BACO bore wiper experiment
Posted: Wed May 04, 2022 2:41 pm
I've used the BACO bore wipers in .45 a fair bit, mostly when shooting paper patched bullets. I'm still on the fence for using them when shooting GG bullets. So far wiping has always been better for me, but slower.
To me the idea is more attractive for silhouettes than BPTR due to the tighter time constraints. I once used them in my Shiloh in .40-65 at a match and got my first 10 turkey pin. It came at the cost of pulling long strings of lead out of the bore after each bank of animals. At that time I used a single felt on the wiper chased by a damp patch. Basically this left the bore dirty and wet . That was a few years ago.
Today I decided to give them another go and I thought that some of you might find this interesting.
I first shot 4 sighters, then a 10 shot group at 200m on the German 25 ring target from the prone position. This was with my normal routine of 2 damp patches. The result was a pretty nice target, scoring 245-6c. One shot unfortunately landed in the 23 ring due to the "hold extra carefully to make the last shot perfect" effect . Other than the one flyer it was a nice 2" group.
Then I did 15 shots using wipers and a single felt, but chased by a dry patch. Each shot was progressively higher on the target until shot #3 or #4. It was interesting to see the shots climb and then stabilize once the bore condition became consistent. The remaining 11 shots went into 2" high by almost 3-1/4" wide, about 2 minutes higher than the group I shot while wiping. The group wasn't as nice as the wiping group, as the shots were all scattered evenly through it, rather than clustered at the center. The chaser patch always came out with some groove sized black streaks on it so the bore was definitely not as clean as with my regular wiping routine.
Today was a cool high humidity day with light rain. I expect that had I been in the hot & dry western states that the barrel condition would not have stabilized, I would have fouled out with the wipers.
It was interesting to see the barrel condition stabilize and see it's effect on the grouping.
Next time I'll give 2 felts a try. Now back to scrubbing out some lead.
Chris.
To me the idea is more attractive for silhouettes than BPTR due to the tighter time constraints. I once used them in my Shiloh in .40-65 at a match and got my first 10 turkey pin. It came at the cost of pulling long strings of lead out of the bore after each bank of animals. At that time I used a single felt on the wiper chased by a damp patch. Basically this left the bore dirty and wet . That was a few years ago.
Today I decided to give them another go and I thought that some of you might find this interesting.
I first shot 4 sighters, then a 10 shot group at 200m on the German 25 ring target from the prone position. This was with my normal routine of 2 damp patches. The result was a pretty nice target, scoring 245-6c. One shot unfortunately landed in the 23 ring due to the "hold extra carefully to make the last shot perfect" effect . Other than the one flyer it was a nice 2" group.
Then I did 15 shots using wipers and a single felt, but chased by a dry patch. Each shot was progressively higher on the target until shot #3 or #4. It was interesting to see the shots climb and then stabilize once the bore condition became consistent. The remaining 11 shots went into 2" high by almost 3-1/4" wide, about 2 minutes higher than the group I shot while wiping. The group wasn't as nice as the wiping group, as the shots were all scattered evenly through it, rather than clustered at the center. The chaser patch always came out with some groove sized black streaks on it so the bore was definitely not as clean as with my regular wiping routine.
Today was a cool high humidity day with light rain. I expect that had I been in the hot & dry western states that the barrel condition would not have stabilized, I would have fouled out with the wipers.
It was interesting to see the barrel condition stabilize and see it's effect on the grouping.
Next time I'll give 2 felts a try. Now back to scrubbing out some lead.
Chris.