50/70 bullets

[Mike]

JB, I've had no paper ring problems with my .50/70 while using the tapered KAL bullet but I have had those problems with the bullet from the Accurate mold, which are also tapered. I really don't know what the answer to that is. But lately I haven't had paper rings from either of them. I'm using the 9 pound paper available from Buffalo Arms.
But for now I'm concentrating on the greasers and I'll try them at 200 yards on Wednesday. A report shall follow. Shoot sharp, Mike

[bobw]

I believe paper rings are soul providence of those who insist on trimming their brass to maintain uniformity of length. Never ever do this, fireform the brass necksize enuf to hold your bullet stop right there. When you continually fl size you brass it grows and workhardens to a point where you need to trim and anneal like the target gamers do all the time. 140 years a go they did not haul around trimmers, annealers, compression dies and stuff like that to load good ammo. You absolutely cannot find a reference to any of this behavior from the buffalo hunters to the Creedmoor shooters. Why is that ? BOBW

[Mike]

I haven't had a paper ring for a while now, you might be quite right.

[Kurt]

Bob, 140 years ago rifles didn't have that 45 degree chamber end either like they do now. Every rifle I have will make a ring with just about with each shot fired. It does not make any difference if the case is short or tight.
You might not feel them when inserting a cartridge, but just push a rod through from the muzzle with a loose patch and look at it when the patch clears the breach.
Take a look at the top one. It has more then one ring sandwiched together and my fired cases are .005" short of the chamber end to allow for flexing and spring back as the bullet releases from the case.
Ten shots fired ten rings.

[J.B.]

This has been my experience as well Kurt but I've barely touched on pp as you have. I do like to have cases that run the full chamber length but this seems impossible with commercial cases unless one buys the larger size and trims back. At the cost of brass I'm reluctant to trim back 50/90 cases to suit. As you said though , I've found as long as I'm aware there may be paper rings, I allow for it and of course wiping removes the variable anyway. The 50's just dont seem to be as fussy as the smaller cartridges ..or so it seems. The RMC cases I obtained with thicker necks, didnt produce the rings but then they were trimmed to exact chamber length and at .016" thick at the necks...didnt allow the paper anywhere to go but forward with the bullet. There was no guillotine action happening on transition. Knowing what I do now I probably would have asked for a shallower chamber end but it still shoots better than I can hold. ... Actually they all do

[Kurt]

Most of the time you won even notice the paper rings until you have a cartridge that is tough to seat and then it might get passed off as powder fouling.
Paper rings as well as lead rings are there. Lead rings you can more or less control better from not happening using a GG bullet as well as cutting down lead smears from starting at the 45 degree chamber end that get smeared up into the throat if you place the lube groove of the bullet partially ahead of the case mouth then the void between the case mouth gets filled with lube as the bullet moves forward. I found this greatly reduces the lead smeared throat. But then again if you have a hard bullet with a poor wad base and slightly undersized bullet is seated off the lands then the gas cuts will do the dirty work.
I have a lot of hard recovered bullets in my box that look like nice have been nibbling at the base.
That 45 degree transition at the end of the chamber is good for smokeless powder and jacketed bullets but not for lead bullets, PP or GG.
The .22 rimfire is the only chamber that has not changed over time and those chamber ends range from 1 degree to 3 degrees.

Kurt

[Kurt]

Here is what a paper ring will do to a bullet.
This day I was testing what short cases do to a PP bullet. I trimmed a couple cases .100" short and I wanted to see just how much a bullet moves before they fully obdurate. This particular bullet was patched to groove diameter and seated tight on the lands.

[Don McDowell]

I . You absolutely cannot find a reference to any of this behavior from the buffalo hunters to the Creedmoor shooters. Why is that ? BOBW

Actually most of the Creedmoor shooters and a bunch of the buffalo hunters didn't reload any ammunition, they shot all factory stuff.
In Perry's book he says that if you choose to reload your ammunition throw the cases away after the second firing, as they will split, separate and other wise create poor scores.
Fruend came up with his improved sharps action that cammed the cases in, due to having got tired of trying to shove reloaded cases in the chamber and having them go off in his face...The sizing tools of the day wouldn't reliably size the cases down enough.

[bruce moulds]

bob,
not all target shooters are gamers.
with regards sizing and trimming, it seems that the bisonators might have sized and the creedmoor guys mostly did not.
don is probably right about annealing and trimming. the cases did not last long enough to need it.
even using stronger powder than 1f was not recommended, as it was harder on cases.
the powdwer that seems to respond to compression most is goex. perhaps the powders of the day were more like swiss.
don,
you might be right about creedmoor shooters using factory ammo, and if they did it would have been more in the earlier days.
most of what you read is about loading their own ammo, as they had more control over paper, alloys, powder charges, etc.
by the time they were breech seating, factory ammo would have been useless.
when breech seating, there is no need to compress, just droptube.
keep safe,
bruce.

[Don McDowell]

Bruce there's no doubt that some Creedmoor shooters did reload, but they most likely did so starting with factory fresh brass.
I might be wrong , but apparently Tollefson ordered the ammunition for his guns from the Sharps factory.
Billy Dixon at Adobe Walls bought the only available rifle , a round barreled 44 and a CASE of ammunition, the afternoon before that famed fight broke out.
Roberts alludes to the sheer cost of shooting Creedmoor in his Schuetzen rifle book, when he said that Schuetzen became popular as a person only needed 4 cases to be able to compete, vs the huge amount of ammunition needed in the Creedmoor events.
As for powders, there were many variations available. The government powder was much like regular goex today, the rifle powders something along the line of Swiss and Olde Eynsford, and then there were the shotgun powders that were said to be unsuitable for use in cartridge rifles.
Hazard powder co alone offered, Kentucky Rifle, in 5 sizes, Duck shooting in 6 sizes, Trap in 4 sizes, and Electric in 6 sizes, plus another go round of mining and blasting powders...