Ball Size

[Smokerr]

The 1976 ASP NMA my wife gave me came with .457 balls so that is what I used though I checked what the variations were now.

The Pietta NMA listed .454 balls. I got a box to try as the .457 balls were taking a fair amount more powder to get the velocity the ASP gets.

They are now quite close with their respective balls for charge and velocity. I did wads just to be safer and then checked band on the .454 ball in the Pietta, got a nice .147 one. Good for sealing as long as the chambers are reasonably round.

The ASP does not shave lead but the chamber is quite taper ted, it created a .250 band.

Fun was had with the Slixshot cones, about half were not firing. I did some adjustment on the hammer travel and all are firing with CCI 11 (they stick on naturally) or pinched Rem 11.

The rear sight fell out at the range but found it. Not a nice day, 24 or so with wind blowing though the shed and overhead heaters helped a lot. It was great to get out and get some more experience in.

 

[smokeum54]

As far as the ball size goes, your over thinking it bud. Use the ones that are more accurate.

 

[Smokerr]

Well I have to try them to see which is more accurate as I was a technician /mechanic/field engineer (experience, no letters) wonder about things.

I am of the belief that the squeeze of the ball and band creation is what seals the chamber from a chain fire.

The ASP is a tapered chamber and it takes the .457 balls just fine, the Pietta NMA is not, shaves a ring right at the mouth and the .454 works good, leaves a good band (not as much band as the .457) and I think that is good.
Certainly if I count on it as primary chain fire defense. (yes I do check them and an oval chamber would be a point of failure).

Not I know all guns have their own preferences but they tend to follow some general rules though an oddball can be out there. The Pietta is 1-32 twist as is the ASP. I have the ROA headed this way that is 1-18. There should be a difference but I have seen a lot of 5.56 that break out of their supposed to and some simply do not conform to exceptions.

Those genealogy rules of thumbs can be good starting points,. I Should have the Ruger Old Army delivered in a couple of weeks and that is 1-18, It also take conicals and is biased to .457 ball and the .460 JD bullet should be suited to it as far as fit goes.

I am shooting 777j F powder mostly gave 30 gr Powerex Pellets as well. . I have not seen black powder up here yet.

I see comments that 777 does horrible in BP guns, it does great, its does not want to be compressed etc. I can experimenter though all that or get some supported advice that saves me a lot of experiments. You of course have to fine tune it to the gun you have not someone else has,.

I used my old eye glasses for put on a full time EYepal and that has helped the sight pictgure a lot. I can start to drill down parialy with the Pietta Target that has good sights and tghe ROA as its the same. I ajudsted the front sight on the Pietta NMA and got middle of target results. Still refining that but the overall is estalbished. The ASP shoots high but I can live with that as its not the serious gun that the Pietta and ROA are. Pietta an the ASP share the same 1-32 twist. ROA is oreinded to .457 and maybe the .460 JD conical, the Pietta list .454 ball as the go to and what I see agrees with that as the chambers are squarte not tapered.

While I have shot a boatlaod of pistol and rifle over the years, te pistol has gone by the wayside due to the old eyes issue. The eyepal has helped bring thhat back a lot and I have delved into BP with the ASP NMA my wife passed onto me. Found it fun vs the terrible focused rifle shooting I do (a good day is 1/2 MOA with the rifle, some great days with 3/8 or 1/4.

So the hope is to get people comment on tendendices and I can see how they fit. No marks against anyone if it does not pan out, guns can do a lot of odd things in the accuracy end. I am running 4198 in a cutom barrel 7.5 Swiss and have gotten remakrable results with one specifi bullet at low velocity and 4198 is not what anyone things of then they think GP-11 carrudsges (in fact my 4198 loads are better that the K-31 it was desinged for as well as out of the cutom barrlel on what I refer to as my Savage reciver with a cutom barrel on it.

