The Ruger New/ Old Army

[springfield art]

Maybe because most of the rest are non-American made therefore no American lawyers involved?

wm

American lawyers are involved; the importers have certain legal responsibilities and can be sued if there's an actual issue. The current political culture wants to hold gun mfgrs. responsible for criminal mis-use of their products, too.

 

[MSW]

can we sue honda for some using their SUV as a getaway car?

 

[springfield art]

can we sue honda for some using their SUV as a getaway car?

The current political party in charge, wants to make that so. Yes, if a criminal uses a gun to shoot someone, "they" want to be able to sue the gun's mfgr. That's one of the things the NRA is warning us about. There's a law now in place dis-allowing the practice, and the party in charge wants to remove that protection.

 

[springfield art]

BTW, a gun auction near me has a stainless ROA up for sale; the auction isn't until 8/17, but already bidding is up to $800! When it finally sells, it will be plus 6% sales tax AND 20% buyer's fee. So it's over a grand no doubt! 3-4 years ago I passed up a stainless for 500 even at a meet. Who-da-thunk?

 

[Whughett]

I own somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 percussion revolvers, not bragging I just like percussion revolvers and to answer the thread;
When ever I just want to spend a couple of hours throwing lead and making smoke with out caps jamming, base pins binding, caps not firing, well in short just loading and shooting round after round I choose one of three ROA’s.
I can also drop in a 45C or 45ACP cylinder in one and shoot the same rounds I do in any of the center fire revolvers.
The ROA’s are simply bullet proof.

 

[sheriff john]

Only killed one deer with my stainless ROA using round ball and normal load. I will not do that again. Simply not enough knock-down nor penetration to suit me. I've killed many over the years with .45 and .50 rifles with good outcomes. That deer was an adult doe, heart shot behind the "elbow". It did hit the heart but did not exit the rib cage. Standing shot at perhaps 25-30 yards, the results were not impressive.

I have no idea what the kinetic energy of the load may be, but it proved to be not suitable for me although it is a legal load for deer in Missouri. Our deer are typically quite large and carry a lot of fat so others' experiences may vary.

 

[Whughett]

Only killed one deer with my stainless ROA using round ball and normal load. I will not do that again. Simply not enough knock-down nor penetration to suit me. I've killed many over the years with .45 and .50 rifles with good outcomes. That deer was an adult doe, heart shot behind the "elbow". It did hit the heart but did not exit the rib cage. Standing shot at perhaps 25-30 yards, the results were not impressive.

I have no idea what the kinetic energy of the load may be, but it proved to be not suitable for me although it is a legal load for deer in Missouri. Our deer are typically quite large and carry a lot of fat so others' experiences may vary.

Elmer Keith in his book Six Gun quoted a civil war officer that opinioed the a conical bullet was better on animals than on men. Men only required the roundball. Paraphrasing of course.

 

[rodwha]

Only killed one deer with my stainless ROA using round ball and normal load. I will not do that again. Simply not enough knock-down nor penetration to suit me. I've killed many over the years with .45 and .50 rifles with good outcomes. That deer was an adult doe, heart shot behind the "elbow". It did hit the heart but did not exit the rib cage. Standing shot at perhaps 25-30 yards, the results were not impressive.

I have no idea what the kinetic energy of the load may be, but it proved to be not suitable for me although it is a legal load for deer in Missouri. Our deer are typically quite large and carry a lot of fat so others' experiences may vary.

I’d venture to guess you used something like standard Goex. The results aren’t so great unlike a sporting grade powder.

 

[11Bravo]

I also took a large doe in the 70s with my ROA. In a three tree stand and couldn't swing the .50 FL around the one tree, drew the Ruger and sent a RB at her. She just stood there looking around, thought I missed and threw a second one. The deer dropped in a few seconds. When we skinned her out both shots were killing shots and the balls were stopped by the hide on the far side. Remember we are in the 70s and I got all my loading data from Lyman's first handbook. I used the load listed which was 41grs of 4F and the .457 ball. Where I hunted it was easier to run into a black bear than deer, I wanted max power.

