1858 .44 starting loads?

[ricky5042]

Hi tac
oh wont it?
in that case I will do it in .5gn increments and see how that goes if I remember il take my crono down and see what there running at

Rick

 

[TFoley]

Hi tac
oh wont it?
in that case I will do it in .5gn increments and see how that goes if I remember il take my crono down and see what there running at

Rick

Well, Sir, it's your time and your gun... :surrender:

As we say, fill yer boots.

tac

 

[swathdiver]

Mine likes 28 grains but yesterday, with 35 grains of Schuetzen (Graf's), it was putting all six in the black (B-2 Target) at 50 feet. It's a stock Pietta Remington NMA.

 

[ricky5042]

Nice im out sunday to do the first load test so il let you all know how I get on
Do any of you use graphite? if so what are the advantages disadvantages?

Rick

 

[TFoley]

Nice im out sunday to do the first load test so il let you all know how I get on
Do any of you use graphite? if so what are the advantages disadvantages?

Rick

Only in pencils.

The advantage there is easy to comprehend - without graphite in your pencil you are just smearing a stick of clay - with it, you can write, well, anything. :thumbsup:

Explain, please, for us simple souls out here.

tac, always ready to learn something new.

 

[ricky5042]

Hi
Some of the guys at my club are using graphite powder to cover their lead balls and apparently it acts as a lubricant!

Rick

 

[ricky5042]

Here is a ball I loaded in the cylinder and pushed it out and you can see the flat spot where its pushed into the cylinder, there didn't seem to be much force to push it in and there was no ring of lead either!
Any thoughts on this guys? do you think its tight enough to seal properly? or should I try some .457" balls?

Thanks

Rick

 

[TFoley]

Hi
Some of the guys at my club are using graphite powder to cover their lead balls and apparently it acts as a lubricant!

Rick

Uh, lead is a natural lubricant when used inside a polished steel barrel - that is why it is used to lap-finish bores on custom rifles....

However, do what your pals do and let us know if it makes any difference. Sounds like a whale of work to me, and not anything I've ever heard of before, but then I've only been shooting since 1952.....

As for your bullet, well, it's actually MEANT to look much like that after passing throught the forcing cone and into the bore of the revolver.

In general, non-Ruger revolvers like Pietta use a ball between .451" and .454".

However, if your ball looks like this without shaving then you'd better try something bigger. Anyone who shoots a ROA will be using .457" ball.

All you are looking for is a tiny ring of lead being shaved off on loading...

tac

 

[Zonie]

The ball in the pictures looks fine to me.

The length of the cylindrical area says the ball is large enough to seal the chamber.

If the ball is made from pure lead, it doesn't take a lot of force to drive it into the chamber.

As for leaving a ring of lead after the ball is pressed into the chamber, that only applies if the mouth of the chamber is sharp.

Some revolvers have a slight edge break or chamfer on the mouths of the chambers.
If a gun has this, it often won't shear off a lead ring. Instead, it pushes the lead off of the ball leaving what would be the "ring" somewhat attached to the ball.

 

[azmntman]

I think it looks good to go!

 

[ricky5042]

Hi all
Im new to black powder and the graphite is only what ive been told by some of the more seasoned black powder guys!
When I put the ball in one of the chambers the ball looks like its just below the centre line of the ball which leads me to thinking the chambers has been widened as there is a ring round the top of each chambers about 3mm down and there is no chamfer on them.

Rick

 

[BowerR64]

Here is a ball I loaded in the cylinder and pushed it out and you can see the flat spot where its pushed into the cylinder, there didn't seem to be much force to push it in and there was no ring of lead either!
Any thoughts on this guys? do you think its tight enough to seal properly? or should I try some .457" balls?

Thanks

Rick

Now try and push it threw the barrel.

Your chambers could be swagged, if they are then yes it will be easier and may not shave a ring. I actually prefer a swagged chamber mouth i feel its a more clean load. Lead can sometimes bind up when it shaves the little ring off. I think it can cause accuracy problems also if little chunks of lead are hanging around.

 

[swathdiver]

Only to mark the targets up with! Use tallow or a lubricated wad to keep fouling soft and to a minimum.

 

[aeatwood]

+1. Keeping fouling soft is the key to shooting w/o having to scrub crud out of the cylinder/barrel to maintain accuracy. You will still have to take the cylinder off/out every few cylinders and clean/grease the base pin, but the gun will continue to load easy and give good accuracy. I prefer greased felt wads under the ball, but folks have good results from grease over the ball as well.

The ball looks fine as far as sealing/bearing surface.

 

[TFoley]

Here is a ball I loaded in the cylinder and pushed it out and you can see the flat spot where its pushed into the cylinder, there didn't seem to be much force to push it in and there was no ring of lead either!
Any thoughts on this guys? do you think its tight enough to seal properly? or should I try some .457" balls?

Thanks

Rick

Now try and push it threw the barrel.

Your chambers could be swagged, if they are then yes it will be easier and may not shave a ring. I actually prefer a swagged chamber mouth i feel its a more clean load. Lead can sometimes bind up when it shaves the little ring off. I think it can cause accuracy problems also if little chunks of lead are hanging around.

