What about these patches?I

[No Powder]

I was wondering if anyone has ever used Bridgers Best patches. Is the weave similar to other patches, or is it a little tighter than most patches?

[Bigsmoke]

Yes, I have.  But I have also slept since I did.  So, no guarantee on how my rememberer might be working.

IIRC, the quality of the patch seemed pretty good, but I am not a thread counter.

I would say the patches were an a par with Ox Yoke, but that was the Ox Yoke before they sold.  I have had no dealings with them since then.  In other words, if I were given some, I would use them, but I wouldn't necessarily go begging for them or buying them.  I have probably a life supply on hand now.

John  (Bigsmoke)

[The Miner '49er]

I was wondering if anyone has ever used Bridgers Best patches. Is the weave similar to other patches, or is it a little tighter than most patches?

You might consider emailing them with your questions, but I would be surprised if very many people know the thread count of their patches. Even if a person did know that, and compared them by the specs, the proof is in the pudding.  If it were me, I'd ask for a few samples of the one or two you are most interested in and see how they do.

[No Powder]

Thanks guys. I appreciate the knowledge available if one only takes the time to ask. I decided a long time ago I wasn't going to be a thread counter. But I've held patches up to a light and have seen a lot of difference in the amount of light passing through one opposed to another. I think The Gun Works sells them, so I believe perhaps I'll have to give them a call.

[Bigsmoke]

Another thought to consider about patches.
This probably would not be carte blanche for all guns and all patches and all people- BUT

When I was playing around with the big bore rifles, I needed a patch for my 8 bore, that was about .820 ball diameter.  I looked at the ball and I looked at a regular 2 1/4" cleaning patch.  I said that'll fit and I gave it a try with 300 grains Fg GOEX.  It worked great, never had a problem and using an 8 ga lubed cushion wad, there was no disintegration, And it shot accurately.

Would all people consider using a cleaning patch?  I sure never had and frankly I was surprised at the good results.

John

[Winter Hawk]

When you consider that the original Traditional Muzzleloaders (I just had to get our name in there!) probably did NOT have prepared patches which were measured with a micrometer, by thread count etc. but used whatever cloth was left over after it wasn't fit for its original use, I think that we sometimes out think ourselves.  Cloth was hand woven, the threads were hand spun so whatever worked was what was used.  Perhaps that is why my shooting scores aren't the same as No Powder's! 

The only way to find out how the commercial patch works in your gun is to get some and shoot it.  If it works well, stockpile more for future use; if not, try something else.

My $0.02 opinion, and worth every penny of it! 

~Kees~

[RobD]

I've never bothered with commercial ball patches.  Mostly cause I try to DIY as much as possible.  I use pillow ticking, either red or blue (just got 10 yards of red from JoAnn's Fabrics - going out of business sale).  For thickness, red mic's at about .015" and blue at about .018". 

When a .440 or .530 ball's red stripe patch is thickly lubed with Gato Feo #1 it takes a good fist smack on a knife handle for me to get the patched ball down past the muzzle.  The rest of the push down to the chamber always goes easy peasy, no wipe of any kind between shots.  Accuracy is as good as what the gun's operator can do with sight alignment and trigger push. 

GF#1 is a blend (by weight) of 1 part mutton tallow, 1 part paraffin food grade canning wax, 1/2 part filtered beeswax.  A solidified milk carton of this lube will cut easily with a knife, almost like slicing through a barely room temperature stick of butter. Patch strips or cut square patches are well saturated with the 160* melted lube, pulled out of the jar with long tweezers, forceps, or tongs, excess dripping lube is drained back into the jar, and it cools down to solidify in literally a few minutes.  The patch cloth weave is totally covered with lube, and this is why no between shot cleaning is needed. 

I'm gonna try a classic patch lube formula, see if it's as good as GF#1 - filtered beeswax and extra virgin olive oil.  I dunno the percentage of each yet, but I want to get it at least close to GF#1 if possible.  Mutton tallow is getting hard to find, and when found it's no longer reasonably priced.

[No Powder]

When I bought my first flintlock, I didn't know much about them. So I asked the sport shop owner, where I bought the gun, if he would recommend some of the other items to shoot it. He gave me a bag of patches which I thought were shooting patches. They were made by Hoppe's, and I used them as shooting patches. They worked fine. Some time later I learned they were cleaning patches. So John, I see what you mean. I guess as long as they're cotton and the weave is strong enough, they're work just fine.
And Kees, I'm always looking for your $0.02 worth.

[RobD]

When you consider that the original Traditional Muzzleloaders (I just had to get our name in there!) probably did NOT have prepared patches which were measured with a micrometer, by thread count etc. but used whatever cloth   ..........

~Kees~

I dunno for sure, but I think back at least in the 18th century that cloth was a dear and costly item, not cheap or readily available, and as mentioned above its weave thread denier and material thickness probably varied a huge amount.  Then consider that the most prevalent and ubiquitous firearm was the fowler/smoothbore/musket where I'd think that for the most part pure lead balls (or shot, or pebbles, or rocks) were free loaded down the tube with no patching, and maybe even at times no wad.  Patching/wad used most was probably more on the order of tow, lichen, moss, leaves, wasp/hornet "paper", critter skin, etc.

[RobD]

When you consider that the original Traditional Muzzleloaders (I just had to get our name in there!) probably did NOT have prepared patches which were measured with a micrometer, by thread count etc. but used whatever cloth   ..........

~Kees~

I dunno for sure, but I think back at least in the 18th century that cloth was a dear and costly item, not cheap or readily available, and as mentioned above its weave thread denier and material thickness probably varied a huge amount.  Then consider that the most prevalent and ubiquitous firearm was the fowler/smoothbore/musket where I'd think that for the most part pure lead balls (or shot, or pebbles, or rocks) were free loaded down the tube with no patching, and maybe even at times no wad.  Patching/wad used most was probably more on the order of tow, lichen, cotton plant buds, moss, leaves, wasp/hornet nest "paper", critter skin, etc.

[KDubs]

Goat skin patch.....
Kevin

[Nessmuk]

Cat tail Fluff makes a good wadding material and a great ball of flame if you don't lube it! 

[The Miner '49er]

I can believe that! How could you ever get a cat to hold still long enough to lube it's tail? 

[Nessmuk]

dang it!! I knew it was Cattail!  Damn autocorrect!

[The Miner '49er]

Nessmuk, I'm glad you're a good sport  , and I can't agree more with that damnation  . The combination of auto spelling correct plus insertion of words we never typed has created a real disaster online. What's even worse, and I am noticing this happening with greater frequency, is that when we misspell a word the possible choices that the computer offers often don't include words related to shooting. An example is that I often incorrectly type black piwder (maybe my fingers are too fat) and the suggestions don't include powder. No matter how many times I proofread before posting I never catch all the errors. For me it's edit, edit, edit. I'm not looking forward to the AI world. Maybe that's why we're attracted to the old traditional shooting ways.