 

[appalichian hunter]

The reason I carry a R.O.A. when deer hunting. Lots of power when loaded correctly.

 

[sheriff john]

I’d venture to guess you used something like standard Goex. The results aren’t so great unlike a sporting grade powder.

Don't recall which powder, 3ff is what I use in revolvers, roundball with Bear Grease atop the load. It's been over 15 years ago. For deer, my favorite .45 load in rifles is 80 grains - quite a bit more power than revolvers - most go completely through with an exit wound, some have had the ball captured beneath the skin on the opposite side, heart pretty well explodes - unlike the doe which looked more like an arrow wound (clean hole).

We normally harvest 4-5 deer on our farm each year and have for 49 years. They're corn-fed and quite fat. For quite a few years, we all used muzzle loaders but my hunting buddies have all died that enjoyed ML's. "Primitive Weapons" season is now "Alternative Method" - so now braced AR "pistols" are allowed along with spears and other stupid stuff unrelated to the original primitive weapon season concept.

With all seasons combined, in Missouri, legal deer hunting starts in September and runs through December. M/L's are legal within any firearms portion. Yay!

 

[rodwha]

Don't recall which powder, 3ff is what I use in revolvers, roundball with Bear Grease atop the load. It's been over 15 years ago. For deer, my favorite .45 load in rifles is 80 grains - quite a bit more power than revolvers - most go completely through with an exit wound, some have had the ball captured beneath the skin on the opposite side, heart pretty well explodes - unlike the doe which looked more like an arrow wound (clean hole).

Back then Swiss was the only sporting grade powder that might have been imported, still seems to be. So you had standard powders and one or two really crappy powders to choose from. If you would have been using Swiss you’d probably be telling a different story as it seems to add about 100-150 FPS over standard powders in these revolvers, and in Mike Beliveau’s Ruger testing even though he reduced his Triple 7 loads 15% as suggested to achieve standard powders showed a 250 FPS difference. And there’s no safety reason to reduce the powder charges. Triple 7 performs virtually as good as the sporting grade powders Swiss and Olde Eynsford by Goex.



Hard to say, but the wound you describe is what you see in gel from a .44 ball from a pistol, basically just a caliber sized hole if it doesn’t expand, which seems to be somewhere between 1100-1200 FPS depending on which lead expert you listen to. The ball from your Ruger at the muzzle is traveling roughly the same as your .45 rifle at about 75 yds. .452” isn’t really a small hole, but bigger is usually better.

It’s because of the poor permanent wound channels a ball provides that my revolvers are loaded with my custom bullets sporting a very wide meplat, but this is more because my revolvers are secondary weapons mostly in case I have to track down a wounded hog. I’d certainly try my Ruger as a primary, even with a ball, under the right circumstances. But then our deer in TX where I’m at just aren’t much to speak of.

 

[springfield art]

I own somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 percussion revolvers, not bragging I just like percussion revolvers and to answer the thread;
When ever I just want to spend a couple of hours throwing lead and making smoke with out caps jamming, base pins binding, caps not firing, well in short just loading and shooting round after round I choose one of three ROA’s.
I can also drop in a 45C or 45ACP cylinder in one and shoot the same rounds I do in any of the center fire revolvers.
The ROA’s are simply bullet proof.

Yes! I have a blue ROA with x-tra cylinder, and a R&S, and 1860 Uberti, so I'm good. Just wanted to top off a Pietta with one, also. Plus I gotta get out and shoot like you said, instead of fussing with the inventory!

 

[sheriff john]

Back then Swiss was the only sporting grade powder that might have been imported, still seems to be. So you had standard powders and one or two really crappy powders to choose from. If you would have been using Swiss you’d probably be telling a different story as it seems to add about 100-150 FPS over standard powders in these revolvers, and in Mike Beliveau’s Ruger testing even though he reduced his Triple 7 loads 15% as suggested to achieve standard powders showed a 250 FPS difference. And there’s no safety reason to reduce the powder charges. Triple 7 performs virtually as good as the sporting grade powders Swiss and Olde Eynsford by Goex.



