Well, another day at the range, more lessons learned. I was pretty sure I would have to re-sight this rifle having acquired my first set of glasses and, well, I was right. This is proving to be the case with my open sighted rifles. My peep sighted rifles appear unaffected.
What was happening prior to getting my glasses is that I wasn't really seeing the front sight as well as I thought, and I was holding a good deal more of it up in the rear notch, just so I could see it. Now that I can see them much better, my open sighted rifles are all shooting low. Easy fix - just file the front sight down. I wound up taking .012" off of this one to get the point of impact where I want it at 100 yards with a full hunting charge.
Speaking of which, I started playing around with patch material and lube. For really heavy charges, I've always used commercially available, pre-cut patches .015" thick. We can buy them dry and apply the lube of our choice, or buy them pre-lubed with something like Wonder Lube. That's what I used for initial load development.
Today, I tried one of my favorite patch and lube combinations that I use for lighter plinking loads. For these, I buy a material known as "pillow ticking" by the yard from the fabric store. We cut this stuff into strips and then, to patch a ball with it, simply seat the ball just flush with the muzzle, over the strip of pillow ticking, and cut it out on the muzzle. Lots of guys just put the end of the strip in their mouth and chew on it a bit, getting it wet with spit while they are measuring and pouring the powder charge. Myself, I like to use Goop - the hand cleaner we get at the auto parts store - to lube the pillow ticking. At about five bucks per yard, and not much more for a really big tub of Goop, this method runs pennies on the dollar to buying commercially pre-cut, pre-lubed patches. And it works great, the Goop effectively cleaning the bore every time we ram a new ball down it.
But, alas, I found its limits today. Started blowing patches at only 80 grains of powder. It simply would not shoot with this patch material and lube with a heavy hunting charge. Which is fine, I'll be plinking with 60-70 grains anyway. For the full charge, I simply went back to the pre-cut, pre-lubed patches, and even went one step further. I added a lubricated felt wad under the patched ball, just to be sure.
Here is a photo that shows the two different methods, laid out side by side. On the left is the felt wad, along with a round ball sitting on the pre-cut patch. To the right is a roll of pillow ticking, a round ball, and the "patch knife" I use to cut the pillow ticking on the muzzle. The wooden tool is a "short starter", used to start the ball first into, then down the bore. The stubby little nub starts it just flush, where we trim the patch, then the long leg rams it down far enough to switch to the ram rod.
So, well, now I know what it needs as far as a full hunting charge, and what I can get away with just for plinking. Spend the "big bucks" on the commercial stuff when I hunt with it, cheap out on the fabric store / auto shop stuff for day to day plinking. I can live with that.