Accuracy with Remy New Army

[rafterob]

I have recently started shooting a single shot Kentucky in .50 cal and have had good consistent accuracy. I have been shooting my Pietta '58 New Army Target Model for over a year and am still all over the place. I have finally settled on a good load of 22 grns. with cornmeal filler and .454 ball. One difference is the Kentucky has a real natural hold and the Remy has an awkward(to me) hold on target. I know the revolver can shoot good 'cuz I have had some bulls on occaision. Any helpful hints on shootin' this Pistol would be appreciated.

 

[mazo kid]

I'm waiting on an answer to your question also. I just am not able to hold a revolver consistently enough to get a decent group. Emery

 

[renovato]

Have you tried shooting from the bench, to see if it's you or the gun? I find the 1858s a bit hard to hold well. They don't seem to fit and point as well as the 51's and 60's. I still like them better though. If it's the gun, keep tinkering with loads. You'll find a consistent combo.

If it's you, take a close look at your shooting. Is your stance well balanced? Are you focusing on the front sight, practicing breath control and a smooth trigger press? How about follow through after the shot breaks? All these are important to consistent accuracy.

If it's the way the gun fits your hand, try changing your grip a bit. A higher grip than normal works for me with the '58s.

 

[Russ T Frizzen]

A Remington will shoot well, no doubt about it. But the grip to trigger position does cause problems for some. You pretty much have to adapt to the revolver as there is no easy modification that can fix the problem. Practice and lots of it seems to be the answer.

 

I use cream a wheat as filler and I use wheel packing grease over the balls. I never cared for those greased felt wads in my Remmy. I think I have the same gun you do by Pietta except mine isn't the ramp sighted target model. Try makin' those two ajustments in yer loads. It may work for ya.

 

[DanChamberlain]

Ghetto

Some years back when I was writing an article for Handguns Magazine, I used my Pietta made Remington to really get down to it. I was testing three style revolvers from the Civil War. An 1851 Navy, an 1860 Army and the Remmy.

The worse grouping pistol I had was the ASM 1860 Army. The best I could do at 20 yards was 3" That's actually pretty darn good for 99% of the shooters with centerfire handguns! The Remmy shot the best. I never had a group larger than 2" at 20 yards with it! The Pietta Navy shot nearly as good as the Remmy.

These guns will shoot! I routinely take squirrel with the Navy pistol while I'm out tromping the woods.

With the Remmy, I use a ball size much larget than the one Pietta recommends. I use .457 sized balls instead of the .454 size.

Another thing, I don't load it down! It gets 30 grains fffg or it doesn't get shot! The faster the ball travels down bore, the more accurate I believe these guns are! I can't prove it, but it's been my experience with all my C&B pistols that they want to be shot.

My Navy pistol has no trouble at all hitting the squirrel's head at 30 feet and it packs 25 grains of fffg.

Regards

Dan

 

[Rollover Jack]

Salutations!

Please don't take this the wrong way. :surrender: I have seen the following work in cases of less than desired accuracy. With the help of a friend, don't load every chamber in the cylinder, skip a few. Put caps on all of the nipples. Spin the cylinder on second click, as if you were playing Russian Roullette. Now, when you shoot it, you shouldn't know if there is a full charge or just the cap. Your very observant friend will now tell you, when you shoot the blank, if you somehow jerked the gun or let off smoothly. Then repeat the process. I don't mean to imply that you are "timid" of the recoil, as your gun has very little, I am only suggesting this as a way of exposing a possible trigger jerk or some other action upon firing the gun. And I will tell you that this experiment helped me out many years ago. :wink:

As an aside, you could also place stakes on whether the gun will discharge or not. :2

I am assuming that the gun shoots well from a bench rest. Let somebody else shoot it, also.

"When you see the smoke on the wind, look for me."

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Most everyone has pet loads and how to's, this one just happens to be mine, other's mileage may vary.
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/...post/530254/hl/tanstaafl/fromsearch/1/#530254

 

[Poor Private]

As was said on Caddy Shack "be the ball be the ball". :grin: I have fired my remmy hundreds of time and it took me a while to get mine down. I found out that I am left eye dominant, but right handed. such fun that was to finally figure out why every thing no matter what I fired was high and to the left. I had to (and still am) learn to shoot left handed with my pistols to get a better site aim. And also I found out early on that you can't get real good groups only target practicing for 1/2 hour a month. It's like anything else practice practice practice besides finding it theraputic What beats the smell of black powder! :thumbsup:

 

[mykeal]

practice practice practice besides finding it theraputic What beats the smell of black powder! :thumbsup:

AMEN! :hatsoff:

 

[B. Miller]

Have you checked the alignment of each cylinder with the barrel. Most Pietta's need a triger job and the forcing cone enlarged out of the box. I forget off the top of my head what recomended angle of the forcing cone is suppose to be but enlarging it allowes for a smoother transfer of the ball between the cylinder and the barrel.
Piettas are usually good about this but is there a wide gap between the cylinder and the forcing cone. I recieved a Palmetto Arms Whitney Navy that had a gap of 0.2 in. which was totally unacceptable. I could actually measure the gap with a ruler. In my stainless Remington I shoot 0.451s with 20gr of 3f. My Pietta Remington Deluxe likes a 0.457s with 17gr of 3f. I use cornmeal as a filler in both.
Hope this helps.

Bruce

 

[torn moc]

Ok...this shows correct procedure with a 1911...
But there is Alot of good instruction here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysa50-plo48

check it out!!!

 

[Blizzard of '93]

sounds like a shooting technique problem to me - something you can work on, but maybe you should shoot it from a bench-rest some to see how it does.
if you can scrounge any up try some slugs in that '58, mine likes 'em. over 25 grs 3F and then felt button.