Hi I'm fairly new to muzzle loading and having read all I could find on the net here and elsewhere, I found and bought a PH Whitworth rifle.
 
After a lot more reading I learned that the consensus of opinion was that hexagonal bullets were probably only marginally better than conical and then only at extreme range.
 
I bought some hexagonal bullets just for my own trials from dixiegunworks.com rather than spending a huge amount on a hex mold.
 
I also bought a Lyman Mold 66-5-457121PH from thunder-ridge-muzzleloading.com, this was quoted as "Casts a nominal .456/.453" diameter in pure lead. Shoot as-cast, lube by hand" I found that the bullets were a tight fit and were basically being swaged by the barrel so I got a hex swaging tool.
 
It produced a bullet that was a little too easy a fit in the barrel so after a lot more reading I decided to try paper patching.
 
My first attempts were a little clumsy but they did seem to work. My worse problem was that if I tried to get a double wrap around the bullet, it became too tight and tended to tear the patch and a single wrap was difficult to keep on the bullet at all.
 
I tried lots of different thicknesses of paper but I found that the thinner ones necessary for a double wrap were very fragile when wet.
 
It was then that an idea struck me. I do get them occasionally! I bought a pack of cigarette papers. This seems to be the ideal solution. The paper is thin and conforms well to the bullet shape and the standard length ones are just about 1mm short of two complete wraps around the bullets.
 
I wrap them dry with the gummed edge towards the front of the bullet and facing out so that the patch doesn't actually stick to the bullet, then I use a pair of scissors to reduce some of the overhang at the skirt and then simply dip the cut ends into a bowl of water.
 
The water is taken up well and soaks the whole paper and it is a simple job to push/twist the bottom around the base of the bullets and stand them to dry.
 
Does anybody else use cigarette papers as an easy paper patch? Is there likely to be any problems using them? I have to say that so far they seem to work well, but I haven't tried them out to extreme ranges yet, only 200yrds so far.