Another VintageLead How To Article    -    Step-by-step instructions, with photos,  for hand making your own paper patched black powder rounds.

(Editor Note - Rusty has been doing this sort of thing for a while now, and not many folks can claim that. If you and your shooting buddies have ever struggled with paper patched bullets, this article will be of real value. No guesswork here, just solid technique from an experienced black powder shooter.)

 Not as hard as it sounds, and works better than some experts think, once the tricks are understood.  Here’s the technique that worked for me, and didn’t require a rolling-board. The why’s and what’s can wait.   If you’re reading this, the first question is HOW.

   Fig 1:  We’ll patch this bullet while lying in a hammock, so it will be clear that a patchboard is not needed.   

Don’t be put off by the length of this write-up.   We’re going into some detail here so you can learn from MY mistakes.  After the patching, we’ll tell how to eliminate “paper stamped” bullet base problems.  There’s a quick summary after that as a refresher for your use, then a Q&A/O session. The answers are partly opinions, hence the “O” in “A/O.”  

If you LIKE, hit the Summary first, then come back through the pictures, then read the patching technique details. We don’t stand on ceremony here. Hope it helps.

Three hundred’s like two hundred. Just harder.

Holes look 50% smaller, there’s another hundred yards of heat waves and mirage to deal with, and the wind drift can become obscene. Even seeing dust on the backstop is tough. It takes the bullet almost a second to arrive.  By the time it gets there, it’s like a sparrow in a storm. All it wants is a place to light out of the wind and catch its breath.

Wherever your back sight was set for 200, run it up about ¼ inch higher, or whatever that translates to on the scope you have. A quarter inch on a 32 inch sight radius is a 1/128 tangent. The angle for that is about 25 to 30 minutes higher than the 200 yard elevation.

After all your practice at shorter ranges, the toughest part is just knowing where your last shot went.  Solve that problem, and the rest is just fire discipline.

At 200 yards, spotting .22 holes becomes a challenge.  A "Shoot-n-See" or "Dirty Bird" type target is highly recommended.   Or, if you can make your own targets that spall off a layer around the bullet hole to reveal a contrasting underlayer about 3/8 inch across, go ahead.  I’ve tried spray-painting the slick side of freezer wrap with modest success, and some have used black-painted particle-board to good effect.

If you’re iron-sighting, here’s where it gets more interesting.  For a "typical" .22 rifle’s sight radius, the difference between 100 and 200 yards is around 1/8 inch of elevation or around 10 to 12 minutes higher for standard velocity ammo.  With the sights on the target, look through the center of the bore (easy with most single shots and bolt rifles,  not with autos).  If your bore line is about 12 feet above the target, you’re not too far off.

 The wind pretty much laid down just before sundown, and the wind flags are hanging from their rods like dead snakes. Even so, there’s no such thing as a zero wind with twenty- twos, and the heat-wave mirage shows it through the spotting scope.  But the heat waves simmered down from the jingly, frenzied boiling of the mid-afternoon.  They now rise in leisurely ripples, gently slanting upward, without malice. 
- Editor's Note -

The foot-wide, black-bull target looks tiny through the ring insert of the front sight. A speck on your windshield that small wouldn’t be worth hitting the wiper switch.  The sight picture looks good, though, well centered and crisp where it counts, the little ring of light ’round the bullseye in the front sight.  The rifle feels solid on the sandbags, solid on your shoulder and your cheekbone.  So tighten your trigger finger a bit and recheck everything again.