Hard to say, but the wound you describe is what you see in gel from a .44 ball from a pistol, basically just a caliber sized hole if it doesn’t expand, which seems to be somewhere between 1100-1200 FPS depending on which lead expert you listen to. The ball from your Ruger at the muzzle is traveling roughly the same as your .45 rifle at about 75 yds. .452” isn’t really a small hole, but bigger is usually better.

It’s because of the poor permanent wound channels a ball provides that my revolvers are loaded with my custom bullets sporting a very wide meplat, but this is more because my revolvers are secondary weapons mostly in case I have to track down a wounded hog. I’d certainly try my Ruger as a primary, even with a ball, under the right circumstances. But then our deer in TX where I’m at just aren’t much to speak of.

Thanks for the information - quite comprehensive - especially enjoyed the chronograph info. I confess to using whatever powder's laying around with the exception of pyrodex which I do not like. DuPont in the oval cans are still on my shelf as are Elephant, Swiss, and a couple of others. Some is well over 50 years old but if I'm just messing around on my farm, it's what I use. Flintlocks get newer powder, percussion whatever's handy. Anyway ..thanks for the info!

 

[Newtire]

Don’t know if this is such a smart idea or not but there are some people who advertise how they will bore your ROA cylinder deeper to hold more black powder and give you more power that way if that’s what you want…

 

[Tenring]

I believe the Rogers and Spencer 44 cal. That never seen service that looks like the 58 REM 44 cal. Really looks good to me even though it has no combat historical value I think would be a nice pistol to have in the collection.

 

[11Bravo]

Having shot my ROA with max charges, why bore the chamber deeper? The barrel length would never eat up more powder, heck I put out quite the flame with my 41 gr 4F now. JMHO

 

[rodwha]

Don’t know if this is such a smart idea or not but there are some people who advertise how they will bore your ROA cylinder deeper to hold more black powder and give you more power that way if that’s what you want…

I would rather get a ClassicBallistix cylinder, basically the same thing but allows you to retain the original.

As it is my ROA’s more accurate hunting load is 35 grns of 3F Olde Eynsford that weighs 38 grns on the scale. I’ve run about 8 different types of projectiles including ball and they all seem to agree on that powder charge. I’m planning on filling the majority of the excess chamber capacity with more lead, which so far seems like it will be about 230 grns. I’m not sure how a different cylinder would work, but if I can add more powder or use an even bigger bullet is a win in some situations such as when I thought I was moving to VA and potentially hunting bears I wanted a big bullet so I created one that weighs about 280 grns but is almost as short as a 255 grn bullet with a wide meplat. With deeper chambers I can likely get close to that more accurate hunting charge, couple that with aheavy bullet, and you have a stomper.

 

[rodwha]

Having shot my ROA with max charges, why bore the chamber deeper? The barrel length would never eat up more powder, heck I put out quite the flame with my 41 gr 4F now. JMHO

Well, I thought I’d be hunting things as big as VA black bears and not just TX hogs. As Mr Beliveau’s testing shows that with sporting grade powder and a bullet these guns can achieve about 500 ft/lbs or so. Not bad at all, but I’ve never heard of anyone tracking wounded hogs or bears that would argue against a little more power.

Why do you believe the 7.5” barrel struggles to consume a full powder charge as is, and cannot handle any more when the Dragoon and Walker used more powder and much courser powders? Clements claimed boring the chambers added 5-10 grns of powder, I’d venture to guess it likely gets it close to but not equal to a Dragoon which we often read having a max load of 50 grns. I can squeeze in more than 40 grns but never tried to find my max. My ROA and Pietta NMA cylinders are the same length so there’s just no way I can see it matching that of a Dragoon chamber. Looking down my chambers I can’t imagine it adding more than maybe 5-6 grns, but I don’t know exactly what all he does. I imagine taking them down to the nipple faces with a radius so there’s not a sharp corner.

 

[nkbj]

What a shame the Ruger was only made in single action.
Heeey, maybe somebody will get smart and produce drop-in percussion cylinders for Ruger double actions!