cap & ball
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i read somewhere (which just means the person had a printing press to back up their opinion) that the .44 cap & ball with a twentyfive grain FFFg load was about the destructive equivalent to a modern day .44 Special. this sounds about right from the feel (i used to shoot a lot of .44 special).
if it was good enough for Jeb Stewart ...
if it was good enough for Jeb Stewart ...
rafterob
62 Cal.
I don't think anyone could argue that a fully loaded .44 percussion revolver doesn't have some stopping power. I imagine a .36 would put a pretty good hurtin' on too. I'm of the camp that there is way too much "bigger is better" mentality in the gun world.
I have fired many of my cap and ball revolvers and single shot pistols over a chronograph and have no doubt they are effective self defence tools. Energy wise the .44 matches the .38 special +P easily and the .36 depending on its load matches the .380 auto and the .32 H&R mag when loaded heavy. The big unknown is the terminal effect of the round ball on a target. Many have speculated that the round ball has a more devistating effect on a target than a conical bullet and there is anicdotal evidence for that. Large bore single shot pistols I have chronigraphed easily compare to the .45 acp. If using the Taylor formula they compare favorably to the .45 long colt and exceed the .357 magnum. Again those big round balls may do more damage than we might imagine. I don't live in grizzly country but there are plenty of black bear were I live and though I wouldn't go lookin for bear trouble, if it came to me I believe a big bore single shot with a .44 cap and ball for back up would likely keep me whole. In any case they all are deadly and effective.
Don
Don
Dave Rosenthal
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LOCATION-LOCATION-LOCATION!
A HIT IN THE BOILER will do enough damage, especially when/if that soft lead ball opens-up to .50+ caliber!
A HIT IN THE BOILER will do enough damage, especially when/if that soft lead ball opens-up to .50+ caliber!
I did read the artical and it was well done. I don't think I'd load any of my revolvers with 40 grains of 777 though. Some of his chronigraph numbers seemed a little high and some seemed low compared to mine. One thing I have learned is that different chronigraphs can give very different data. The Lyman loading manual has data that is very similar to mine and I reference it quite often.
Don
Don
I cant remember where I heard this or who the story was about but I am more than sure I read this somewhere but take it with a grain of salt. A gun writer knew 2 civil war vets when he was growing up and getting into guns. One was a southern man and the other a northern. When he wanted to learn how to load and shoot a cap and ball revolver they both told him that the round ball was a better man stopper than the gov,t issue bullets that they were issued. He said they would fill each chamber up to the top or close to the top with powder the push the ball in with the loading lever. That load they said would drop a horse almost dead in its tracks!!!! Like I said I cant remember where I read that but I do remember it. Having said that I do NOT recommend that you fill your chamber to the top with powder and load a ball.
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Yea...and 777 can cake up in the can if not used really quick....Ya cant beat real BP. ( BLACK POWDER...not the oil company!)
I ruined a Pietta 36 Colt once upon a time with 777. I was getting 1100 fps and was in hog heaven...........Then when I cleaned it the cylinder pin was wobbling in the frame..Now its a parts gun.......Bob
Blizzard of '93
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W.B. Hickock seemed to do fairly well with the .36 Colts when it came to killing men off.
documeted 32 kills in fair fights.
documeted 32 kills in fair fights.
zimmerstutzen
70 Cal.
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While we read about some amazing feats with black powder in the War of Northern Aggression and afterward. Some old test results for 1840's powder showed that powder then may have been a bit more powerful than today's black.
I'm curious as to where you found that information. Aside from whatever may or may not have happened during the war of northern aggression I believe I've heard of five kills and one of those was an accident.Blizzard of 93 said:
R.M. said:
Perhaps it is a great powder for use in sealed ignition inlines or loaded into centerfire cartridges, I wouldn't know, but it is hard on traditional guns.
Brisance is a term used in the explosives trade to describe the shattering effect of an explosive. To give an extreme example, a pound of black powder has much more energy or power than a single drop of nitroglycerin. But detonate that single drop under a rock and it will be shattered to pieces where as the blackpowder would only toss the rock into the air. A high brisance explosive is used to pulverize the material, low brisance when you want only to move it.
Now that is an exaggerated example, 777 does not contain nitroglycerin (so far as I know) but it does have a higher brisance than black powder. It is therefore harder on the gun even if loaded to produce the same velocity as blackpowder.
It would be nice to find a chart which lists the brisance of explosives on a scale of 1-10 but I know of no such chart. I only know that pyrotechnists have found 777 to be too "violent", to use as a lifting charge for aerial shells. It also is hard to ignite with a fuse and when it does fire it tends to "flower pot", blowing the shell out of the mortar tube in pieces. Goex FFg works fine for that purpose.
