cylinder capacities

[poordevil]

Reading about how much powder a ROA cylinder can hold got me to wondering just how much powder(3Fg) the various pistol cylinders can hold. I had an 1860 Colt Uberti and I think I remember it held 40gr to the brim. So, not considering the "recommended loads", but the cylinder capacity to the brim, how much powder will x-cylinder hold?

p

 

[CaptainKirk]

Here are the "stuffed to the brim" loads on my caplocks:
1858 Remmy, cal. 44; (Armsport) 35 gr
1860 Army, cal. 44 (no-name kit) 35 gr
1851 Navy, cal. 36 (Excam)25 gr.

These loads are Pyrodex "P", which, according to Hodgdon, takes up more volume than holy black.
I would "assume" (take that as you will!) that real black would include another 5 gr or so.
Hope this helps!

 

[arcticap]

Powders can really be compressed, some more than others but still, using a thin over powder card and a loading press, an apparent 1858 cylinder full consisting of 35 grains of APP fffg can be squeezed down to easily hold more than another 5 grains I believe.
Others have mentioned using significant compression to fit 40 grains of black powder into an 1860 Colt, and how at some point the hammer may blow back after firing depending on the strength of the mainspring and size of the nipple openings.
The principle is a simple one though, to load more powder one needs to eliminate more of the air space between each of the granules. And the smaller granules the better because there's less air space that will be trapped too begin with. That's partly why long powder drop tubes can be employed to load more powder with better efficiency into BPCR cases for example. And there are also powder compression dies that serve a similar purpose which is to compress powder so that a given volume of powder occupies less space. The larger the diameter of the ram tip that's used for compression then the more effective and easier the compaction process may be.
Another example is how for instance Swiss powder is said to weigh as much as 11.5% heavier than an equal volume of Goex. That's possibly an indication that weight of a give black powder is a more precise indication of it's relative "mass".
Isn't that related to how the black powder makers manufacture black powder by compressing it to begin with?
And what use is measuring the volume of powder unless it corelates to the amount of velocity that it can produce?
Triple 7 verses Swiss verses Goex verses Pyrodex P etc....What does the maximum volume of any cylinder represent other than its potential to produce velocity and all of the other related performance results that are associated with each powder's pressure curve?