Heavy Seating pressure VS light

80gr Gearhart-owen 2fg, .020 patch and Over the powder patch lubed with Bear Paws patch lube, .530 round ball. 50 yards
These were my final shots of the day. It exceeded 20 shots, never swabbing the bore.
3 shots toward the center Hard Seating.
3 shots toward bottom. Gentle, no heavy compression.
Next target with 3 more shots.... 70gr Olde eynsford 1.5fg
I think this 54cal Traditions St.louis Hawken likes the ball seated gently on top.
A lot more to do. Today was just an experiment with the over the powder patch. Just happened to run into something else.

I have that but it's more geared for conical. There's really no book dedicated to the patched round ball shooter.

True Johnathan, however the book stresses consistency in all aspects of rifle shooting and loading procedures to obtain the most accurate and repeatable results for the rifle being used. Rifles are like ladies, finicky and often unpredictable. Depending on the day and which way the wind is blowing.

Was thinking more about this. I wonder what the velocity was and the standard deviation of each string of loading tests that were shot in your testing. Look forward for more testing results.

One of these days, I will chronograph and see what the difference shows up as.

Looking forward for your results. Were you loading using your kabooty to establish the seating pressure?

uffda wrote:Looking forward for your results. Were you loading using your kabooty to establish the seating pressure?

No, my normal range rod.

I've never been a "bouncer" just a seater. I seat by feel and stop when I feel that slight, initial crunch. I try not to go beyond that and it's rare I change my approach. I don't get to shoot much at all now and just have to make the most of it.

Between old eyesight and a bit of the tremors I can't begin to shoot as well as I once did. Unfortunately that makes any testing of lubes, patches, powders and loading practices a waste of time in my case. On occasion I'm like the blind squirrel who finds the nut but in most cases I'm the nut.

I found Roberts' book 30+ years ago in the Ketchikan library, was tempted to take it home and "lose" it so I would only be charged for the new price. I successfully resisted the temptation, though. I now have the reprint edition, much smaller than the original. What struck me was his being adamantly opposed to bouncing the rod on the projectile. Now as Jonathon said, he was concentrating on elongated bullets, loaded using false muzzles which one would want to make sure there was no distortion of any kind which throwing the RR down on the bullet could give. At the same time I understand the reasoning behind bouncing the rod, that once it bounces you have maximum compression on the powder. However, I just shove the ball down until I have no resistance and call it good.

~WH~