Pietta 1851 round balls or conicals ?

[Smokerr]

The problem with doing your own is that melting lead and pouring bullets is a item consuming activity and you really need to be sure you are into it before you jump. I did quite a bit back in the 70s with my step dad.

Now if I want to play with Conical I just buy them. Balls are my mainstay.

Fifty years in for me percussion revolvers have always been too much fun to not enjoy load development and shooting various types of bullets. Going down that road learning various ways to tune the revolvers and to tune the loads is just part of the joy.

Shooting since I was a kid, so 60 years? Maybe a bit longer. Out with my folks in the latter 50s shooting 22 and 38 special.

Fully agreed on the above. My dad reloaded but we just hung around. My step dad reloaded with us boys latter 60s I think. Kept it up off and on. Lots of fun to see what you could do.

Back serious into reloading the last 10-15 years. BP the last 3 or 4 years. BP is the fun part, no pressure, I save that for my rifle shooting.

 

[Smokerr]

I would love to know the exact dimensions of the cylinder chambers in the original Colt Navys.

It would be great to get all of them!

 

[D Yager]

I like a 452 200 grn semi wadcutter in my ROAs. Both shoot to point of aim at 50 yards. To make the bullet work I roll it between a pair of crosscut files. This knurls the bullet making it slightly larger. They are a good fit in ROA chambers which are factory size at .453. As far as undersized chambers are concerned they can be reamed to a more reasonable size.

 

[M. De Land]

What diameter are they dropping? I also thinking a rf nose like kaido bullets no molds currently avaible. I usually shoot rb, jd, and kerr bullets.

They drop from a Lyman mold at .452 and I sized them to .448 to fit into the Walker chamber throats. The barrel groove is ..4532 and the chamber throats are .449 so they are not the best fit for sure. I'm thinking I'll eventually need to open the throats to .454 but will need to do some more shooting before I decide.
The Walker throats have a reduced diameter down in the chamber which is why the sized bullets tighten up when seated.
I think this chamber design is for shooting the original hollow base conicals that expand like a mini bullet to seal the bore when fired.