Conical vrs RB

So, while shopping for a 1911, a Pietta 1851 Colt Navy happened to be offered to me at an incredible price (the one with the faux ivory grips). Needless to say, it came home with me and the 1911 didn't. I don't own another .36 Cal so now I'm shopping for bullet molds. In my 1860s I shoot RB, but my curiosity about the conical BP molds from Lee has been peaked. Has anyone else tried them? How is their accuracy? Is it worth straying from RB?

If it is a brasser. I would stay shy of conicals.

A lot has been said and shown about conicals and hot loads for hunting. Frankly, neither 36 or 44 is truly big game stuff.

Rather than hammer the gun with hot loads of sub powders, I stick to real black and round balls. I have loaded conicals in my Ruger old army, but they took up room that could have been taken up by powder with a round ball. Felt recoil is more with round balls than with concicals in my ROA. Never tried anything but rbs in the colts and remingtons.

If you are just paper punching or looking for small game, there is no reason for a conical anyway.

"Frankly, neither 36 or 44 is truly big game stuff."

What's not big game enough for a .44 that produces nearly 500 ft/lbs with a heavy conical?

But since we are talking about a .36, if it is a brass framed gun, I'd certainly agree that hot loads certainly should not be considered at all as I've seen plenty of evidence that it will hammer the recoil shield.

Tried conicals and round balls out of my c and b revolver and I see no difference in accuracy. I'd just use round balls and leave it at that.

HH 60

Thanks,,,,:hmm: punching paper, that's all. All this big game talk is what 58's are made for. :grin: RB it is then, I was just curious if there was an advantage to conicals. BTW, mine is steel, not brass.

Re a 44 Cal you can't get 500 out of an roa with 4fg.
Maybe w walker.

500 ft lbs is not legal for deer in some states

I have read the alleged chronic results. Don't believe it possible with a standard 44 repro.

I bought the Lee conical 36 mold and with pure lead the bullets would not enter the chambers on my Pietta 51. I need to ream them some. The rebated base of the bullet still would not enter.

The Piettas I've worked with so far have all started out with chambers of diameters in between the barrel bore and groove diameters.

The best way I've found to get elongated bullets to shoot their most accurate is to have the rear of the bullet sized .001 or .002 under chamber diameter to get proper alignment and then let the powder charge expand it.

The Lee .36 bullet mold... picked up a used one and haven't tried it out. It looks to me as though it might be too short to keep alignment and prevent the base from being slightly out of perpendicular as it exits the muzzle.

The strong suit that round ball has in a percussion revolver is that the backside isn't going to be out of alignment.
An elongated bullet with a round base might be easier to make accurate than one with a flat one.
Didn't someone once write that they loaded the Lee bullet backwards?

"Re a 44 Cal you can't get 500 out of an roa with 4fg.
Maybe w walker."

Not true at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WNYGs2_UZw

You'll note that Mr. Beliveau was able to achieve nearly 500 ft/lbs with a 255 grn conical made by Kaido using a mere 25 grns of 3F Triple7, which is a reduced load (~16%) that also used very slight compression, which isn't necessary except when loading cartridges.

According to the few comparisons I've seen Triple 7 gives very similar velocities as both Swiss and Olde Eynsford of the same volume and size. Not a lot of choice, but certainly two true black powders.

So even if the load weren't max and was a little slower you'd likely still achieve over 400 ft/lbs, which is a modern .45 Colt load.

And then here we have a fellow who loaded up his 1858 with T7 and achieved nearly 500 ft/lbs with a ball.
http://poconoshooting.com/blackpowderballistics.html

it's certainly possible if you use an energetic powder, but as you can see in both of these is that standard Goex cannot perform to that level, which is why we have so many people who believe that these (.44 cal) guns are no more powerful than a .38 Spl.

My Pietta '58 shoots both of my custom conicals (170 and 195 grn) about as well as RB's. But then my conicals are shorter than average (170 grn is .400" long, and the 195 grn is .460" long), though my Remington has the faster twist associated with their newer guns (1:16" - same as my Ruger).

I'm wondering if it was the slower twist (1:30") pistols that did so poorly with conicals as they were rifled for RB's.

If all you are doing is killing paper there's not much of a need to use more lead.

If 3F Swiss with a reduced load can get close to 500 ft/lbs I wonder what their 4F would do. It's certainly nothing like the standard Goex you are likely speaking of...

Never found the need for any thing but round balls in my Navy 36. I use it for small game while deer hunting. And of course the taking of the elusive extremely hard to track find and skin the 10x ring.

Conicals can be just as accurate as round ball and will give you more penetration because of added mass. Beyond that there is no real advantage. I shoot them out of my .36 revolvers just because I can.

Don

I said a 44 repro other than a walker, is not truly a big game gun. and you provide a link to a 45 caliber modern gun that still did not hit 500 Ft labs. What for? Proves nothing.

Some states require a minimum of 700 Ft lbs. 469 if it hit that, is still far short.

My father arrested more than a few folks who killed white tail with 22 rf's. Does not make it legal or ethical.

