1860 colt

[bezoar]

finally got my pietta 1860, fine fit and rather nice finish. better then a few rugers ive seen selling for 3 times the price. and it was proofed and assembled this year. yeah.

how much gap should there be between roundball and cylinder face when i use that 25 grain load? 30 grain load? pyrodex p here.
its ironic, cabellas rag says make sure to get compression using these loads and fill excess space with lube.
pietta manual says use filler and compress load but only get 1mm of space tween round ball and cylinder face.

25 grains not a big charge almost takes up half the chamber, but is that really enough powder?

its just that ive seen over the years a how to article on loading bp revolvers where a brass frame was used, and they guy simply poured in powder till it was about 1/8 inch from cylinder face and threw in a roundball.

 

[erzengel]

Just enough that the cylinders is able to rotate.

About your load, depends in my opinion what you are going to shoot at for what purpose.

Just punching holes in a paper target at 25 m you have the options between 8 grain (Swiss Nr.1) to about 20 grain (Swiss no. 3).

For those hunting high scores in matches the low loads are prefered by some. The holes are rather uneven large, larger than the real ball dimaeter and scratch easier a inner ring counting higher while larger loads give nicer holes but do not extend as much and may not scratch the more inner ring and therefor counting low.

With such loads, you need a filler to place the ball close to the face of the cylinder. Used coffee dried is a good choice. Simply fill up and seat the ball.

You can fill the remaining gap with with some cheap hand cream which will help keep the powder residue softer after firing for the next shot.

 

[mykeal]

The distance between the ball and the cylinder face, or chamber mouth, is not the metric to use when deciding how much powder to use. The proper metric is how small the shot groups are, and this is determined by developing the load: shooting 3 to 5 shot groups with several different loads until you find the smallest one. Once you find the smallest group you can 'adjust' the space between the ball and the chamber mouth with inert filler (Cream of Wheat, corn meal, even dried coffee grounds (?)) and/or a felt wad and see if that makes any difference in accuracy - my bet is that it won't.

 

[Zonie]

8 grains of powder sounds pretty light to me in a .44 cal 1860.

I would say 18 would be more like it. :hmm:

As for a 25 grain powder load in a .44, I think that is a good medium powered load.

 

[D Sanders]

What Zonie just said... I shoot 30 grains of tipple "f" out of my Pieta 1860 colt and I can knock tin cans off fence posts all day long at 15 to 25 yds. It leaves about an 1/8 of an inch of space for lube at the top of the cylinder. I use no filler. :thumbsup:

HH 60

 

[markmahaney]

As others have stated, using filler is a personal choice. I have an 1858 Remington New Army in 44 cal. With a charge of 28 grains fff Triple Seven, there is at least 1/2" space left to the top of the cylinder. I use bore butter to seal the remaining space and accuracy has not been affected. I use pre-lubed wads from Cabela's when I carry the revolver in a holster to avoid the grease from getting all over the leather. As Mykeal stated, work different loads, some with filler, some without. Have fun with that 1860. I've been looking at them for a while!