Playing Hard Ball with your Revolver

[Zonie]

Marshall Stanton posted a interesting item on another forum.

The subject was improving the accuracy of his Ruger Old Army .44. He has fire lapped the barrel and I had the feeling that a little more tuning had been done to the gun. He was using rather heavy loads of powder (40 grains) and claimed to be getting 2.5 inch groups at 25 yards using pure lead balls.
What I found interesting was he cast some balls using alloy with one batch at BHN12 and another heat treated to BHN 21.

To quote him a little:
"... I was in for a treat! The round balls that were a BHN 12 shot into a solid one inch at 25 yards, with no flyers, and no stray shots, and loading wasn't that much more difficult than with pure lead round balls. The BHN 21 round balls were a horse of a different color, they were pretty difficult to put down the chamber throats with the ram with their extra hardness, but wow! They shot into under three quarters of an inch at the same 25 yard range! Some fun!..."

Anyone here tried using hardened alloy lead in your precussion revolver?

 

[Gray Beard]

Yes I have with my 1858 Rem. .44. I cast the balls out of wheel weights. They are a little harder to load than pure lead, but shoot well. I use 20 to 25 grains Pyrodex P. This gun has better accuracy than my .357 with the hard lead balls. At 50 yrds. the round will destroy old concrete blocks. The blocks explode nicely and are easier to haul to the dump!