How to fill the space in BP revolver

Lucky,

In what were you/they shooting these reduced loads?
.36 or .44 ?

 

[pr.piburn]

Rugers and Remington revolvers and single shot
pistols. In 36 cal and 32 cal

 

[Flash Pan Dan]

Just came back from the range and I wanted to report that using cream of wheat (Farina) as a filler worked great in one of my Pietta NMA revolvers. I had been using 32grs. of 2fg with a felt wad and getting 2 inch groups from a rest at 25 yards. Today I put 15 grs, by volume, of Farina on top of the powder instead of the felt wad and got groups under an inch. The five groups averaged 1.45 inches. This load puts the ball about 1/8 of an inch below the rim of the cylinder. I want to thank you all for passing on all this good information.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

I make my own simple BP lube, equal 1 cup volumes of melted beeswax and coconut butter with a table spoon of Mobil 1 oil stirred in. I also use Mobil 1 grease on 58 Remmy base pin which greatly extends shooting time. Both the Mobil syn oil and grease is unaffected by BP fouling unlike petroleum based such.

The hydrogenated coconut butter laughs at this AZ 125 degree heat, once cooled, lube remains softly firm and does not melt at ambient temps.

 

[curator]

An interesting "side-effect" of using Cream of Wheat as a filler in a cap & ball revolver is more efficient powder burn. When I got my first "Chrony" chronograph I had to measure the velocity of everything I owned. My Pietta 1860 Army was one of the first. I had a big surprise when the "fillered" load (22grs. FFFg & 18 grs measure C.O.W.) showed almost the same velocity as a full chamber load of 38 grs. FFg (around 850fps)

I found the same thing shooting my Uberti 1849 Dragoon with a 32/18 load. If those who have chronographs want to repeat this experiment a word of caution: cover your sensors with clear plastic or glass and shield your display if it is near the sky screens. Full chamber loads quickly clog the sensors even at 15 feet. Cream of Wheat is also quite abrasive at this distance and will shred your sky screens and destroy your exposed display. This is how I also found out about Chrony's half-price replacement policy.

My theory is a full chamber charge results in a lot of unburned powder igniting outside the barrel. The reduced load with C.O.W. has additional projectile weight (the filler) and more bore-friction which cause the smaller charge to burn more completely and efficiently. The reduction in or elimination of gas leakage past the ball as it enters the rifling probably contributes some to this as well.

 

[ZFC]

Hi you all,

I started this topic and I would like to thank all of you for all your information. I am learning a lot from you! I would like to try Cream of Wheat, but I can not buy that in the Netherland. Will have to look for an alternative. Maybe small rice?

Grtz, Hans.

 

[Zonie]

Very small dry rice should work as a filler.

Needless to say, buy the most inexpensive brand you can find.

 

[curator]

"Farina" (cream of Wheat in the U. S.) is a wheat-based cereal that is almost universally available. It may be in your super market breakfast foods lane or you may have to search about to find it. Ground farina-wheat is available to pasta makers and bakers around the world. It is often used as a oven-prep for pizza makers to keep pizza dough from sticking to the oven floor. It is hard-ground farina wheat that has the "fines" or dust removed.

 

[Cowboy2]

Curator, those are some pretty interesting results. I might have to give it a try (chronographing, that is, I'm already using it as a filler). I've been thinking about maybe trying it in my .50 T/C Hawken as a sort of over the powder wad for conicals. Has anyone tried that?

 

[Fox.45]

:surrender: My question is, how thick of a lubed wad can be used between powder and ball?
For instance, how about a 44 cal wad punched from old 12 ga shotgun felt wads? I have some that are close to 1/2 inch thick.
I lube with beeswax and EVOO :idunno: ...

