Brodie
posted this
03 February 2017
Parker Hale 1200;
Let me give you a quick run down on paper patching.
1. Wrap a ribbon of your paper (tracing paper, computer paper, 25% cotton content paper) around the bearing surfaces of the bullet, and mark the place where the SECOND wrap meets the start. This is your paper length.
2. If your paper comes in 81/2” X11” lengths (or longer) cut your strips across the bottom (8.5” long). This gives you a little more stretch to the paper.
3. Using the first strip of paper you marked cut your strips to length with about a 30degree angle on each end. Cut so that the piece of paper looks like a parallelogram.
4. You can either cut your patches with a paper cutter, scissors, or hobby knife. If you want to make a template old Venetian blind material works well as does sheet brass or Aluminum. But, do not make the template until you have checked and adjusted the patch for length.
5. Lay the wet patch on your patching board (I use my paper cutter) with about 1/4 to 1/3 hanging over the edge.
6. lay the bullet with point to the right on the paper leaving enough room at the bottom to twist the excess into a tail. Be careful not to twist too hard as this is where it is easiest to tear the paper.
6. Lay the tail of the patch over the bullet. It should wrap around the bullet without folding. Place you finger on the patch and roll the bullet until the patch completely cover the projectile with two wraps.
7. It is important that the two ends of the patch meet. That they not overlap, and that they but up against one another.\
8. Gently twist the excess patching paper so that it forms a little pig tail.
9. Stand patched bullet on tail to dry over night.
Personally I size my bullet cores to .001 to .003” over BORE diameter, and patch to .oo1” to .002” over groove diameter. However I have found better accuracy in rifles with larger chambers or throats if I size and patch the core so that it is a snug fit into a fired and un-sized case neck.
All bearing surfaces of the bullet must be covered with paper.
For smokeless loads: Bore rider bullet designs are the hardest to get to shoot well. Patch to just beyond the ogive. I lube my bullets with Johnsons Paste Wax or just good old Turtle Wax. Just smear a little on with your fingers. If you size the patched bullet do so in a push through sizer ie. Lee type or the new NOE.
For loads I use the starting load for the same approximate weight jacketed bullet, and slower fine grained powders seem to work better. You can easily achieve jacketed velocities with these things, and the cloud of paper fluff when you pull the trigger is a lot of fun too.
Brodie