I finally shot 2 of the BP pistols.

I finally had the opportunity to shoot two of my PB pistols last night. My daughter and her boyfriend asked me to join then at the indoor shooting range. My first time shooting BP, and what a hoot! Smoke and fire all over the place, peace officers glaring at me and Jeannie and Steve watching my every move. 12 rounds through the 1851 Confederate Navy .44 and 24 rounds through the so called EMF "Buntline". 20 yards, and never missed the target. The

 

[roundball454]

The peace officers did not want to join in?? ::
I am glad you liked the shooting. It is to hot in sunny AL to go out side and shoot wish we had an inside range
No? black powder? wait till you try it! no more pyro for you. I like the real stuff :results:

 

[oldmaster]

On your Colt navy, if you change to #10 caps, you'll get a better fit and better ignition. If you can, buy some real black powder. That is more of a hoot than pyrodex. :m2c:

 

[jdixon]

Glad you had a good time. I second the idea of using the real black powder. That substitute stuff is alright, even performs better in some cases, but there is nothing like the real thing that was intended to be shot in those guns. Interesting that they let you shoot on an indoor range. An indoor range near here will not let black powder guns in, said the excessive smoke was hard on the air handling equipment and scrubbers they had to run.

 

The range here is very accomidating. They don't mind BP shooting at all, they kinda grin about the all the smoke and flame. They have a really good ventalation system, so it isn't a real problem. I haven't found any real BP in the area yet, and I will give the number 10 caps a try. As an aside, my capper crapped out after the first six caps, the spring broke. That's what I get for using the "Starter Kit" stuff. I will be buying a new one next week. Gonna do some more looking for the real BP.

GasBag.

 

[jdixon]

Don't know the kind of capper you have, but I strongly suggest the Ted Cash tear drop design for the revolvers. I have several different designs of cap revolvers, Colt, Ruger, Remington; the Ted Cash works very well on them all. About $18.00 for one of these through Dixie Gun Works and others. If it is this type you already have, DGW even sells the replacement spring. As an aside, if you don't have one already, if you order anything from Dixie, spend the extra $5 for a catalog. It is as much a reference source as it is a catalog of stuff you can't find anywhere else. Something else that will make your shooting more enjoyable, a loading stand. Dixie, Cabelas and others have these too. If you have the time, the best loading stands are the custom made ones you do yourself. There are some fine examples on some other posts here recently on this forum. :blue: :grey:

 

I ordered the Tedd Cash Capper today, along with the Dixie catalog. $19.95 for the capper, probably well worth it after putting caps on by hand. The "Starter Kit" capper is now history. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I am going to give the #11 caps one more chance, if they don't do any better, then I will see if I can find some #10 somewhere close.

GasBag

 

[jdixon]

Another issue about caps to keep in mind. Not all #10, #11's are the same size. We the consumer would assume that the manufacturers would have gotten together on this point and standardized a size but, they have not. In some cases the sizes in both diameter and depth of the cap (a cap that is too deep will cause mis-fire problems as well) are several 1/1000th's" different. Do a search on the pistol forum on caps, there are some recent posts which list the sizes and of the different makes. You will be surprised. Personally, the one cap that I have found that seems to fit all of the revolvers that I presently have are RWS's 1075 size caps. These are in between #10's and #11's. They are good caps with a very low failure rate.