.44 round ball vs short conical

[Homesteader]

I know this has been covered before, but for the life of me I can't seem to find much info on it.

I've been shooting round balls out of revolvers for a long time now. Pretty much know what to expect there. Recently I came into possession of a mould with two cavities, one for round ball and one for a short conical. Having never loaded or fired a conical from a cap & ball revolver, I'm curious what the functional differences are, and what advice, warnings, etc. y'all might have about it.

Since they had such moulds back in 'the day', I'm assuming there was some reason for them. I'd love to be enlightened.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

 

[LeMat1856]

.
. sep 13 / 2:05pm

by coincidence, zonie posted a pretty good response to your question while answering this previous one.. you will have to scroll through his answer and read the material close to the end where he addresses conicals and revolvers:

Lyman 45 Cal BP revolver questions (Topic#238077)

see his post:
09-12-09 06:29 PM - Post#760284

(since he wrote it, he should get the credit [or blame !])

~d~

 

[Homesteader]

Thanks very much for the response, LeMat. I appreciate it. :hatsoff:

 

[Zonie]

Probably blame. :rotf:

Speaking of those brass two cavity molds I bought one at a gun show. It was in .36 caliber and after buying it I decided to cast up some of the elongated bullets to try in one of my .36 cal revolvers.

I used pure lead to cast the bullets and made about 10 of them.

These bullets were very close to the original bullets used in the mid 19th century and they have a smaller than body diameter "heel" at the rear.
This heel fits into the chambers mouth and aligns it so it shears lead from all sides when it's rammed home.

As I said in the other post, shearing off lead on a conical takes a lot of force. With these bullets, because the mold didn't cast a really round body, more lead was sheared off of certain areas than others.

Anyway, my guns ram survived the task and I did get to shoot them.

As would be expected, the recoil of the gun was greater than it would be if I was shooting a roundball and I can't say that the accuracy was any better. In fact, it was a bit worse when shooting these bullets.

It was an interesting thing to do but after fighting those elongated bullets home in the chambers I decided the extra work and wear and tear on my guns wasn't worth the trouble.

The only real reason for shooting these elongated bullets, besides the experience of doing it is to improve the killing power of the gun.
IMO, increased killing power isn't needed for small game animals as a .375 diameter roundball will be more than adequate for downing even one of the very large jack rabbits we have here in Arizona.

Just my 3 cents worth.

 

[kherring]

I had a 51 Navy revolver in .44. I think it was made by Pieta (spelling). Anyway, it shot round balls pretty well so I decided to try conicals. I bought some of the buffalo ballets to try but could not rotate them under the loading arm of the gun to ram them into the cylinder.

 

[torn moc]

Ther are some .36 double cavity molds out there for sale ( and on ebay) that are not heeled and also are .350 diameter ( Not for pistols).
So Buyer Beware...
I have a .36 double cavity mold by lee that is not heeled but casts a great conical that starts shaving at the middle ring...
and a .44 double cavity mold by F.I.E THAT CASTS A HEELED BULLET and a conical that is top notch for Remmies...Not colts.
The only conical molds I had trouble with were the ones from Ebay,,,,thay had no makers marks and casts a .350 conical....