Originally Posted by
longbow
I read a article many years ago in a gun magazine re paper patching for .44 and .45 LC for rifles and handguns.
I have a Marlin 1894 in .44 mag. I was skeptical that the patch would get ripped at chambering but decided to make a PP mould myself. These moulds are based on the Ideal Cylindrical Bullet Molds that were available back in... well.. I think the late 1800's. You can look them up.
I made a mould that cast at 0.421" then patched up to 0.434" to suit my 1894 with 0.4315" groove diametrer. It worked very well and I was wrong, the patched did not rip at chambering even though it is a straight walled cartridge and I had feeding problems with SWC's or any over length boolits.
I got excellent results but... as Nobade says, there wasn't any real need. With max. smokeless loads and PB boolits I get a bit of gas cutting but nothing major so paper patching is just extra work with no clear benefit in that case.
For my .308 and .303's that is a different story! There I can push velocity far above typical cast boolit velocities if I use PP boolits.
So, is it feasible... yes! Any point to it... yes and no. If you have leading problems then PP will likely fix that but if you don't have leading problems then it is really extra work with no clear benefit. I'd say if you want to try it then by all means. You can change boolit fit by changing paper thickness so you may find you can get better accuracy.
I guess another comment that may or may not apply is that I read that Marlins tend to have tight spots under dovetails and roll stamping. I was a bit skeptical but since accuracy was mediocre and I was getting some leading I slugged my barrel and lo and behold there were indeed tight spots! I decided to hand lap to remove the tight spots so did that and leading about disappeared and accuracy improved. In that case, paper patching would likely have also solved the leading and maybe helped accuracy.
Point being if you slug your bore and find tight spots then PP boolits may be am easy solution if you are getting leading. I doubt that tight spots are a common problem though and I am surprised at Marlin. Mine is a 1980's vintage gun with microgroove barrel.
So there is my $0.02 worth!
Longbow