New Toy / Ruger Old Army

[Gary Miller]

rodwha
Nifty information. So today I changed my front site. Knocked out the roll pin without issue. The factory front site required pliers to pull it. Tight friction fit. I went to various welding shops and machine shops to no avail finding the right 1/8 inch stock. A trip to the neighboring town got me a piece for 47 cents. I gave the man a dollar. A new hack saw blade and the best little triangle file in the world shaped out a front site Elmer Keith or Skeeter Skelton would have been proud of. 1/16 drill bit made the new hole. I used a little hot melt glue to keep it in place while drilling. Roll pin back in and I'm in business. Didn't have a caliper as I haven't reloaded modern cartridges in years and ain't about to dig through the garage without a tetanus shot. Waiting on my molds to come in now. I really think FFFg will send a 250 Kaido through most anything within realistic BP revolver ranges, especially if 3.5 inch groups is the norm at 25 yards. We will see. I'll back off of this topic until I have a chance to shoot .457 balls and the 250 slugs. Will post results then.

 

[rodwha]

Were you able to get a Ruger sight that quickly? Or did you create or modify one?

3F, especially an energetic one, is more than plenty for hunting within 25 yds. The .45 Colt and Schofield certainly work plenty well.

Even a ball alone is likely to give plenty of penetration. I certainly prefer a wider meplat and will take a little extra mass as well with my 195 grn boolit.

 

[M. De Land]

Nice work! How much higher did you make it?

 

[19 16 6]

BTW, not that anybody here gives a hoot, but in UK ANY ROA is heading up towards the $1000 point.

tac

So the SS one that is offered to me for $400 Au. is a good deal.

 

[Rifleman1776]

a properly designed conical at 900 FPS will do all I want it to do and that can be done with fffg

:hmm: Somewhere in the back of my moldy brain I seem to recollect reading that the max. you can get with that combination is 750 fps. The Lyman bp book mebbe? I'll have to check. I do recall that bullets were far less destructive on stumps than round balls when I had my ROA. That's scientific evidence. :wink: :rotf:

 

[Gary Miller]

Heck no on buying one. Brownells was out of stock on anything Ruger Black Hawk or similar. I searched several places with same result. Was considering Clements package where he bores cylinder, installs new site blade and furnishes his brand of conical molds. Then ordered the kaido and didn't want to wait for the custom work. I think M.D. suggested Bisley style sight and how simple it looked to file one out of metal. Well I pulled the Ruger and the site didn't appear to be heat treated anyway. I mean it marred slightly where I grabbed it with pliers cushioned with cloth.(Should use leather I guess)I have a Ruger Bisley so I drug it out and it looked simple. Turned out to be easier than I expected and no doubt could do better with a caliper and less redneck fitting. But I'm pretty pleaded and didn't have to wait.

 

[Gary Miller]

M.D. I'd be lying if I told you. Never put a tape on it, Just traced the old site onto the blank and added about 1/4 height increase from the original. My base line to barrel fit wasn't a perfect machine fit so it probably acquired .010 or so there. I figured I would raise my rear site to a neutral setting and play around with it at 25 yards and 50 yards and have to file a bunch anyway. Thanks for the idea. It looks strong as hell so don't anticipate it bending at all. Guess on the next one I could get it cherry red and drop in water. It's so thick versus the overall size, I doubt it would warp like a knife blade. But again the original wasn't very hard. I thought the bluing only marred, but you can see and feel the rough metal.Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[rodwha]

That depends on the powder used:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LP_dwo2nThA

Swiss, Olde Eynsford, and Triple 7 will get you no less than 900 fps with a stock cylinder.

 

[Gary Miller]

Cannon, I may have gotten a little carried away with velocity with fffg. I was looking at the water jug tests where the Kaido really flew well and penetrated 10 jugs or so. Let me crawfish a bit to say what I meant to say. I think the round ball will do fine for tree stand deer in thick woods,which is mostly what I would do with it anyway. The conical, especially in a Keith or similar style tend to significantly increase the penetration. Theoretically they should increase effective range also provided the group size allows it for ethical hunting. The vast majority of my deer kills have been 40 yards or less. If I could get this thing to group the Kaido to 2.5 or so at 25, that would be all I ask. I think I would prefer black powder for reliability over Triple Seven. Maybe that's a mistake, but my Swiss powder goes boom unless I screw up the loading process. I've had less than stellar results with Pyrodex. Never tried Triple Seven. Also this inline revolver ignition is probably more reliable than side lock percussion so I'm learning as I go. Now I'll probably have to open my loading port to get the projectiles to fit. If I ruin this gun Im gonna start drinking and get real mean. :wink:

 

[Gary Miller]

I don't know how she'll do on hopping deer, but I'd take two at that price. Now that I think about it the hopping would reduce my high misses by 50 percent.

 

[rodwha]

You won't need to modify your loading port with the Kaido boolits.

I'd take a wide meplat over a ball for hunting every day when it comes to a revolver.

 

[Gary Miller]

Best news I've heard all day. Thanks for the information. I was looking at Roto tools when I bought my 1/16 drill bit yesterday. Man I could do some damage with one of those things. Kaido said I could get 900 pretty easy in the ROA. Hell, looked like 800 was a water jug killing animal. This whole project is a just a fun way to enjoy shooting and it appeals to my step back in time mentality. I've got plenty of handguns, light weight packers and double action revolvers that would be quieter to manipulate in the woods, more reliable and certainly more powerful, but I've got the fever, several hundred pounds of lead cupcakes and all of the range lead available that my back can stand to gather. This is a very simple and pleasing pastime, which I'm sure is why everyone else likes it as well.Thanks for the information. Looks like went down this path way before I started.