Please explain your use of the word 'swagged'. Here in UK we are not familiar with the word, which does not appear in our dictionary. The word 'swaged', does, which is what happens when you force a soft material through a harder one, and form it or deform it to the required shaped, as in swaging a bullet. Do you mean that the usually as-bought sharp-edged mouths of each chamber have been deliberately relieved to ease loading, without removing that little ring of lead that we usually expect to see? If so, then somebody has done this, as it is not a feature of any BP revolver that I've ever seen here in yUK.

I've had eight BP revolvers over the years, and never encountered one that has had these relieved chamber mouths you note - even the usual manuals say that you should load a ball that is large enough to leave a small ring at the mouth of the chamber.

I'm not suggesting for one moment that there is anything wrong with Mr ricky4052's gun, or that fact that his HAS had work done on it make it like this.

tac

 

[TFoley]

Hi all
Im new to black powder and the graphite is only what ive been told by some of the more seasoned black powder guys!
When I put the ball in one of the chambers the ball looks like its just below the centre line of the ball which leads me to thinking the chambers has been widened as there is a ring round the top of each chambers about 3mm down and there is no chamfer on them.

Rick

Where are you supposed to be putting this graphite? In what form is it used - powder, paste or what?

Where did your 'more-seasoned black powder guys' learn this? Pretty much any four of us here on this forum will have way past a hundred years BP shooting between us, and I'm quite certain I'm not alone in my iggerence here. :idunno:

I've combed my back-numbers of the MLAGB annals without finding any mention of this ripping wheeze here in UK...

Many of us, who take part in rendezvous and skirmishing or N-SSA shoot well over a couple of hundred shots in a weekend - with great respect far more than most casual shooters in the UK would ever do - moreover, we do it by the hundreds and often, the thousands. If this is something that we need to know about, then, by golly, we need to know about it so's we can do it right!

tac

 

[ricky5042]

Hi
Thanks for the input guys im guessing the cylinder has had work done to it as it was made in 1980 so has been round the block a bit :wink:
I don't mind this as it makes it easier for me that I don't have to worry about the rings of lead fouling the gun up
As I said im new to black powder and pretty much all the guys at my club say the graphite covered ball can be bought that way or you can get some powder (which I have) to coat your own balls with
I am going to be using lubed felt wads under the balls so with the graphite and lubed wads im hoping I wont need to swab it out before ever reload.
Thanks

Rick

 

[TFoley]

Hi
Thanks for the input guys im guessing the cylinder has had work done to it as it was made in 1980 so has been round the block a bit :wink:
I don't mind this as it makes it easier for me that I don't have to worry about the rings of lead fouling the gun up
As I said im new to black powder and pretty much all the guys at my club say the graphite covered ball can be bought that way or you can get some powder (which I have) to coat your own balls with
I am going to be using lubed felt wads under the balls so with the graphite and lubed wads im hoping I wont need to swab it out before ever reload.
Thanks

Rick

Well, Sir, I guess you can learn something new every day. I've NEVER heard of that, and I've been shooting BP in this country on and off since the mid-1960s.

I've also been shooting my ROA most every weekend somewhere since 1986, and I've never found that the little rings of lead - approximately 5 hundredths of an inch thick, BTW - do anything except fall off the front of the cylinder when I load the next one...

Wads AND graphite...hmmmmmmmm. :surrender:

tac

 

[Zonie]

It sounds to me like someone had an idea.

"What's some slippery stuff I could put on the ball to help them slide thru the barrel?"

"Hmm."

"Graphite or maybe some of that molybdenum disulfide stuff!!!"

"Either one of those won't make a sticky mess and their slicker than snot on a brass doorknob."

The thing I wonder about is there is almost no dry powder that wouldn't get pushed out of the way or sheared off with the lead when the roundball or bullet was loaded into the cylinder.

What little remained on the front of the bullet or ball probably wouldn't do much to lubricate a 4 to 8 inch long bore either.

Neither of these dry powders will do a thing to keep the fouling in the bore soft.

Now, I can see where a lubed wad under the ball or bullet might coat the fouled bore with a bit of lube as it passes down the bore so if I was asked to vote I'd have to say go with a lubed wad and forget the dry powders. They'll just make your fingers slick. :hmm:

Oh. With a cap & ball revolver there is no need to wipe or swab the bore until you get the gun home after a days shooting.
The fouling left in the bore between shots doesn't seem to have any effect on the guns accuracy.

 

[TFoley]

It sounds to me like someone had an idea.

"What's some slippery stuff I could put on the ball to help them slide thru the barrel?"

The fouling left in the bore between shots doesn't seem to have any effect on the guns accuracy.

...sigh... lead goes down a barrel like it's lubricated anyhow, because soft lead in a hard barrel ACTS like it's lubricated. That's why a barrel with gazillions of shots down it looks like it's polished, Well, no ****, Sherlock.

Second point - Yup.

tac, open-minded, in my case, doesn't mean SO open-minded that the breeze has blown my common sense away.