3rd Model Military Dragoon comes home! pics

[TFoley]

Do yourself a favour, and use REAL black powder instead of Pyrodex.

You'll be amazed at the difference.

tac

 

[Jac Spring]

Again, thanks guys.

I was shaving a very small bit of lead and two of the cylinders had the problem with the 50 grain loads - the ram seated the balls OK but then when retracted, the ball clung to the ram.

Perhaps I need to polish the ram end a bit...

And the reason that I'm using the Pyrodex P is because I have a couple pounds of it! It is very clean though I must say, and you can't fault the apparent accuracy of the that 40 grain load. :winking:

Oh, and I've already performed the loading arm catch "surgery" - just used a swiss file to deepen the notch in the barrel lug a bit and drifted out the pin that secures the plunger hook and removed the spring- placed a spent small pistol primer head-up down into the recess and put it back together - the spring is now a bit stiffer. That should hold it!

 

[mec]

I haven't had this problem with Hornady .454 balls but their nominal .375s are often too loose for uberti chambers (while working fine in pietta) some ball seat fine, others roll into the chambers and come out stuck to the loading ram. speer .375 seem to work much better, being more nearly round and of a consistent size.

 

[Jac Spring]

Yeah, as I think of it - the balls stuck because the ram was pushing into the ball and the sides kind of bulged around up alongside of the ram some. Maybe I was just pushing too danged hard?

 

[Robert an saa fan]

On several revolvers I had, have put a bit of "filler" in the cone/recess in the rammer tip... rammer tip was then not able to sink into ball as much and balls did not come back out stuck on rammer.

p.s. Like your fix on the catch with use of spent primer as a spring tension spacer. :thumbsup:

 

[Jac Spring]

On several revolvers I had, have put a bit of "filler" in the cone/recess in the rammer tip... rammer tip was then not able to sink into ball as much and balls did not come back out stuck on rammer.

p.s. Like your fix on the catch with use of spent primer as a spring tension spacer. :thumbsup:

Thanks for the idea on teh ram head- could use a spot of jb weld... and I can't accept the credit for the primer idea - another member suggested it. :grin:

 

[Slake]

very nice pics

 

[Jac Spring]

Thanks!

I need to get some large silhouette targets like mec uses and try at 75 yards off-hand. Its pretty amazing to me that these can do as well as they do at distance.

I think the long barrels (sight radius) and muzzle heavy handling help in longer range shooting. The sights are a bit of a challenge though :winking:

 

[Runner]

One, the sights are wrong for the military Dragoon. The military officers horse pistol had express sights regulated to 100, 200, and 300 yards supposedly. Two, the barrel is too short for the military model also. I had the full military replica for about 20 years.
The gun will take 60 grains of 3f under a ball, and with the longer barrel model, it will still be picking up decent velocity over the 50 grain load. I don't know about that barrel length. My load for the gun was 40 grains of 3f under a 250 grain 45 caliber Lee REAL bullet. Match class accuracy and plenty of power for most purposes. The recoil is a bit more impressive with the heavier bullet.
Since mine had the leaf sights, I had a smith cut a dovetail and mount a rifle type bead sight on a ramp. The bead in the v in the leaf sights made very precise aiming possible. I got rid of mine because I wanted something that did not require a horse or a gun bearer to take along. It hung loaded on my bed post for 15 years at least. Best black powder pistol I ever owned.

 

[Rifleball36]

I have one just like it . It is one well built pistol. The problem I have with it is when I shoot it with heavy loads the recole throws the # 11 cci caps off. I had some old #10 Remington caps that worked ok. Have you had this problem?

 

[Jac Spring]

Hey Runner - are you sure that's a "military model" or some other model? I mean -they were all intended for the cavalry right?

Not that it really matters...

Rifleball - mine did fine with #11's - but they were loose and I had to pinch them to get them to stay on.

I bought some #10's as I understand that they work good.