Designing the 2-diameter paper patch bullet.

[Distant Thunder]

Don,

That's kind of what I'm wondering on this whole wet vs. dry thing, I know my wet patches were tighter than my dry patches even on my bore diameter straight sided bullets. I also know my scores with the dry patched bullets are much improved over what they were with wet patched bullets. So I wonder is a tighter patch what we really want or need? It's just a question, I don't have the answer.

Is it the dry patching or is it something else? I don't know. Could be my barrel is finally broke in or maybe I've just gotten better at this after 25 years of competition? Or maybe it's because I just stopped fiddling with all the variables and finally stuck with one load? Whatever it is you won't see me going back to wet patching while things are working as good as they did in 2018.

I am not trying to stir up any controversy over wet vs. dry, both work and I can't say for sure one is better than the other. I have won long range matches with both.


Just so you know why I'm believing that dry patching works best for me I'll relate the following.

I don't remember exactly when I started dry patching my bullets, but I could look it up. I've been doing it for paper matches for a few years and it was working so I stayed with it. My prone rifle is a Hepburn with a Brent Danielson .45-70 pp chamber, in it I shoot a bullet just like this one I made for Matt only it is a straight sided bore diameter design. I dry patch these. The rest of the load info is just specific to my rifle and not important here. I shoot 3-4 paper matches a year, mostly at Lodi, WI.

In 2017 a good friend invited me to get back into BPCR silhouette after I had been away for 4 years. I have always enjoyed silhouette but due to having to travel too far for my taste I had only shot one match a year for several years before stopping altogether. I thought about what rifle I would use to shoot silhouette with and my .40-65 was my choice. I started to work on loads with GG bullets and just couldn't get anything to work as well as I'd like.

I was having some success shooting ppb at long range and Arnie Seitz asked me about helping him develop a 2-diameter .40 caliber ppb for his long throated .40-65. I was happy to work with him on the project, but I also saw an opportunity to try the design in my long throated .40-65. Arnie designed a very nice elliptical bullet of high BC for his 16-twist barrel. It shoots very well for him and Bob Wood, but I knew it was too long for my 18-twist .40. So I took the 2-diameter design and shorten it to 1.250" OAL and beefed up the nose to maximize the weight in hopes of knocking over rams more effectively than if it were lighter. I gave up some BC to get knock down at 500 meters.

I rebuilt the rifle doing everything I could think of to help accuracy and improve the appearance. If you going to shoot poorly you might as well look good doing it and I need all the help I can get! I also put a scope on the rifle, but I had used a scope on my C. Sharps .45-70 for silhouette before with little change in my scores over iron sights, so I took it off.

It took me a year to get the final bullet design and in August of 2017 I debuted this 2-diameter bullet at Alma, MI. Usually I will shoot something the upper teens on the first day and mid 20s on the second day. With my loosely patched PPBs I shot a 26 on the first day, but I only hit 1 chicken. I am not a good chicken killer! Then in a bad turn of events I got food poisoning that hit me about 2 am Sunday morning and I was unable to even sit up without very bad results, needless to say I did not shoot on Sunday. A big disappointment after all the time I put into preparing for that one match. Shit happens!

In May of 2018 I return to Alma with the same bullet and load. Now I was a AA shooter going into that May weekend, so I do ok for an occasional silhouette shooter. That weekend I shot my first two master class scores (32 & 31) and won the two-day aggregate, 2-diameter PPB with loose patches and all! There were a lot of firsts for me that weekend and I have no doubt much of it was due to the PPB I was shooting. Some of it was that I hit 3 chickens each day.


Wanting that 3rd Master score I returned in August, but the Master score was not to be, I shot a 30 and a 28 to finish 2nd overall. I only hit 1 chicken on Sunday as I caved to the pressure of knowing I had to hit 3 or more. And the rams gave me trouble both days hitting only 8 each day. Missing a pig, I missed a pig!, on Saturday didn't help either. I did shoot two "good for me" scores and none of the missed critters could be laid on the bullet or patches, it was all on me. So still and all 2018 was my best ever silhouette year, August to August.

In paper matches at Lodi starting in September of 2017 shooting my loosely wrapped .45-70 PPBs I narrowly beat Mark Schuenke by 3 points and a few Xs to win the Fall Classic.

Then in May of 2018 I decided for the first time ever I'd shoot my .40-65, of course it would be with my new PPB and loose patches, in the NRA Regional Championship match to see if my short, blunt little .40s would hold up beyond the ram line. I had been using my Hepburn in past years for mid range as well as long range. I also decided to shoot with the scope. We had only 16 shooters, but 8 of them used PP bullets. I ended up with the highest aggregate score after two days, but because there were only 3 scope shooters that fact got kind of swept aside and the match went to the high iron sight shooter. That is the rule and I have no problem with it except to say that if there is more than one scope shooter some sort of trinket should be handed to the scope shooter with the highest score. This isn't for me, I don't like a scope for paper matches and do much better with irons, but some of the scope shooters are just trying to continue with shooting even with eyes that are not what they once were and a little recognition would be nice. We are all getting older!


Then in June last year we had the 2nd American Creedmoor Cup match held at Lodi. After day one I lead Mark by an X! After day two Mark had beaten me by 9 points. I struggled at 900 yards, again! Mark is one of the better shooters I know and anytime I am nipping at his heels I am happy. And I'm doing with it paper patch bullets so I win on style points!

We have had the Cup for two years now shooting it on Thursday and Friday, then shooting the Mid-states Regional Championship on Saturday and Sunday. Last year we had rain on Sunday and could not shoot, so right or wrong I won that match having had the high score at the end of day one. Mark finished second by only 3 points and a couple of Xs.

The Fall Classic was in September again last year and I won that over Cliff Gregg by 20 points with those same dry patched bullets in my Hepburn.

That is 5 1st place finishes and 2 second place starting in late 2017 through 2018. Why would I do anything other than dry patch?

2018 was without a doubt my best shooting year in my 26 years of BPCR. So, was it my PP bullets? I think so. Was it my dry patching? You can decide that for yourself, I've already decided for myself.

This got long, but history is important when deciding what is working for you and what isn't. Everybody's journey is different, this is mine.