Biermeister, I'm getting good reports from a variety of Cap and Ball conversion shooters with the Cowboy .45 Specials. One feller who shoots frontiersman in matches says he is loading Cowboy .45 Specials in a conversion cylinder for practice, which allows a bunch more shooting in a short time. He's been using round ball loads, but the EPP bullet should load just about like a round ball load.
More load testing.
FWIW, I ran my test in the Spur Special Marlin with the Cowboy .45 Specials loaded long to get em to feed better. They were sometimes tripping on the case mouth, but by crimping GENTLY behind the forward driving band (just enough to tuck the lip of the brass in and prevent bullet setback in the mag tube), the forward driving band, with it's nice "air dam" shoulder, helped em feed slicker than frog snot.
So, how did it shoot? SLAMMIN' !!!
Loaded with 5.0 grains of 700X, they clocked an average speed of 958 FPS with an extreme spread of NINE! Of course at only 15 yards (I was mostly interested in consistency) they went into one hole. The same charge crimped over the shoulder runs 830 fps in the pistols, so I expect the slightly longer OAL of the long crimp method will slow that a hair, but I also expect good performance in the pistols.
Might be that loading method actually improves accuracy, as the rather fragile forward driving band is left proud of the case and not subject to neck tension or crimp. 777 Tests will follow.
My goal is to have ONE BULLET for rifle and pistol, 777 or smokeless for next year. If the 150 EPP is the answer, it's gonna save on lead for sure, and make casting and keeping em in stock easy. Further, the EPP, with the slightly rebated base, sizes slick in the Lyman sizer, eliminating fumbling common to short bullets.
One side effect of the 150, my 93 lb, 12 year old son shot some of the 5 grain 700X loads out of one of my Big Vaqueros today. First he tried resting his forearm against a tree and shooting for accuracy at 10 yards. He shot quarter size spots on a target as I pointed em out to him.
Then he tried traditional, and was still pretty well centered on the plate, shooting slow, but I noticed he was pulling em left.
So he says "I got one left, lemme try one hand" Now this is a 5.5 inch "old style" vaquero, with flat bottom grips that are made for my big hands. It's a pretty good mitt full of horse pistol by any measure. He gets himself comfy in duelist stance, pops off the last 830 fps 150 EPP, and drives it right in the middle of the target. I'm watching, and he's not suffering any issues related to recoil, no grip disturbance, nothing. He's gotta wait till '08 to be legal for SASS in NY, but by then I expect him to START OFF shooting FC duelist with .45s, using my guns, including the marlin, rugers, and Chicom 12 ga coach gun with light loads.