In answer to a couple of previous questions I do put a thin paper wad in the case over the flash hole, also I wipe the rifle between shots, one damp patch using both sides followed by one pass with a dry patch. The dry patch then is damped with a mixture of machine cutting oil and water and used for the next wipe. I have contacted a guy in the states who makes a sizing die that will reduce the .446" BACO bullet to .444", at the moment he seems to believe that exporting such a die to Australia may be against US regulations and is looking into it. Lee Precision used to make custom bullet sizing dies but at the moment they are not doing any owing to heavy workloads. I have two of the Lee sizing dies for use with my GG bullets and Lee didn't seem to have a problem shipping them to me. Perhaps the rules have changed.
As for my bench rest experience I have been shooting for 55 years and while I'm ashamed to admit it I started by using smokeless till, I saw the light. Nearly all of my shooting now is done off the bench. I'm lucky in that I live four minutes from an excellent rifle range and being retired get to shoot four or five days a week weather permitting. As the weather here is near perfect most of the time that adds up to a lot of shooting. To give you and idea of our winter in Canberra minus 9c was the coldest winter day ever recorded, and Canberra has the coldest winters of any capital city in Australia.
Mike.

Bore diameter bullets can shoot very well with black powder.  As RSW says, they'll bump up to groove diameter.  I recently bought an 1885 Winchester in 38-50 Remington Hepburn and with zero load development it put 8 shots at 200m into 1.4" of vertical and 2.25" horizontal.  If it weren't for one wide flyer, it would have been 1.8" wide.  

Mick, I'd seriously consider getting a roll or two of Selth Cole 8 lb paper.  I was advised to use that paper by Kenny Wasserburger and I've never looked back after that.  It will put that bullet at exactly the diameter you want.  You can order the paper over the Internet.  They list it as sketch paper and their number for it is 55W.

When I first got into paper patching I went through several weeks of terrible accuracy.  Dean Becker (powderburner on the Shiloh site) advised me to change my wad stack to a fibre wad, 1/8th inch lube cookie, and another fibre wad.   Seat the BACO bullet no more than .125" in the case.  After making that switch it was like night and day.  I know that most guys will say that lube cookies should not be used when searching of maximum accuracy with paper patched loads.  Perhaps this is so, but in chambers designed for grease groove bullets it works very well.  There are a number of folks who shoot quite well this way.  Maybe consider signing up on the Historic Shooting Forums and spend some time talking to Kurt, Kenny, Rick Mulhern, and Don.  They have. Lot of experience with this stuff.  I've learned a lot from them.

Chris.

Mick B wrote on Mar 3^rd, 2014 at 8:33pm:


There seem to be a number of places on the Internet that sell it.  I bought my first rolls on EBay and then a few more from an Internet supplier in the USA.  I'm in Canada so know your pain when it comes to importing stuff.

Here is a link to one supplier.  
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Edit: be careful, the one you want is the white 55w, not any of the others, although Rick Mulhern posted bout good results with the even thinner yellow paper.

The paper is a bit more fragile than the 9lb paper that many use so you have to be careful not to tear it when wrapping, but it does work well.

Chris.

Ordered the Seth Cole paper and also signed on to the historic arms site where there was an interesting thread going on paper patching. Seems like I'm not  the only one interested in trying it out.
Thanks for all the info.
Mike.

MickB
I suggest you consider try a bullet alloy a bit harder than pure lead. 1:20 (tin:lead) is a good place to start and is a lot less subject to nose slumping when fired. Pure lead is too putty-like by comparison and tends to have considerable nose slumping unless using a very short, blunt nose bullet.
Back a couple of years ago, Dan T posted his findings on bullet nose slump using various alloys and firing into a soft snow bank which allowed bullets to be recovered virtually undamaged by impact. The comparisons of nose slump of the various alloys tested was dramatic.

Thanks for all the info, I have plenty of 20-1 alloy as it's what I use in all my bullets for the 45/70, 45/90 and the 38/56. My reason for using pure lead with the PP bullet was because with a diameter of .451" I thought it might be a big ask for the bullet to bump up to a groove diameter of .458". 
At the moment I'm on a pretty steep learning curve concerning paper patching, when the new paper arrives and also the sizing die I can really get stuck into it properly.
Mike.

Mike,

Just take your calipers to any paper supply shop and start measuring the papers around.  Specialist shops by preference, and I'm pretty sure you will be able to find something decent without paying silly prices for shipping...