ago and a lot of what I thought was gospel got stood on its ear.  

Gospel #1 - A tight, bore filling, patch/ball combo is best.

This is normally true for a rifle but not for my smoothbore.  My tight grunt-as-you-push-'em-down-the-bore patch/ball loads didn't seem to perform much better than when I tried a wad of tow over the powder, dropped the ball down the bore, and another wad of tow to keep the ball from rolling out.  My best guess is that in a rifle the excess patch gets shoved into the rifling but a smoothie offers it no place to go.  It ends up crumpled and folded around the ball and actually leaves channels for hot gas to blow through.  The fact that there is a lot of resistance to getting the ball moving, remember how hard it was to shove that thing down here in the first place, means that there is more time for pressure to build and more time for gas blow-by to take place.  On the other hand, the tow/ball/tow load offers much less resistance and rides the flame front of the burning charge up the bore.  I suspect that the over-powder tow is blown forward around the ball while the outer tow is dragged back to help cushion it.

Or I could be all wet and have no idea what I'm talking about.  What I do know is that accuracy with a super-tight patch/ball didn't prove to be any better than when using tow wadding and a loose ball.  By the way, the ball was a .610 and the bore measures .618.  I did all accuracy testing from a solid rest to take as much of the "human factor" out as possible.  My patches usually showed burns although I don't remember any of them smoldering.  I never found enough of the tow to see it smolder or anything else.  Felt recoil was much greater with the tight patch/ball.  This thing would really get my attention and I'm not especially recoil sensitive.  Loads with a looser patch or with tow were a lot more fun to shoot.

To me a smoothbore was a revelation.  No, it's not as accurate as a good rifle over any given distance but neither is a modern shotgun firing a slug.  But I've grabbed a wad of dried grass or even green leaves to use as wadding with good results.  I've come to understand why it was the most common gun used by frontiersmen when one gun needed to do everything.  I would really encourage others to do some experimenting and see if your experiences match mine.

John

[Uncle Russ]

After years and years of "playing around" and a lot of frustration, our own Captchee and myself had this same little talk over and over again more than ten years ago on a different forum.

Over time I have found that a simple over-powder-wad,  followed by your favorite lube on a thin patched ball has worked best in all my smooth bores, and I own three of them in different calibers / gauges.

I have shared this simple tip with a lot of folks over the years and the vast majority of responses have been from positive to very positive.
But, as in everything load related, there have been a limited few that said they observed little difference other than easier loading...still yet, if you haven't tried it you owe it to yourself to give it a try.

The type of wad does not seem to matter...from Vegetable to HBPE (such as Milk cartons) to plain old card board box, but cut to the correct diameter does seem to have an effect.
I have also found that a metric size punch provide a much closer / tighter fit. ie, for my .56 smoothie I use a 14MM punch, for my .62cal I use a 15.5MM punch, and for my .69cal I use a 17.5mm punch.

And, FWIW, my favorite material for this particular wad has become "Egg carton Crates"....there's lots of wads to be found in the top and side pieces of that little egg carton and they are very easy to cut, plus you're going to end up throwing throwing the whole thing away anyhow.
 
Uncle Russ...

[45.70]

Tom A Hawk,

I shoot a flint .62cal trade gun and found it performs best with about 75gr 3f, over powder card, lubed wad, and then a prb.  My patches are never burned and at 50yds I'll normally keep about a 5in group, (my eyes are going).  As RussB said, if you haven't tried a powder card or lubed wad, you should give it a try.  I think you'll be surprised and like the results.  

V/R  Garry

[Buzzard]

In my smoothies, all patch burning went away when i started using 1/2 a lubed cushion wad between the powder and the prb. I do tend to use a larger ball and thinner patch combo. Also, i found this is not necessary with mild, target charges. Full power hunting loads do require the wad. Somewhere around 50gr-3fg seems to be the break point.