Original paper patched bullet designs?

[Stephen Borud]

DT that was my 9 year old helping me out yesterday reload some Big 50 rounds. He’s a good wad seater Honestly I wrap and twist the tail into the cup base of this bullet because it’s how I set the mold up and that’s how these 50s were shot. A flat base bullet or a bullet that has a cup base but the paper is folded under the bullet without a tail has to be more accurate in my mind then a twisted tail paper patches bullet. My most accurate Shiloh shoots a flat base bullet. It really comes down to which way to want to go with your mold base. I’ll try and find a picture of a 50 1 3/4 with a 425 grain and 473 grain bullet for you.

SB

[Stephen Borud]

DT

This is a 50 1 3/4” loaded round with a 425 grain bullet out of the same mold the 473 comes from. It’s deadly on deer. I load 70 grains of Fg Powder a .025 card, 3/16th lube, .025 card then the bullet.

SB

[Distant Thunder]

I was going to post a picture of my rifle but I got lost in the process, not very computer savvy, sorry. A little help?


Stephen,

I thought that was more likely a helper or wad seater. Always good to have a young helper.

[Distant Thunder]

This is my .50-1 3/4" rifle, subject of this thread.    
Second effort.

[Don McDowell]

Nice

[Stephen Borud]

Nice rifle for sure.

[Distant Thunder]

SB,

When you mentioned be able to shoot several shots without wiping I figured there was a lube wad in there. I may give that sort of thing a try down the road a ways.
I definitely like the looks of that bullet.

I did hunt with this rifle years ago, but stopped using it when my eyes took a turn for the worse. I always used a 525-grain grease groove bullet cast at 30:1 or 40:1 and it worked very well on a buffalo, an antelope, and a whitetail buck and a lot of other smaller critters. I carried that rifle all over the northeast part of Wyoming for 3 or 4 years and had a lot of fun hunting and stalking. Many times I passed on the shot after much time spent getting in close because I had already accomplished the hard part and didn't really see the need to kill the critter to satisfy myself. These days I would probably take the shot because my days in the field hunting are numbered. I will probably hunt with it again when I feel I'm ready, but it will be with paper patched now.

DT

[Distant Thunder]

I had some time today to play with a couple of ideas for bullets to use in my .50-1 3/4". The one on the left is a scaled up version of the .40 caliber bullet I developed for my .40-65. That bullet shoots amazing well for a relatively short .40 caliber bullet, 1.250". I also scaled that design up to .45 caliber for a friend and it is shooting well in his .45-70. So I thought why not a .50 caliber model? Trying to keep the weight near 473 grains in a .50 caliber the length to caliber ratio is kind of short. So the nose had to be adjusted to not be more than half the length of the bullet which resulted in a secant ogive. Not that that is a bad thing. So I kept the OAL to 1 1/16".

The bullet on the right is the best I could come up with based on the info I got from Stephen Borud here. It would probably make the better hunting bullet. The 525 grain bullet I used for hunting with this rifle in the past was much more pointed and cast soft it was very effective on deer and antelope so I believe the round nose would work fine for hunting. Since I'm not really looking at hunting with this bullet I am leaning toward the round nose.

I doubt I'll have time in the next two weeks to cut a mold, though the blocks are ready now. It will be a base pour mold and therefore flat base, which I prefer anyway. I like the round nosed paper patched bullets I see in pictures of the original Sharps cartridges, but getting that configuration into a .50 caliber bullet only 1 1/16" long isn't as easy as I hoped.

I welcome your advise and suggestions. Thanks.

DT

Does anyone have some thought on either version? Or another suggestion I can

try?    

[Don McDowell]

Either one would likely hit like a sledge hammer on game. The one on the left might give a bit better results for gong bonging at longer range ?

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

I suppose I could hollow point the round nose to improve the hunting performance, but banging steel is more my goal. If hunting did enter into the picture I could always make a mold like the one on the right.
Any idea what kind of velocity a 473 grain bullet would have with say 75 to 80 grains of 2F pushing it? Could be a pretty good gong hammer! It needs to reach to 500 yards though. I think I've got a gong match coming up on August 5th. That would be a good test, but not much time to get a mold cut, load developed, and get some sight settings!

DT