Round ball for 1860Army,,,,need advice

[Marshal Deadwood]

What would be the correct diam RB for a .44 '60 Army,,,Uberti?
And, does one need to wax the ball, or are the RB pre-waxed?
And what about the wool wad this is popular now to use between charge and ball?
I would appreciate any 'tips' on revolver BP teniques.

Iv been a flintlock shooter for 30 years, but everything was 'patched Rb' or 'shot'.  BP is in my blood thus my gravation toward the cap and ball revolvers.
I 'think' I shall even load my cartarige rounds in BP. Its cheaper, and its right historically.  Not being critical of others that dont,,,,only thinkin' out loud about how I might approcah this.

Thanks folks,
Marshal Deadwood

[Silver Creek Slim]

You should post this in the Darksider's Den. You'll get more replies there.

Slim

[Ransom Gaer]

Marshal Deadwood,

The manual that came with my Uberti 1860 Armies said to use .454 RB.  They seem to work for me.  No need to wax the balls and they do not need to be waxed.  As far as lubing is concerned there are two schools of thought.  Many people use wonder wads or other brands between the charge and the ball.  It is the method I use.  Others slobber crisco or a another lube over the ball after it has been seated.  The wad is less messy.  Both work.

Another recommendation I would make is to install Treso nipples on your 1860 Army.  You canget them from Thunderridge Muzzleloading.  #10 Remington caps stay on them and you will have less trouble with spent caps falling into the action.

If you have any other questions let me know.

Ransom Gaer

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[Tommy tornado]

Ransom said most of what I was going to say.  I prefer making wads with a 50/50 crisco/beeswax mix.  I punch them out of felt I buy from Duro Felt online.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

The correctly sized ball will be the one that shaves off a thin ring of lead when it is seated in the chamber. You need to shave off some lead to seal the ball in the chamber. You will know the correct size when you find it. No shaved ring and you have not sealed the chamber. Too much ring and it is too difficult to shove the ball into the chamber. You may shear one of the pivot pins in the linkage trying to force an overly large ball into the chamber.

When I bought my first C&B revolver in 1968, the lubed wool wads did not exist yet. Everybody slathered Crisco over the front of the chamber. In my experience, the Crisco in the chamber directly next to the one being fired was melted by the hot blast from the barrel/cylinder gap, and most of it dripped out of the chamber, being of no use at all. I blame this characteristic of using Crisco for lube directly for the chain fire I experienced one day. Many years later when I first heard about Wonder Wads, it was like sliced bread had been invented all over again. 1/4" or so of wool provides a much better spark arrester than a few thousandths of lead to steel seal and a thin layer of melted Crisco.

As far as being 'cheaper' to load your cartridges with Balck Powder, I dunno what you've been smoking, but I'd sure like to try some. Even though the pound for pound cost for BP is still cheaper than Smokeless, it is far offset by the amount of BP you dump into a cartridge case compared to how much Smokeless you dump in. Some guys use as little as 3 or 4 grains of various Smokeless for their loads. I use 7.5 grains of Unique in my 45 Colts, which last time I bought some was $16/pound. I use around 35 grains of Goex, which costs $14 over the counter around here. The best price I have gotten recently was when I bought half a case with a pard for around $11/pound.

Doing the math, I use about 5 1/2 cents worth of BP at the cheapest price I can find it per round, compared to around 1.7 cents per round with Unique. Now start investigating the cost of bullets lubed with BP comptible lube.

It's understandable that somebody from the flintlock and percussion rifle world would think that, how much BP do you go through in a year? I go through about 20 pounds when I shoot CAS. The guys in the local muzzle loading shop don't even like to see me come in the door. They can stretch a pound of powder for years. They can't understand why I'm hogging up the supply and buying 4 or 5 pounds at a time. We do a lot of shootin in CAS.

[Major 2]

I use .451 in my 2 gens. with Bore Butter....

I only used the wonder wads as blanks in Mounted CW reenacting.
But they were deemed a projectile, at national events

So I used Coco Roo's  ( cereal ) really I found Coco Roo's were 44 cal. & Coco Puff were 36 cal. for those who used Navies.

We used Cheerio's If action called for Hollow points