Walker Colt Ball recovery

[mec]

The .454 ball was doing mid- 1000s over 55 grains of goex fffg. (clocked the next load) Went through about 35 inches of water, knocked a hole in the offside of the jug marked X and fell down inside. Look at the lids on the big jugs riding up on columns of water.

 

[jim gray]

I like that photo.

I have .36 cal. that jars the loading level loose when I load it near the max., too. I reduced the loads because I always had to lock the lever back in place before I could shoot again.

Have you tried any conicals yet. My 2nd Mod. Dragoon gets deep penetration in logs with a 180 grai RN pistol bullet from Buffalo Bullet Co.

 

[mec]

The lee 200 grain has a round nose that fits the loading ram and a slightly rebated heal like is needed for percussion revolvers. I run it through a .452 sizer and it does pretty well in several of my revolvers all with chambermouths of .450. We shot some through the walker today chronographing them while I aimed two handed (standing) at a target 60 feet away. The group was inside 4-4 1/2 inches. This is pretty fair accuracy although ball loads will usually be two to three times smaller.


200 Grain Lee 40 FFFG 927 fps 40fps extreme spread five rounds.

This was with goex FFFG 40 grains being a full chamber with this bullet.
Pyrodex gets substantially higher velocities in these large capacity chambers.

 

[jim gray]

Thanks mec, that's exactly the kind of info I was looking for. If you ever try the 180 grains through the Chrony, please let me know how they work. The Buffalo bulets fit the ram well and are bevelled at the base as well.

 

[mec]

I've used the lee 200 in my 3rd dragoon too. That one will let you use 35 grains of fffg. Try 40 and the bullet will be about 1/8" too long.

200 Grain Lee Conical Bullet
5 Grains FFFG 967 26
35 Gr/Vol PyrodexP 1066 57
35 Gr/Vol Pyrodex RS 846 25

140 gr ball
.454 Ball 45 Grains FFFG 881 19
.457 Ball 40 Gr/Vol PyrodexP 1030 56
.454 Ball 45 Gr/VolPyrodex P 1157 55
.454 Ball 45 Gr/VolPyrodes RS 869 85

In some cases,the pyrodex RS is a closer match to FFFG than the Pyrodex P is. I find pyrodex P and goex fffg near identical in the .36 and 31 bores.

I'm not sure how valuable all this is as performance varies considerably from one revolver to the next- even more so than with modern guns. With black powder revolvers,you read one table and you know how fast your load is going. Read two and you're never sure again.