 

[M. De Land]

Gary, when you pull a site blade like that use a solidly mounted, bench vice with copper lined jaws, after removing the pin.
You pull the pistol barrel away from the sight blade instead of the other way around.
You won't mar the site blade and it gives you more purchase to pull with.
Also you don't want the site blade hard when you need to file it down. Couple of tips to help you up the trail.

 

[Gary Miller]

Someday, I'll move back to the country and have a workshop with a vise. Imagine if you will my filing and sawing yesterday on the wife's kitchen table. Fortunately the metal piece I was using was cut about 10 inches long (No thanks to my planning) and it gave purchase when I stood with a fat palm pressing that baby down with all my weight and all fingers grabbing the lip of the table edge. The little woman got nervous there for a minute, but I won the war with sheer force of will and perseverance. Love the copper lined jaw tip and will certainly use it in the future. Makes perfect sense. Also I think the heat treating unnecessary although I can somewhat smugly say I had the order figured out in advance.Think I'll leaver her alone except for filing while sighting in and maybe a cosmetic upgrade or two. I'm jealous of your mechanical ability and place of residence.

 

[M. De Land]

No reason for that, both have been a gift blessing from God and the ability, such as it is, can always be improved on.
I'm picking up new ideas from all sorts of folks all the time.
Truth is I doubt of ever having an original thought as we all build on the ideas and experience of those who came before.
Just like picking up a gold nugget laying there in a stream bed winking at yah, I'd guess!

 

[bpd303]

For small jobs, I use my hand vise that I've had for at least 5 decades. Looks like this one. https://www.google.com/search?q=ha...w#imgdii=cNf9_ALzsDU-7M:&imgrc=QXMXWe5xxqt_8M:

 

[Gary Miller]

Range Report 2 Old Army

I couldn't stand waiting for my new molds so headed out to range today to try my front site. Much, much better day with the Old army. My first group with the homemade site at 25 yard was 3.75 inches printing two inches high. Three of the bullets near cloverleaf. Dropped the rear sight a few clicks and was dead on. Second group had two pops instead of bangs. I think the caps were angled improperly and not fully seated. Anyway re-capped and opened the group up to five inches. Third group was very nice at 3.0 inches. Moved my target out to fifty yards, Stepped it off later determining it to actually be 48 yards. Elevation still on, which surprised me. Two pops again with primers. 8 inch group with one high and one low. remaining four easily covered with open hand pretty nuch center.Two of the four pierced the 3 inch square bull I was shooting at. I used 25 grains of FFFg Swiss, a Lee R.E.A.L. bullet(200 gr.) and a .60 vegetable wad between powder and base of bullet. My revolver has a smooth, but heavy trigger. The faulty cap placement messed with my head a bit. I have a capper on order also. I believe it will be a shooter and fully expect consistent 6 inch groups at 50. I'll report the accuracy results of the round ball versus Kaido when the molds come in. Very pleased with my homemade site. No filing and still have 1/16 inch of rear site travel left to lower point of aim if needed. I will file the front to point of aim when I choose a final load after centering the sites again. Rear site is centered with no adjustment needed. My stainless hammer just got valuable again. Also the bore butter was stiffer and I learned a lot from my first encounter. A local Bee Keeper just melted some wax and I'm expecting delivery on Monday. This will let me stiffen the lube to fit our warmer weather. Gathered a paint can full of range lead after cleaning the gun. Thanks to all who offered advice that got me this far. Any of you boys get in the Porterville california area give me a shout and we'll go out and burn some powder.

 

[rodwha]

I use Rem #10 caps and have found that quite often I find the priming compound of 1-3 per tin not in the cap.

I also found that CCI #11 Mags wouldn't seat fully and required two strikes quite often.

 

[Gary Miller]

rodwha
I think the problem was purely me. Cool tip though, Ill start paying closer attention to the caps. Hard to believe Remington would market a product that failed at that rate. I have big hands and tried to kinda push them on the nipple since my only capper is junk. They would sometimes start crooked and I would try to straighten them with a knife blade. I would then try to push them on, but you could see some seated deeper than others. I wondered if I had different sized nipples. I am going to start cleaning my cylinder and nipples after 6 rounds. Not a full clean, but a swipe with a wet patch, a dry patch and then alcohol. I checked each nipple before loading and had good light shining through. I also had a vegetable wad between bullet and powder. Lube was stiff at about 40 degree weather. Maybe it was faulty primer, but most likely it was me. I will certainly check now that you mentioned it. I can tell the gun wants to shoot, but I'm in the way so far. Also I'm really just killing time with it until I get molds that cast a bullet to fit it properly. The Lee shave some lead and I saw from an old post of yours that you reversed the bullet to emulate a full wad cutter. (Old Skeeter Skelton trick) I thought about that too. Anyway you are a decade ahead of me in this quest. My plan is to find a suitable load with the Kaido 255 gr. and make it bomb proof. I've got a few ideas about that when I settle on a load. It's gonna happen cause I ain't gonna quit until it does. Thanks for your response. Also I'd like to know your opinion of Tripple Seven reliability for hunting situations etc. To me, reliability overrules power unless I can have cake and eat it too.

 

[M. De Land]

You might try a stiff tooth brush to give each of the nipples a brushing between reloadings.
It seems to help mine seat and fire more reliably.
I also save pop cycle sticks to push the caps on after capper seating them.