Hi, everyone.  I've begun a project to experiment with breech seating a paper patched swaged bullet for my recently acquired Browning 1885 BPCR 45-70 (Thanks, TexasMac!)  I'm not interested in competition so the time involved doesn't matter to me.  I'll be shooting at 200 yds.

I'll be swaging my bullets in various weights and patching them dry with Seth Cole yellow, BACO onion skin and Bienfang parchment.  I don't know if my rifle will show a preference for one paper over the other but, hopefully, I will find out.

The pic shows a swaged 480 gr. lead bullet (.443) with 2 wraps of Bienfang paper.  It mics at .454.5".
The same bullet patched with BACO paper mics at .450" and seats easilly with my push seater.

I breech seated the .454.5" bullet with the homemade seater.  I was not able to completly seat the bullet with my push type seater and had to use a hammer with gentle taps to completely seat it.  I then chambered an empty case and the breech closed perfectly.  I removed the bullet using a 3/8" rod wrapped in duct tape to protect the bore.  The bullet nose is slightly mushroomed because of the rod impacting it when I knocked it out of the bore. 

I wanted to see if a patched bullet that is about .003" shy of groove diameter could be breech seated without tearing up the patch.  My chamber has an abrupt transition from the chamber to the rifling and I thought it might tear the patch.  As you can see, it does not.

I plan on using a duplex load of 7 gr of 4759 under a case full of Swiss 1.5 BP with a vegetable wad securing the powder.  By my calculations, the charged case will barely 'kiss' the base of the seated bullet.

I hope someone finds this as interesting as I do and will be abe to share experiences.

I have a Shiloh Sharps 45-70 that was ordered with a custom chamber for PP bullets.  The gentleman ordered it that way to use a PP bullet fitted to that specific chamber.  He worked in a machine shop from right out of HS.  45+ years.  He designed a PP bullet with a specific paper to shoot fixed ammunition with Black Powder.  It will shoot the load he gave me under 2 1/2" at 200 yards all day without cleaning.  It is also a genuine Elk killer.  And NO!, it is not for sale.

Rich

I'd be interested to hear you results with the bullet patched to .450".  I have wondered if a bullet patched to bore would bump up if breech seated. 

Thanks for sharing that, Gunlaker.

If all you’re going to do is breech seat, you might try the Chase Patch.

That would be one wrap of your Bienfang paper, with straight butted ends, rolled in a tube and seated into the breech seater.  The bullet is then put into the resultant paper tube.

The patched bullet is pushed into the leade with the seater, the loaded cartridge case put in and the rifle fired.  Cleaning between shots is necessary, and this method is too fragile to be loaded into a cartridge case and carried and handled.  It would be pretty cumbersome away from the bench, as well.

But D. F. L. Chase did some pretty impressive benchrest shooting with this method in the Good Old Days.

Well, as expected, Murphy's Law is still fully operative.  I had to remove a cartridge w/o firing it because of a misfire.  That resulted in spilled powder finding its way into the action.  I sprayed brake cleaner into the action but evidently did not get all the powder out because the misfires continued.  I'm waiting for a cupped tip punch to arrive before I can disassemble the action and clean it.
What I've learned so far:

• The bore gopher works very well but so does a wet patch followed by a dry one.
• Jacks breech seater also works very well.  A firm push is all it takes to seat a PP .457 bullet completely into the rifling.
• The abrupt transition from the end of my chamber to the rifling does not damage the paper patch.
• I need to find a wad material that will stay in place as spilled powder turns an otherwise enjoyable time into a frustrating time.
• A 405 g pure lead bullet is much more enjoyable to shoot that a 530g+ bullet.
• The 405g bullets impacted the target about 10" lower than the 530g bullets I had been firing.  (30 yds)
• 90 g of Swiss compressed 1/8" behind a 405g PP bullet gives me 1460 fps at the muzzle.
• A .180" gap between the veggie wad and the base of a pure lead breech seated PP bullet seems to have no negative consequences so far.

ETA on the punch is the 10th so I won't be shooting till mid-month.

Thanks, Premod.  I'll try necksizing a bit.  Don't know why I didn't think of that as it's an easy solution.  I also use the BACO compression plug in a Lyman M die body.

Grumpy, have you been able to chronograph your 500g load?

The breech seater I bought from Jack (forum member bpjack) is also a cam seater.  It has a projection that uses the rear of the breech bolt mortise for a stop to leverage the cam.

I owned a Pedersoli Rolling Block years ago (when you could pick one up for $500) but sold it.  I was really impressed with the simplicity of its action.  Is yours an original?