The GP-11 is reported to be a 1 inch round, certianly is not in my K-31. More like a 2.5 inch round. In the custom gun it shoots better and my custom loads with 4198 get it almost respecatiable (more like 1.5 MOA.










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[CaptainVane]

with wind blowing though the shed and overhead heaters helped a lot. It was great to get out and get some more experience in.

You got overhead heaters! Living in luxury. Jealous. Shooting is off limits for me Dec to March.

 

[Old Hawkeye]

Any chain fire is much more likely to come from your "pinched" caps than from the front of the cylinder.

 

[TreeMan]

I have have a dozen 44 cal BP revolvers. I have a .457 mold so that’s what I use in all of them. The difference in accuracy between a .457 and .454 is probably zero. You’re shaving the ball to chamber size regardless what size the ball is. I prefer bigger for a nice shaved ring when seating. You’ll see more accuracy improvement by using a filler more than changing ball sizes. Wonder wads, cream of wheat or cornmeal fillers definitely improve my revolver accuracy. For targets my generic load for 44s is 20 grain of 3F and 20 grains of cream of wheat than seat the ball. Puts the ball right at the chamber mouth. With the filler you will never ever have to worry about a chain fire from the front. Loose caps will definitely increase the chances of a chain fire.

 

[Smokerr]

You got overhead heaters! Living in luxury. Jealous. Shooting is off limits for me Dec to March.

Its what makes life in the far North possible, I can go shooting in all but December (range is closed). The politico's pissed our money away on all sorts of stupid stuff, but at least we have a decent local range (two actually, Private one up North 30 miles you can shoot 300 meters)

 

[Smokerr]

I have have a dozen 44 cal BP revolvers. I have a .457 mold so that’s what I use in all of them. The difference in accuracy between a .457 and .454 is probably zero. You’re shaving the ball to chamber size regardless what size the ball is. I prefer bigger for a nice shaved ring when seating. You’ll see more accuracy improvement by using a filler more than changing ball sizes. Wonder wads, cream of wheat or cornmeal fillers definitely improve my revolver accuracy. For targets my generic load for 44s is 20 grain of 3F and 20 grains of cream of wheat than seat the ball. Puts the ball right at the chamber mouth. With the filler you will never ever have to worry about a chain fire from the front. Loose caps will definitely increase the chances of a chain fire.

I like these discussion because it open up the brain to other views and that is always good. So while I hold a view, I am not slaved to it and continue to think on the issues and what others say and will change things if I get pushed over to a different take.

My take on the difference is the .457 has a bigger band in the Pietta NMA and more drag (measured the band with both size balls). The ASP seems to have a larger bore.

The Pietta NMA was 100 fps slower with the same load. When I put the .454 balls into it that velocity matched fairly closely with the ASP NMA.

As for caps and chain fire from the rear. I did a dive on that and people have deliberately tested it and got no chain fires (no caps at all on adjacent chambers).

I did an unintentional test when I found the caps had fallen off 3 chambers the first time shooting the Pietta NMA. I was down to Rem 11s then and it was, ok, squeeze them or quit.

The logic to this is that there is little blow back from a Cone. Clearly there is a pretty good pop there, but that is pretty well sealed initially as the hammer face will have held that in place.

For a rear chain fire with caps on, you would have to wrap around the cap, then down the large portion of the cone and propagate down the small hole. I have had over-compressed powder charges that would not go off no matter how many caps you popped (and I fully agree packed powder is not the same as loose).

Could it happen? Yes I agree in theory its possible and maybe even enough firings it would. I just don't think it will and I do avoid pinched caps as much as I can.

If I can characterize my approach is to mitigate issues and danger as much as possible and that should work.

There is a whole lot I do not control. I had a guy blow up his rifle 5 positions down one time. An adjacent shooter got smacked in the cheek seriously (flat not the edge fortunately). The shooter was ok but had a huge dental rebuild that had to be done. One shard was found in the back of the shed that they struggled to pull out. If that had hit someone.......