After the lackluster results yesterday with the 50's I took the .54 out for a shoot. I had an old shirt hanging in the closet and thought to myself. Hmmmm patches.....

So I cut a couple strips off it and got the bear grease out of the freezer. I lubed up the material and headed for the pit.

The patch .014/ ball .535 combiination loaded easily.
Set up a target at 30 yds and fired my first shot from a clean barrel. I didn't even swab the oil out of it.



Happy with those results I moved the target out to 50 yds let another 5 shots go.



This is looking promising.

The patches survived but I don't think they will take any more powder. The white patch was a cleaning patch that I ran down after I was done shooting. I did not swab at all today. There was hardly any fouling. I think I'm going to like this bear grease thing.



HA

That is some great shooting.

Have you ever tried Levi pants as a patch? I have some very worn Levi pants that refuse to take another patch job, so I decided to see if they would be patch material or clean patch use. I just wondered if I were wasting my time.

I have a bunch of patches made out of old Levi's ready to go for the next range trip with my .54 caliber side lock. I'm interested to see how they work with a .530 cal. round ball.

I'd say your .54 likes a high fat diet!

You know, even though I'm partial to spit-patching I do swab w/bore butter( I know,I know) after cleaning; that first shot leaves very little residue. Your patches look very clean.

Just the other day I was at a fabric store purchasing patch material & had denim on my mind but it seemed real thick, well beyond ticking, so I passed.

Now, speaking of patch thickness, & not to hijack HA, but the CVA Plainsman I just picked up has me wondering. A .50 ball does not roll down the barrel bare, has me wondering about patch material. The bore is clean and new.

I've never tried blue jeans as a patch before. As a cleaning patch they should be fine. I guess as a shooting patch would depend on what they "mike" out too? Then matching a ball to it.

3seasons, I think it likes the fat too. If I was to compare the bear grease to the wonder lube patches that I have. I'm convinced that there was more fouling left in my barrel with the wonder lube patches. Is that CVA a .45 ???

HA

HA I read years ago that in the days before petroleum products, bear grease was one of the most prized patch lubricants on the frontier. Your experiment seems to prove why. Good accuracy and easy clean up.

May be something to it Dutch. I don't recall such an easy clean up. I'll work with it until my grease runs out or the fall bear season opens up. Whichever comes first.

HA

That's pretty darn good. I am just wondering how much better it would have been had you swabbed. And maybe used .018" pillow ticking for patch (which would be just a tad tighter).
I would be willing to bet that all those balls would be touching or very close.

I have some .018 blue stripe pillow tick that will fill that bill. I'm all done until next weekend. Work is always getting in the way oof fun.

HA

That would be a tight fit! No, it's .50.
Something I discovered-last year I'd purchsed a box of Remington .490 round balls, gold in color. Well, these balls did not shoot well out of my TC hawken at all, very poor groupings, fliers,etc. Reverting to Hornady .490 solved that.
These same Remingtons did not roll down the plainsman barrel, while the Hornady(just stocked up) do so easily. Clearly the R's are beyond .490 ( or the Hornady are under).
So, two things I've demonstrated these past few months: percussion caps can & do make a surprising difference, round balls of the "same" size change things as well.
Now that you've got your lube & patches down, the other variables should raise their heads!