Designing the 2-diameter paper patch bullet.

[mherth]

Well obviously this thread has been just sitting here for the past 3 months, but there have bee some developments of interest with the DDPPB in .45 caliber.

Matt did some testing late winter, early spring when the weather was crap here in Wisconsin, which it is for shooting purposes pretty much from December through April. I have not heard from him in the past 6 weeks or so and I was disappointed to see he is not signed up for either of the two matches at Lodi next week. I don't know why that is, but I'm sure he has a reason. I hope all is well.

Probably the biggest development is that thanks to Arnie Seitz (beltfed) Buffalo Arms now lists the DDEPP bullet that he designed in their catalog and it should be a very good choice for anyone with a Shiloh Sharps .45 caliber rifle and their standard grease groove chamber or any other .45 with a similar chamber.

Arnie's design is very close to what I made for Matt and what I have been shooting in log range matches for the past several years though mine is a straight sided bore diameter bullet. The only thing I find fault with in the BACO offering is the overall length of 1.460", which I feel is about .020" to long for an 18:twist. The 1.460" puts the length right on the edge of what I would consider optimally stabilized in and 18-twist, but it should still work very well. The reason I feel that way about the length is that before last years shooting season my bullets were 1.460" long and I decided it was time to shorten it to 1.440" after thinking about it since the mold was cut several years earlier. At 1.440" long that bullet shot better than ever in some tricky head and tail winds and I had my best year to date shooting long range matches. I just feel that the shorter length is optimal for that design and gives it just enough more stability that when those winds are quartering the bullet holds up better. I know it a small difference but I'll take it. I lost the CUP match to Mark Schuenke by 9 points last year, that's 1.5 point on average in each relay. That's a small difference!

There are a couple of people I know that will be working with this BACO bullet this year and we should get an idea of how it works.

There will be at least 5 shooters using PPB at the State Championship at Lodi next week and I know 2 will be using DDPPB. When the smoke clears it will be interesting to see how the numbers look.

It looks like we may have to work around some change of rain and the winds could get a bit tricky at times, but that's Lodi always and that's what makes it so darn much fun to shoot there.

I will be there for both the CUP match on Thursday and Friday and also for the Championship on Saturday and Sunday. My ammo is all loaded and ready so it is what it is and what I will shoot. I did two things to my bullets so I would have something to worry about. First I recut the vent lines in the blocks because this mold has been altered so many times and the blocks were resurfaced a couple times that I pretty much lost my venting and last years bullets just weren't filling out well at all. Now they fill out fill out very well. The other thing I did was to tweak my alloy just a bit, which may have been a mistake. Between the two changes I gained about 5 grains in weight. That I did not know until after I had cast the bullets for the matches next week. How much weight increase is from what I don't know. I do know they are some very good looking bullets and that important. They are also very consistent in weight. I cast 250 bullets and they are all within 1.5 grains in weight. I had to toss one light bullet that was 1 grain under the low end of the acceptable spread. That's much better than the bullets from this mold were last year and last years bullets shot pretty well. The only way to know for sure is to shoot them and that's happening next week.

I'll be shooting the Championship with Arnie and Jeff Heeler, both will be shooting DDPPBs. Arnie will be shooting a .40 caliber I believe and Jeff with be shooting a .45. Should be interesting to how it goes.

If anyone is working with the BACO DDEPP I sure like to hear your results, good or bad.

So that is an update on the DDPPB going into the 2019 shooting season. The more information we share on this interesting design the better for all paper patchers and would be paper patchers. Good luck to all in 2019!

Jim, what do you consider a good bullet length for a 1 in 16 ROT IN 45-70?
Mike