I know this has been re-hashed in past..but what are your opinions of any if at all bore wear in shooting paper-patch in an original .40 Ballard?  My only experience with p.p. is with the .22 Hornet & .222 Rem.  The Hornet has a C.M. Shillen brl. that I paid extra for hand-lapping.  I spent 1 1/2 shooting seasons shooting nothing but p.p. bullets thru this rifle..I can tell by the shine and ease of cleaning that this bore is alot smoother now.  I doubt with my time restraints I would even fire close to 200 rounds a year if that much thru the original...and this would probably be with Swiss 1 1/2.  Is bore wear from patched bullets a concern in the old soft steel?

I'm afraid I must disagree with Don, in my opinion a paper patch should never be lubed. The idea is that the patch on exiting the barrel is shed immediately so as not to cause possible irregularities in flight, and anything that may cause the patch to stay on the bullet should be avoided at all costs. During the 60's, 70's and 80's I did a considerable amount of BP shooting with rifles ranging from .577/450 up to .577 BP Express. All my bullets were PP and none of the patches were lubricated after experiments by myself and like minded individuals at my gun club proved to us at least, that lubing the patch caused flyers even at 100 yards never mind at longer distances. At the end of shooting we would repair to the backstops and dig out  as many bullets as we could find to examine them and it was surprising just how many had the patches wholly or partially attached.

Bullet design is important, I have seen GG bullets with the grooves either lubed or unlubed used with paper patches, they were not very successful at all. If you are going to shoot PP bullets then you require a bullet specifically made for the job. I.e. bore dia., and smooth sides with no grooves. 

Also the rifling has to be correct especially for long range shooting. The Sharps Rifle Company for instance made their target rifles with grooves only 2 to 3 thousandths of an inch deep whilst their general use rifles were rifled to a depth of 5 to 6 thousandths of an inch. The same company advocated the use of lubrication cookies beneath the bullet. These consisted of a card disc a lube cookie and another card disc, the idea being to keep the grease away from the PP bullet.

In over fifty and more years of shooting I have examined hundreds of PP bullets from various manufacturer's and countries. Only once have I come across a bullet with any form of lubrication and that appeared to be a wax coating applied to the patch. I've never seen a commercial 
PP bullet with a twisted paper tail on it either.

Harry.

Harry: Is not the wax coating you found a lube? I have examined many loaded pp cartridges ans most seem to have that wax/lube coating....
   Don

There are some interesting things that can be done by different types of paper.  Many years ago Bill Ballard in Billings, Montana, told me that one of the best ways to lap a bore was to use bullets patched with draftsman type tracing paper.  That stuff is slightly abrasive and will polish your bore very nicely.  As I recall I was working with a pitted 50-90 barrel on a Sharps at the time and he had made me up some brass.

George
Salmon, Idaho

Tried that one too in the beginning - lapping a bore shooting PP bullets.  Failed miserably, the bore stayed as rough as it had been, just tore the paper to shreds and caused a lot of leading.
I finally had to use fire lapping to get the bore smooth enough to shoot PP.
What PP will do is remove lots of fouling from your barrel (residual leading,...), anything above the bore surface as long as it is not too rough/hard.- which is good IMO.  And which explains the shine.

This from someone who actually shoots the things....