Did a little testing today with Bear Creek Bullets and the Holy Black

[cpt dan blodgett]

All loads 31.5 grains of Schuetzen FFg
I shot mixed loads from both these guns  1/2 the rounds were black dawge 235 grainers.  the other 25 I loaded 205 grain bear creeks in 45 Colt Cases Seated to the crimp groove 1/16 vegie wad about 3/16 lube cookie and another 1/16
veggie wad.  Loads shot ok at 25 yards out of both a ruger 7.5 inch vaquero and a Handi rifle 20 inch carbine.  Cleaned really easily, no discernible lead in the hand rifle a few small flakes came out of the vaquero.  8 inch group 30 rounds pistol and about the same from the handi rifle at 25 yards.  20 yards  61 yo eyes dont always get a good focus on the front sight.

The only real differnce was the 205 grainers shot about 4 inches lower than the heavier bullets.  This is to be expected.

From the 44 mag I used 240 semi wad billy bullets.  They have a huge lube groove.  Tried to pan lube unsuccessfully ended up hand lubing.  Virtually identical results using 7.5 inch vaqero and my 92 rossi.  No issues

[Pettifogger]

Good thing you put in that lube cookie and wad.  I've tried Bear Creek moly bullets in several calibers with BP and the subs and they make a real mess, especially in the rifle.  The moly seems to melt off the bullets and cause really bad fouling in the bore.  The last three or four inches on my rifles had to be chipped out.  Great bullets for smokeless, not so much for BP.

[cpt dan blodgett]

I do have 500 of the desperado bullets I can use of the rifle if necessary.  Was juss lookin for
somethin I could useof if inecessary if I wanna go to the darkside. Am toying with maybe frontiersman or cc. Wanna shoot plainsman as well r

[Howdy Doody]

I have to agree with Larson, Bear Creeks that I tried with Goex was a disaster, then I tried with APP and not too bad a result, but hard to clean after 6 stages. When the Big lubes came out I cast them out and never looked back for smokeless or for black powder and lately I have been shooting 777 and my old BP homemade lube with the Snakebites, Mavs and EPP bullets and one wet patch, one to dry and one to lube. All done. This is for CAS matches, shooting long range is another whole deal for me with 45-70 and 38-55.

[cpt dan blodgett]

Suspect my success was due to having lube behind the bear creeks and all over the Billy 245 grainers.  The driving force behind trying was the stock of on hand bullets.  Something like 800 Billy 44s 1000 each of the bear creek 44 and 45 Colt and 1000 of 230 RN 45 acp.

The lube mix 2:1 Bees Wax and Mutton tallow with just a little canola oil seems to work just fine.
Shot the 245 Semi wads from rifle as a proof of concept.  My 92 rossi really does not like to feed them at all but will.  After the first mag full just single loaded as that was easier than getting them to chamber from the mag.  No problem with 205 grain RN feeding from the rifle.

Did not test with the 24 inch barrel 92 I got from Nate Kiowa Jones.  Figured the extra 4 inches of barrel might be problematic.  Also have 3 x the money in that rifle than the 92 I got in 95 and really do not want to risk bp corrosion in the works.  The old rifle is .004- .005 overbored, which may actually help.  Actually expect if I just pulled the stock and opened the action, swishing around in boiling soapy water would clean out all the gunk and dry quick enough to not rust especially if followed up with a liberal spraying of balistol.