Pietta 1860 performance

[Don]

For some time now I've been using my chronagraph to see how my pistols perform. All my other cap and ball revolvers in .44 perform well even the brass frame ones with moderate charges of 25 grains of Pyro-P. All get velocities of over 700 fps on average with 30 grain loads getting over 800 fps for energies on par with 38 special +P. All except my Pietta 1860 army. I took it out today and put 30 grains of pyro-p, a wad and .451 ball and shot it over the chrony. Average velocity was 604 ft per second. Low was 511fps and high was 727 fps. I'm baffled by the difference in performance with equal powder charges. Can any of you speculate on this or have any of you guys had a similar experience?

Don

 

For a lot of people, "performance" is measured by how accurate the gun is. Most people have no idea what the speed or energy of the round is (many don't care).

If you're hitting the bulls eye, how fast the round left the muzzle may not matter much. (traditionally/practically speaking) :wink:

How does it shoot?

 

[cmdrted]

A few things come to mind, are all the cylinders tight, in other words does the 451 ball load rather easy, you may switch to 454 or larger round balls. the other thing is cylinder/barrel gap. is the front face of the cylinder at full cock pressed close to the barrel ? check the wedge see if it is worn, or drive it in a little closer .

 

[Don]

Accuracy is good but I'd still like to know that this pistol could get the job done if I'm faced with an aggressive yote or feral dog. I often carry a cap and ball when hunting,fishing or woods loafing so I look at it as something more than a plinker. Cylinder/forcing cone spacing seems OK, tiny sliver of light to no gap at all at full cock. I'm guessing a .454 ball and a few more grains of powder will probably do the trick. Thanks for the replies.

Don

Don

 

[cmdrted]

Don, another thought was what other types of 44s were you shooting? I ask this because if they had cylinders that held less volume, and then you have the 1860 that has a longer cylinder/more powder capacity this might affect things also. I'm not advocating loading these things to max capacity, more of using a filler to adjust chamber pressures/capacitys.

 

[Bubba45]

In my Pietta '60 I use .454 over oxyoke wad and 28 grs fffg . Havent shot it over my chrony yet but it is very accurate.
This is a target from '60 Euroarms same load 5.5" barrel at 25' 5 shots online match .

 

[R.M.]

It's not unusual for an Italian gun to have chambers smaller than the groove diameter. Why, probably has something to do with lawyers. The blow-by will keep the pressures /velocity down. Going to a larger ball won't cure it. The chamber diameter will cut the ball to whatever it is. The larger ball will cut a larger lead ring, and produce slightly longer straight sides, but it will still be too small. The only way to get around it is to ream out the chambers to a larger size, preferably something like a thou or two over groove diameter.

 

[Bubba45]

RM , in both of mine the ball could almost be thumb seated using .451 . Thus.454 ball .

 

[R.M.]

Yup. You need to produce that lead -ring, but even if you used a .457 ball, the chamber would still cut it to .451 or whatever it actually is. And if the groove diameter of your barrel is larger than .451, you will have blow-by.

 

[Bubba45]

RM , in both of mine the ball could almost be thumb seated using .451 . Thus.454 ball .

I had little to no resistance with .451 and had scattered groups until switching to .454 and these dont shave a ring but swage nicely into chambers.

 

[R.M.]

Yes, you need a tight fitting ball in your chamber to stop chainfires and keep the ball from creeping, but that's not the question of this thread. And yes, I have chamfered all my C&B chamber mouths so I don't get a ring either, but swag the ball in.
It makes no matter how good of a fit you get in the chamber if you send a smaller ball out of it into a larger barrel. A ball that fills the rifling grooves and seals the gases behind it is necessary to get good performance.

 

[Bubba45]

I wont argue with that Ruger had that problem in the cf wheelguns also early on .And my first Remmy58 from Navy Arms in '70's was that way . Ball would dang near skip down the barrel.

Now to problem at hand I would suggest sluggin bore and cylinder to check dimentions and see if that could be problem.

 

[R.M.]

I would suggest sluggin bore and cylinder to check dimensions and see if that could be problem.

Yup, I think that'd be a wise approach.