which balls, which patches, and which powder do you recommend?
In general, in a long rifle or single shot pistol, you will shoot a patched round ball that is 0.010" smaller in diameter than the caliber of your gun. That is, 0.440 for .45 cal, 0.490 for .50 cal, etc. It is often possible to use a 0.005" smaller ball as well, if you adjust patch thickness. Shooting patches must be natural fiber such as cotton - absolutely no synthetic fabrics. Thickness can be 0.005, 0.010, 0.015, 0.018 or 0.020 depending on the gun and the depth of the rifling grooves. I recommend starting with 0.010" thick and seeing how it works. I also highly recommend real black powder (Goex, Swiss, KIK, Graf's or Jack's) but Pyrodex, 777 and other synthetics will work as long as you are shooting a percussion, not flint, lock. Use FFg (Pyrodex RS) in a long rifle and FFFg (Pyrodex P) in a pistol (it's possible to safely switch them but you may see a loss in performance).
Do I use the lubed patches or can I just use normal patches and slap a little lube on them myself?
Yes. Either will work. There are proponents of each method that swear it's the best. Try both and see what works best for you.
Do you guys measure your powder charges back at the lab before you go to the range, or do you measure them at the range?
Most do the latter, but more and more people are opting to load speed loaders at home to make their range sessions faster and easier. I perfer to do that myself, but I don't always do it.
What equipment do you use for measurement and such?
An adjustable powder measure with an attached cone that slides in place for pouring, and a copper flask for transportation/storage.
Anything I really oughtta buy, equipment-wise?
Wide open question. If you were well equipped to go inline shooting there's really not much else you'll need. Different caps, of course.
What's pillow ticking? Is that what it says on the package, pillow ticking?
Pillow ticking is a 100% cotton fabric sold at fabric and large retail (Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, etc.) stores in the fabric section. It's often cream colored with blue or red stripes. It comes in very large bolts and must be cut to size. Ask for it at the checkout and someone will help you. Buy 1 yard, wash and dry it and cut it up in 1 3/8" wide strips, then place it over the muzzle, start the ball and cut it off flush with the muzzle.
Since the patch comes up on both sides of the ball, does that mean that a ".015 patch" is actually half that thickness - .008?
Nope. A 0.015" thick patch will double to 0.030" when surrounding the ball. However, it will compress and fit when pushed into the bore. The reason the combination is oversize is that the bore caliber is the distance across the lands; the patch must also seal the distance across the grooves, and depending on how deep those are in your rifle a thick patch may be necessary. Or not. It depends on the gun, and we can't predict that even if we know the make and model. It's something you need to work out by testing.
Is the bore of these rifles actually .5000?
No. Every gun varies a bit. And you need to consider the depth of the rifling as well. If fact, I recommend you invest in a set of calipers and measure the bores of your guns. If you have an odd number of lands and grooves you may need to slug the gun to get an accurate measurement.
