enlarge the base band on the321 mould and it should work    art

A source for the alteration of the molds is Bill Loos  in Rochester NY. He is a very advanced collector and restorer of Schuetzen rifles, and he also does custom work on bullet molds. He has the fixtures and tooling.  He is one of the authors of the three volume Schuetzen books  also by Rowe.  If someone wants detailed contact info, send a PM.  WB

For decades I have used one or more 0,060" fiber wads under 20-1 lead alloy bullets to very effectively seal against blowby of powder gases when available bullets are a few thous too small to seal by them selves. So far standard diameters of commercially available fiber wads have been large enough.

Typically is death of leading, unless really rough bore.

I have also used this with 100+ year old guns that I did not have proper size and weight bullets for -- such as 0,315" 40-1 Pb-Sn alloy bullets in 0,320 bores

I learned this practice decades ago for use with old rifles with eroded throats and first 10-20 cm of bores, where remainder of bore and crown were in VG to excellent condition. Stopped leading and reduced group sizes to typical for such rifles with excellent bores.

Have also had good results with undersized pure Pb bullets over full case BP loads, also using at least one 0,060" fiber wad.

Grisen

Shoot soft bullets-30/1 or so and black powder. The bullets will bump up to fit the grooves and shoot OK. I have an import Sharps 45/70 with .462 groove diameter. I have shot the 500 gr Gov't bullet at .458 diameter with very good results.

Off to the the range   with some Fg.  Will report tonight.

USCRA,   I bought the .321 and the .323 from NOE, didn't think about the .325,  may be  a good option. 

Had some success today with  a Paul Jones  breech seated today. The most consistent cluster was with 4227 ( notice I didn't say group).   14 grains averaged  1440 ft/sec and gave a little leading,  I dropped down to around 1300 ft/sec and that  got rid of the leading.  All in all,  I think I could post a fair to middling offhand score with that rifle, with today's experiment. 

I tried some Fg for the first time ever.  35 grains gave almost a full case and I wasn't sure if i should pack it full to get 40gr in.  That gave me 912 ft/sec and the safest place to be was in front of the target. Bullets were all over the backer going in sideways.  And it was a mess and a lot of work, cleaning between each shot. 

In the .38-55,  I just used 14.7gr 4227 just to fire form the cases  to the rifle.  That gave me about 1000 ft/sec  and I'm not sure if I hit the  backer at all. 


My main goal was to get some fire formed cases for each rifle and that was a success.  I would have liked to spend more time with the .38 but the heat and humidity were oppressive and I had had enough.  I'll have 4  afternoons next week to tinker.   

If I  can get some fiber wads before I leave for the shoot next week, I'll give them a try.