Short Patch!

[Rick Mulhern]

Kurt

All three are 1-40! The two bullets at left were run through a Fred Cornell swage die and taken down from .446" to .444" and patched to an OD of .4480". The bullet on the right is an as cast .446" without having gone through the .444 swage die! It wouldn't chamber with the as seen paper. I just used it beside the other two bullets to show the length of the patch as that length was used on the other two as shown bullets. I measured the length of the two at the left before firing but right now I can't recall what the length was HOWEVER.....I discovered a long time ago...even with 1-16 alloy that if patched bullets are .002-.003" less than the bore diameter that at upset they get shorter! Bullets patched to bore size or say .001" over with a tight fit do not get much shorter than the as cast length. I can recall a dissertation that KW did reference the use of the .446" bullet diameter a long time back over on the Shiloh board whereby he addressed the fact that larger diameter bullets were not affected as much as those of smaller diameter. Recently I have stopped running the as cast bullets through the swage die to reduce the OD and with the 1-40 alloy accuracy is excellent.

Lumpy

Those two bullets were shot into what could be called 'liquified gumbo'!!