Huvius - I had the same thought - that perhaps somehow the cloth patch could stay behind, but because slightly larger than bore sized wads follow the patched ball, I've decided leaving the patch behind cannot happen. The wads scrub the forcing cone as they swage into bore and therefore would shove any 'remaining' patch or patch out with the rest of the ejecta, ie; ball. Due to the ball sitting right on a wad, the patch isn't left behind it seems, according to the shooting my friends have done. They've actually been loading this way since 1984 or 85.

Martin - what is the choke in your 20? You'll have to measure the choke first before deciding on what patch to use. I know some of the guys used .575" balls in 20 bore shotcups for their muzzleloading 20's. Whether they were choked or not, I don't know. This was before we realized that black powder flames melted the plastic and plastered it all over the bore. After that eye opener, a couple to 3 card wads between plastic and black powder seemed to work.

As long as you can push the patched ball out the choke, it will not harm the choke. The boys are actually shooting a VERY tight load, with a fairly non-compressable ball(WW metal), yet have not hurt their guns.

If you can tap it through the chokes, it's ok. If you are still worried, use pure lead balls. They won't hurt the choke if a bit too tight. They aren't like iron shot unless they are harder than brinel 40 or 50 which is impossible. Even copper is brinel 35, which is about 2 points harder than you can get an lead alloy. Lead based WW metal is made of pure lead, antimony and a sidgen of other crap which runs a brinel 9 to 13 depending on what country they are made in. Pure lead is usually brinel 5 to 6 depending on it's actual purity %'age.

The nomimal size for 20 to the pound, is .615". A normal 20 bore has about 28 thou of choke (I think) for full, so that's .587" - these figures are all subjective to whether or not your gun matches these dimensions - probably doesn't. You'll have to measure it. In this case I'd say the .575" ball is too big, and you should use a .562" ball. That will allow a thicker patch in the barrel dimensions I gave, such as: .587" - .562" equals .025" which leaves .0125" per size windage. Experience has taught me that you should easily be able to use a .015" lubricated patch. Now, how you measure a given patch material and how I measure the same cloth, are probably different and will give different results. This is due to the compressability of cloth and method of measuring and with which tool. Once lubricated, the measurements are all wonky again, so all my measuring is done pre-lubing so I have a stable platform for comparrisons. I use a 1" michrometer, not calipers. The Michrometer has a round anvil system that gives me exactly the same numbers with the same cloth, every time I measure it. With the calipers, stick the cloth in too far by a few thou or not far enough and you get different readings - I switched to a mic. My brother's mic has different tension on the ratchet, so gives a thou or so different readings than mine. He uses .023" patches in his muzzleloaders and I use .0215" in mine - same piece of cloth. Suffice to say that 8 pound denim is usually around .015" to .017" and 6 pound denim is usually around .012" to .013" 10 pound denim will run .020" to .0215".

Further point regarding patch thickness and lubrication. The thicker the patch, the more lube it carries - this is a good thing when black powder is used as the projectus. Always use a BP lube with black powder. Black powder lubes work very well with smokeless powders as well.

Peter - you are most welcome. Enjoy! See- just when you thought it was easy - well , it is.