I Have No Balls
#1
Thread Starter
Boone & Crockett
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 10,918
Likes: 1
From: River Ridge, LA (Suburb of New Orleans)
I've got the hots real bad to shoot my recently acquired .32 caliber Pedersoli Frontier.

But there's not a .310 lead ball to be had anywhere in this area, and my Internet order won't arrive before the weekend. Bummer!!!
Then I got to thinking about those .312 caliber 90-grain Hornady lead semi-wadcutters I use for target loads in my .32 H&R Mag revolver.


So I dug the box out of the gun closet and tried one in the bore. It was "loosey-goosey". Then I got to thinking about Idahoron's and Zonie's posts on paper patched bullets, and decided to give it a try.
I begged an old dress pattern from my wife.

After playing around with dimensions for the paper strip, I arrived at strips that are 1/2 inch wide and 4 & 1/2 inches long. I pretty much followed Ron's instructions, except I didn't cut the end of the strips on an angle. That didn't seem to matter with the thin paper I was using.
I fumbled the first few I tried to assemble, just trying to get the right amount of moisture and tension (big fingers/little bullets, and all that). But eventually got the technique down pretty well. They came out nice.

The patching brought the bullet diameter up from .312 to .322, and they fit just perfectly in the bore.

I don't know if this is going to work or how they may shoot out of the gun's 1:48 twist, but I'll be finding out this weekend. Keep your eyes peeled for a shooting report Sunday night or Monday.

But there's not a .310 lead ball to be had anywhere in this area, and my Internet order won't arrive before the weekend. Bummer!!!
Then I got to thinking about those .312 caliber 90-grain Hornady lead semi-wadcutters I use for target loads in my .32 H&R Mag revolver.


So I dug the box out of the gun closet and tried one in the bore. It was "loosey-goosey". Then I got to thinking about Idahoron's and Zonie's posts on paper patched bullets, and decided to give it a try.
I begged an old dress pattern from my wife.

After playing around with dimensions for the paper strip, I arrived at strips that are 1/2 inch wide and 4 & 1/2 inches long. I pretty much followed Ron's instructions, except I didn't cut the end of the strips on an angle. That didn't seem to matter with the thin paper I was using.
I fumbled the first few I tried to assemble, just trying to get the right amount of moisture and tension (big fingers/little bullets, and all that). But eventually got the technique down pretty well. They came out nice.

The patching brought the bullet diameter up from .312 to .322, and they fit just perfectly in the bore.

I don't know if this is going to work or how they may shoot out of the gun's 1:48 twist, but I'll be finding out this weekend. Keep your eyes peeled for a shooting report Sunday night or Monday.
Last edited by Semisane; 09-23-2010 at 09:52 PM.
#7
Thread Starter
Boone & Crockett
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 10,918
Likes: 1
From: River Ridge, LA (Suburb of New Orleans)
Semi, I found "0" buckshot to work quit well.
I just checked, and "0" buck is listed as .30 diameter. It's hard to get an accurate bore measurement on this small barrel without a plug. But it seems to be pretty close to .32 land to land, with fairly shallow grooves somewhere between .010 and .015.
So a .30 ball with .018 or .020 patches should do. Or does a thick patch like that "bunch up" in a small bore?