 

[curator]

I wrote an article for the NMLRA "Muzzle Blasts" magazine about 20 years ago outlining my experiements with Cream of Wheat (COW) as a under-bullet filler/wad. It works very well when shooting conical bullets in a muzzle loading rifle. It can sometimes make an under-size minnie bullet shoot accurately by preventing gas blow-by. Works equally well under a Maxi or REAL bullet. If you want to shoot a "easy-to-load" patch/ball combination, a half-charge measure of COW will prevent patch burn out and give much better accuracy. In fact, when helping a friend work up a load for the PRB rifle I will "revert" to a COW filler load occasionally to show them that the rifle will really shoot once the find the correct combination of componants. When I couldn't get the correct size wads for my .45 Caliber Whitworth, I found a 50 grain measure of COW on top of the powder charge gave better accuracy and left the bore cleaner. (recoil was slightly enhanced, however) Cream of Wheat is an unusual product in that Farina is a very hard yet compressible wheat product that has very little dust. It will compress into a very hard yet frangible "plug" behind the bullet, seal off the powder gasses and scrub the bore on its way out. I train my "Civ-War" cavalry reenactors to load 20 grains of FFFg and the rest of the chamber of COW (compressed with the pistol's loading lever) as a frangible wad for mounted cowboy shooting. Pops balloons at 10 feet but won't injure others who are 25 feet or more away from the muzzle.

 

[Cowboy2]

If the weather will cooperate tomorrow (looks sketchy as to if it will), I'm going to try it in a couple of different guns tomorrow.

 

[Adui]

Interesting. I never worried about the gap when I used my BP navy colt. I also never got any kind of real accuracy out of it :cursing:

Wondering if I worked with a lighter load, and filled the gap if my result would change? Also, with this method is it necessary to use a felt wad? I'm having trouble finding them locally in .36 cal..

 

[Cowboy2]

Well, took my two rifles out today and tried cream of wheat as an over-patch cushion. I first tried it with my T/C Hawken .50 using Triple 7- the conicals hated it (though it wasn't doing great with them period, today), but the prb loved it, especially with stouter loads. My flintlock GPR groups opened up with it a little. Not a lot, maybe 1/5-3/4 an inch at 50yds, but enough.

All in all, it was a good experience. I'm going to fool around with it and conicals some more. I'm not convinced she wasn't just being fussy on them today.

 

[Flash Pan Dan]

Nope. If you use the Cream of Wheat for filler no need for the felt wad. I did put a dab, about the size of my pinky finger tip, of lube on top of the COW before seating the ball and that helped keep everything going in my NMA Remmy.

 

[aeatwood]

Your lube should work just fine if you soak felt wads in it ahead of time. Don't know what the shipping would be to the Netherlands, but durofelt.com carries the perfect wad material. If you want to fill the chamber, I would use one or 2 dry wads and then a lubed wad, whatever it took to get the ball out to the front of the chamber when it is seated tightly.

I don't know how the Swiss 2f compares to the Goex - most of my guns will shoot best with a full charge of Goex 2f, with just enough room to seat the wad against it, and start the ball into the chamber w/o interference from the wad.

 

[robertdale]

the farina filler is the best target combo.adds about 9 seconds to the reload. never had issues in a timed fire event. I did use measured charge tubes for this match. shot three gun aggregates for years in competitive match shooting. patriot .45,uberti remington .44 copy,lyman .36 rem copy with sights.
Did ream the rem cylinders to one size and used a slightly larger ball which really helps with the accuracy.most all the imports have cylinders that do not all match the bore dia.
just a few thoughts from an old guy.

 

[Klaus]

Hello Hans,

i think you will have nearly the same Products like me in Germany.
take a search to Maisbloem or Griessbloem

alternative is a Viltwad.

regards Klaus

 

[Mike 56]

Nope. If you use the Cream of Wheat for filler no need for the felt wad. I did put a dab, about the size of my pinky finger tip, of lube on top of the COW before seating the ball and that helped keep everything going in my NMA Remmy.

I all so put lube on top of my filler before loading the ball. I also put lube on top of lubed wads when i shoot hotter loads. If you add 15% bees wax to Crisco it firms the Crisco just right make easy to handle and not messy at all.I keep it in a snuff can. After a days shooting i get no hard fouling on the cylinder pin, cylinder face, hammer and hammer channel.The barrel and cylinder chamber wipe clean with a few dry patches.