Here's a few levers

[Dan]

Don, I understand your concern over feed damage to the patch but it may be unwarranted. On one part, if you look at the bullet used in the .45-70 you'll note two things about it that essentially made that a non-issue. 1) The bullet has a small shoulder which serves as a break point reference for the forward limit of patch placement. 2) A close look at the loaded round reveals a very narrow sliver of paper visible just above the case mouth. In essence, if there is damage to the patch it will be so small as to be inconsequential. That gun and load combination will shoot sub MOA at 100 yards with a scope. It does nearly as well with a tang sight.

The .44 Mag PP I work with is shot with a Ruger 77/44. It has a relatively smooth feed ramp albeit brief. The one time I've experienced leading over the course of 1,500 rounds or so, resulted from a roll crimp rather than the typical taper crimp die I use. Roll crimps are bad, but you knew that. I didn't at the time.

Given the use of more conventional bullets the strategy I would/will employ is to minimize patch damage by seating depth, smoothing of friction contact components in the load cycle, or both.

A minor aside: My experience, thin as it is, says that every gun is it's own law. My .44 will blow skirts above 1,250 fps when using cup based bullets. It is fairly consistent with flat base bullets up to about 1,450 fps. If I employ a card wad over powder and use a short tucked base on a FB bullet, it rocks. (Lil Gun powder, LP primers)

On the other hand, my friend with the .45-70 uses cup based bullets with twisted tail patches (trimmed) , no card wad and had no problems from the very beginning. He was of the opinion that the loads around 1800 fps were a little crisp in recoil but I did not find them the least objectionable...at the time. Would probably sing a different tune today. I think his preferred load runs around 1650-1700 fps. (Rx7) Tried my best to get him to try BP but he never did so far as I know.