To cut the patches, I have a traditional brass cutting pattern that I bought somewhere (Buffalo Arms or Montana Precision Swaging has them). They work fine, but cutting all four sides of the patch one at a time with the pattern gets old real fast. Instead, I've found that the best way to cut patches is to use a steel or brass rule that is as wide as your patches need to be from top (bullet tip) to bottom (under the base). Finding such a rule is the hardest part, but once

you've got one, you're set (check out the miscellaneous brass pieces sold in many hobby shops). I've described how to find the proper patch dimensions in the section above, but for a 500-525 gr bullet, a rule that is about 1" wide is perfect. Lay down 5-6 sheets of 8.5 by 11" paper on a cutting board, and trim across the width of the paper from left to right with a razor, pocket knife, Exacto knife, whatever. In about 2 minutes, you can have 50-60 strips of paper 8.5" long and about an inch long in my case from those sheets.

Then lay your typical cutting pattern over a stack of the strips (~10-12 works for me), even up the base of your cutting pattern and one edge of the stack of strips against the steel rule, then cut the diagonals along the left and right edges of the cutting pattern. I get two patches for a .45 from each 8.5" strip, plus some waste. In maybe 10-15 minutes, I can produce 250 or so patches, all while watching Monday Night Football too.

I've tried the guillotine paper cutter, and I definitely ain't good enough. There may be better cutters than the one I have, but I don't need anything faster than what I've described above.

 

 

I moisten my patches, 10-20 at a time, in a small bowl of plain water.  Iused to use water with just a touch of flour and  Paul Matthews recommends an egg white and water solution.   However after a lot of experimentation, plain old water works just fine.  Of course there is just straight spit. The last is traditional and works darn well, but putting one's fingers in one's mouth while alternately

handling lead seems not too bright for enlightened folk that hope to take this hobby deep into the 21st century.  The flour or egg mixtures are likely to cause more problems than they will solve.

I prefer to lay the wet paper right up to, but not over, the ogive. This is one of the few advantages inherent in shouldered bullets such as those in the photo to the right. These were made with Dave Corbin's LSWC “core  die” which bleeds excess material from the lead core as the bullet is formed until it is just the right weight. For smooth-shouldered bullets, patch alignment is more difficult and you may want to make a rolling board jig such as Paul Matthews describes in his book.  I think patch alignment is very important, esp. with lighter bullets Dave Corbin calls these LSWC (Lead SemiWad Cutters).  The can be shot as is, or reformed in a point forming die to make a smooth ogive bullet like the

Sharps Long Range Bullet in the first photos on the intro page.

Anyway, align the "pointy" corner and long edge of the patch along the ogive/bullet-shaft boundary, and roll the bullet and paper away from you. With a little practice, you will learn to apply a light and even tension to the paper. When you have this down pat, the two short edges of the patch, separated only by the intervening layer of paper (caused by the second revolution of the bullet) will meet perfectly along the length of the bullet's shaft.

Then, holding the bullet by the nose in your right hand (for righties), fold the paper under by twirling the bullet's base against the tips of the thumb and fore finger of your left hand. Finally, stand the bullet firmly on its base to dry. Perfect! When you are good at this, you can do 50-100 bullets by halftime of the average Monday Night Football Game (btw, it is a little-known fact that Monday Night Football was invented for the express purpose of adding background noise to the paper-patching process, can't imagine what buffalo hunters used in its stead).

A few miscellaneous notes about wrapping -

First, some people believe that the patch should be rolled on in the same direction as the rifling twists in the barrel.  I have tried it both ways and I cannot tell any differences in accuracy.

Second, sometimes getting the patch edges to align perfectly along the shaft of the bullet can be difficult.  Different papers stretch different amounts.  I try to avoid wrappings that overlap too much.  That is, I do not like wraps where there is any part of the wrapping that is 3 layers thick.   I think this can put the bullet off center in the bore.  If patches don’t match up exactly, I prefer that they underlap, rather than overlap, i.e., that there may be a narrow band where the wrapping is only one layer thick.  If this is less than 1/8 of an inch wind around the circumference of the bullet, I generally find it shoots pretty darn well.  With a little luck however, you can get them all just about perfect.

Third, some folks swear by dry patching—that is wrapping a bullet with a dry patch.  They claim it comes of the bullet easier and thus disturbs the bullet less as it leaves the muzzle.  I am not sure that I agree, but I have to say that patching dry with some papers seems to work very well.  The parchment paper that I mentioned earlier seems to work very well this way indeed.   And it does not absorb water so wrapping it on wet is mostly a waste of time.  So, don’t hesitate to try dry wrapping.  Just be sure that the patch is good and tight at the ogive or it will catch and fold or wrinkle when you chamber the bullet.    In my limited experience so far, I have found dry patched bullets need to be loaded into cases immediately or they tend to loosen up.  I also find that a light taper crimp tends to keep them nice and tight on the bullet. 

 

These are lead semi-wadcutter bullets made with one pass through swaging dies to produce nearly perfect 550 gr bullets. These have flat bases though cupped bases work just as well.   The nose is what Dave Corbin calls a 1.5E round nose.  Also, note how the patch is folded under the base.

Determining patch length & width

 

A good way to get an estimate of what you need for patch length, is to wrap the bullet 3 times in a single strip of wet paper. Let it dry. Then take a razor and cut through all three wraps at one location along the edge of the bullet. Just a 1/8" long cut is fine, don't cut the entire length of the patch. Unwrap the bullet. The distance between two successive slices is twice your bullet's circumference. You will want your cutting pattern to be shorter than distance just a bit to compensate for the stretch you will produce in rolling, but do that by eye, after trying a few wraps with patches made from the initial cutting pattern. If the cutting pattern you buy is like mine, brass and too long, it is pretty easy to trim with a file or even a guillotine paper cutter. However, I don't worry overly much about exactly matching patch length to bullet diameter as I've found that patches cut with the same pattern will wrap equally well a .440, a .443, and even a .450, and .452 by simply learning to stretch the paper just the right amount. Practice helps, and I do a lot of it, but the point is, you don't have to have a different cutting pattern for every bullet diameter you want to try. I've only owned one such pattern so far.

Also, if the cutter is wider than your patch, that's fine. Don't trim it anymore. Patch width is determined by the steel ruler that is used to initially cut the paper into strips.

To estimate the correct width for the patch (and thus, for the steel rule that you will need; discussed below), measure your bullet from the very beginning of the ogive to the base and add maybe 0.15" or so, just enough that your patch will fold over the base but NOT enough that it bunches excessively in thickly folded edges near the bullet's center (refer to the photos above). Although I've heard of folks that do well with long twisted tails tucked into hollow bases (or sometimes clipped after drying), they require more paper and do not always provide a perfect bullet base. Most importantly, if a twist or bunched paper wad occasionally gets hammered into the base by the detonation of the main charge, it may s