Pietta 44 1858 powder charge

Purchased from cabelas. The Pietta manual says use 12-15 grains 3f. The Cabelas manual says 35 grains of black powder. The Traditions manual says 22-30 grains 3f.
I believe the Pietta manual must be in grains weight and the other two in grains volume.
This is a Pietta 1858 44 steel frame revolver with ball diameter of .454. Cabelas manual uses .451 ball dia. Traditions and Pietta both use .454 round ball in thier data tables.
Does any one have an idea which one is right.
Wouldn't it be nice if all three manuals stated if the powder is grains/vol or grains/weight.

Pietta revolvers seem to prefer the .451 diameter ball though the .454 wouldn't hurt it, just make it a little harder to ram the ball into the cylinder. The Remington .44 will hold as much as 35 grains of powder and still be safe to shoot. I think 30 is plenty and should give good accuracy and power.

Don

With the steel frame you should be ok with 30 to 35grs.these are good hunting loads. I shoot 30grs. in my 1851 navy and it shoots very good with 451 balls. I try to keep my shots 40yds and less. Try different loads to see what your gun likes best..Good Luck.

timer:
There is little doubt that the manual that comes from Pietta is on the ultra-conservative side. In this case, looking at the 12 grain value I would say they were way under a good load even for a .36 cal pistol. In a .44, 12 grains can produce such a low velocity that the ball can bounce back and do you some harm.

IMO, any load in your .44 from 25-35 grains will work nicely.

You mentioned "grains weight" and "grain volume" as though they would be different.
If we are speaking of real black powder, they will be the same.

If we are speaking of any of the new synthetic powders, they all actually weigh less than the same volume of real black powder.

For instance, a 100 grain (volume)powder measure will produce 100 grains (weight) of black powder but if the same measure is used to measure Pyrodex the Power will be about the same as the black powder but the measured actual weight will only be about 70 grains.

That is why if a person is using a modern synthetic powder, they should always use the "volume" method of measuring them. That is the measuring method they are designed for and it is the only one that should be used with them.

a 7.62X39 case (AK AND SKS casefull) is 32 grs a fairly hot load. leaves room for a felt. 40 grs will load in but it's mighty tight.
try the 32 gr (3F) load first. it's powerful.

30 gr fff or P work really good for me but I have also used 777 with good reaults...I know..Boo,Hiss,and Gasp. about the substitues.I mostly stay at 30 gr because that is how much the nozzle on the flask holds. Use calipers to measure the cyl bores for the best size ball most of mine I use .454 accept for Dragoons and my walker .457. And .451 in my 2 brass frames.

From [email protected]

Good Morning,

Sorry for the confusion with the manuals. The load chart you need to follow is the Traditions one. Those are the charges we have tested and that we use. The chart in the Pietta manual is European measures and is different from American measure. Just follow the Traditions charges and you will be fine.

Thank you
Marijo
Customer Service

I have a Pietta 1858 Remington in stainless steel.My standard load is a 25 grain charge of 3f Goex with a lubed felt wad then a .451 ball.I weighed this on a powder scale so I could be consistent.I would imagine should I forego the wonderwad I might get more in but this seems to be all I can load and still have the cylinder rotate.Best regards,J.A.

Load the cylinder full and press the ball down. Then put lube of some sort over ball...I use 50/50 bees wax and mutton tallow....It will keep fouling soft.

Jack Aubrey said:

I have a Pietta 1858 Remington in stainless steel.My standard load is a 25 grain charge of 3f Goex with a lubed felt wad then a .451 ball.I weighed this on a powder scale so I could be consistent.I would imagine should I forego the wonderwad I might get more in but this seems to be all I can load and still have the cylinder rotate.Best regards,J.A.

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????? I can load 40 grs. of Pyrodex and a wad with a .454 ball. Pyro compresses more than bp but you should still be able to get at least 35 grs. of bp and a wad.

I have a Pietta 1858 Remington in stainless steel also. I was not hitting the target at point of aim.., I am now. We played with the loads quite a bit to get what works for us. We have the regular 1858 and the target sight model. Both from Cabelas. Now I could be wrong about this but...., In my opinion its harder to compress into the cylinder a .454 ball as opposed to a .451 ...., therefore you will probably get more compression with the larger ball. as in a more powerful blast with the same grain amount. My mold is a 6 cavity .454 so thats what I use. We started at 30. The gun went BANG and we were way out., we kept lowering powder volume. the ball started coming into view. The excessive flame at the end of the barrel started to calm down as accuracy improved. Now we have a real good accuracy ., a small flame ., get 30% more shots out of a flask. :thumbsup: Finally I am using 20 grains 3f. I am using Pyrodex P . I havent been able to order enough BP lately to make the hazmat fee worth it. BP laws are terrible :yakyak:

I have loaded 35gr 3F BP and a 1/16th" wad and Lee mold slug but it's a squeeze. I've had to replace ram pins doing this. 32grs loads in with a firm squeeze and is consistent shot-to-shot. I have the target sight model. surprising how powerful that load is.

I normally use 35.grs but do jump up to 40 sometimes. Two 58 Remmy's and a 60 COlt all shoot to POA with 35-40 grs. At least good enough to consistently hit a softball size target at 25.yds.
Good enough for me.

I have the target sight model also. I have been using 30 grains of fff and a 454 rb with felt wads but have noticed that accuracy is erratic. Thought about lowering the charge to see if accuacy got better but haven't had a chance to get back to the range.

A friend of mine has a stainless 1858 .44. He used 15 grains of 3F. I put five shots through it one handed and managed to keep them all in the black with a group I could cover with my hand at 25 yards. It was a sweet shooting load.

Kevin W. said:

I have the target sight model also. I have been using 30 grains of fff and a 454 rb with felt wads but have noticed that accuracy is erratic. Thought about lowering the charge to see if accuacy got better but haven't had a chance to get back to the range.

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you might try slugs in that '58. the difference may surprise you.