First Taste of this years first deer

[54roundball]

I just had my first sample of this years first harvest. Some of the loin that had been marinated in montreal steak seasoning then cooked over charcoal on the grill. Man, you cant beat this Iowa corn fed deer. It was a button buck shot on the last day of early muzzleloader season here in Iowa. I was shooting my Lyman Great Plains 54. Loads was a lyman 533476 mini paper patched over 85 gr of 777 . the dropped in its tracks range was 95 yds.

[Adam Helmer]

54roundball,

Welcome to the Forum. Was your rifle caplock or flint? I hunt with both.

Would you explain how you "paper patch" that mini. Interesting way to load that Lyman bullet.

Again, welcome to this site.

Adam

[54roundball]

I dont know if i can really explain in enough detail on how to paper patch bullets. I learned how to from several articles written by Ross Seyfried the latest which is in the Dec 2002 issue of Handloader. I also had an article wrote by him on the same subject for Guns And Ammo in the 80s or 90s but Ive misplaced it. Basically I start out with my as cast #533476 slug which measures 0.533" coming from the mold I then wrap it with regular 20 Pound office paper which measures 0.004" thick.The patch I apply to the bullet goes around the bullet 2 times which gives you four thicknesses of the paper. But actually you get a little less than the 0.016" due to shrinkage. To find the length of the patch I go to the formula Pi= Circumference/ Diameter Thusly Circumference=Pi X Diameter. So for my bullet 0.533 X 3.14 X 2 ( 2 being there for going around the bullet 2 times)which equals 3.35" to convert the decimal amount .35 to a fraction multiply it by 32 which gives you 11.2 which I rounded to 11 which means 3.35" equals 3 11/32" which is the length of your patch. The patch is in the shape of a parallelogram. With the angles on the end being 60 degrees. After the patch is applied the bullet now measures around 0.547" a much better fit to my barrel which measures 0.550". On how to apply the patches to the bullets I would suggest you buy the back issue of this magazine . Possibly on Ebay or contact Wolfe Publishing.

[Swift]

Congrats! Nothing like fresh loin!

[Steverino]

Congratulations and welcome to HC!