Don, I don't necerssarily disagree with your statement that a conical will penetrate farther than a round ball but there are a LOT of factors to take into consideration. First is the relative velocities of the round ball versus the conical. If the powder charge is the same for both, the round ball will have a greater muzzle velocity than the heavier conical. Penetration is largely a function of the kinetic energy of the projectile at the target. Kinetic energy is (Mass x the square of the velocity) divided by 2. As you can see, an increase of the mass results in far less of a change in kinetic energy than does an increase in velocity. Of course, the ballistic coefficient of the projectile will figure into what the velocity changes are with distance from the muzzle to the target.

However, our point of agreement is that if a conical with the same velocity at the target as a round ball hits a soft target, the conical, with its greater mass, and thus, more kinetic energy, will be expected to give more penetration.

Getting back to the original question. I might be wrong but I think virtually all target competitions are won using round balls. Today's conicals are far better than the original styles. The originals had a short base and a long tapered point and could twist sideways under the pressure of being rammed into the chamber and accuracy wasn't good. The newer conicals are better designed.
For accuracy, it sometimes helps if the ball is as close to the front of the cylinder as possible. That means you'll need a lot of powder or use a filler like Cream of wheat (You HAVE TO seat the ball on the powder NO DEAD AIR SPACE) You can also use a prelubed felt wad between the powder and ball which helps push fouling out of the bore and takes up space in the chamber.
If you plan on doing a lot of shooting you can buy a Lee round ball mold and pure lead and cast your own and save a lot of money. If you don't use the wads then put Crisco over the ends of the chambers (after the ball is in place) to ward off a chain firing. The Crisco also helps reduce bore fouling.

Most people consider whitetail big game, and a .45 Colt is plenty for that.

Though a Ruger Old Army may be a hybrid of new and old, it still uses BP, and is no different than a repro or original. The springs and such certainly don't add any power to it. But I also posted a link with a Remington 1858 being used too.

As Triple 7 doesn't need to be reduced or mildly compressed, even more so in a Ruger, and that Swiss and Olde Eynsford can both achieve the same velocity with the same volume of powder, shows that 500 ft/lbs is certainly attainable, and more than likely surpassed.

There may well be some states that have a minimum of 700 ft/lbs of energy as a requirement. But I'd be willing to bet there are many more that don't.

And who decided that 700 ft/lbs was the minimum it would take? If that were truly what was necessary you'd best get right up on a deer with your .54 cal muzzleloader since it won't be lethal enough beyond 60-70 yds if you're using a ball.

We certainly aren't talking about .22 cal rim fires. We are talking about .44 (.45) cal projectiles that are certainly up to the task without the need for expansion. Or is a .45 Colt only good enough for small game?

And that proves quite a bit”¦

Please do tell us how useless the .44-40 and .45 Colt were/are, and how unethical they were/are.

So I ran the numbers on a .490" RB that weighs 177 grns with a BC of .069 using 90 grns of RS giving it a muzzle velocity of 1787 fps.

Then I ran the reduced load used by Mr. Beliveau and used the BC value given by Hornady for their 255 grn FN, which ought to be close enough.

The .50 cal ball at 75 yds has 525 ft/lbs, which is about what I'd guess the conical would achieve without a reduced load, at 100 yds it has 429 ft/lbs, and 125 yds it has 368 ft/lbs.

The .45 cal conical has 448 ft/lbs at 25 yds, 421 ft/lbs at 50 yds, 397 ft/lbs at 75 yds, 374 ft/lbs at 100 yds, and 354 ft/lbs at 125 yds.

We know that the heavier conical for the pistol has a much greater sectional density giving it a greater penetration, especially through bone, than that of the .50 cal ball, and with it's much greater BC value we see that it hangs on to its energy much better as we can see that it would surpass the .50 cal ball at 150 yds, but that's not what we are talking about.

The reason most people state for keeping their range with a .50 cal PRB to 75-100 yds isn't because it can't achieve a passthrough or be found under the skin, as I've read mammy accounts of, and give a humane kill.

By your 700 ft/lb rule you mentioned a .50 cal ball pushed by a nice charge wouldn't be acceptable beyond 40-45 yds as it only kept 684 ft/lbs at 50 yds. I guess that would mean, by your logic, that anyone shooting deer at 50 yds or more is unethical, right?

I don't know if it was Kaido's 240 grn or 255 grn version that went through an adult hog nose to tail. But that must have been a fluke as with all of the other hogs those fellows have killed with them, right? Sounds extremely weak and unethical with such pathetic penetration capabilities.

45 colt original factory loads ran about 400 ft lbs. Even less than the 44 rim fire Henry. Todays hot loads are running close to and over 700 ft lbs.

How much lead was shaved off the balls or conicals tested in the tests you posted? How much change downward is caused by that loss of mass. I did not see that either test took that into consideration. neither actually hit 500 ft lbs. in their testing. In fact old Pocono, barely beat 600 ft /sec with a 60 grain load and PRB in a TC 50 cal. Why so little? When he tested the big conical with 140 grains, what was the pressure? If you are going to test a load, isn't it relevant to the test that you may be approaching the bursting point of the barrel? Neither test hit 500 ft lbs with a revolver and both tests ignored the few grains shaved off the ball, and so artificially inflated the ft lbs figures upward by including a false figure in the computations. Even if just a dozen or two of ft lbs, the result was boosted as if to support or justify a predetermined premise

You can use a nuclear powered arbor press to compress the powder into the cylinder. It is still out of the realm of average shooter's loads and average shooters probable results.