Suggested load for Ruger Old Army?

Tangle Eye · July 12, 2005, 09:12:10 PM

It's been so dang long since I shot any cap n ball revolver larger than .36 cal I fergot what the suggested charge is. I don't want a wimpy load but I don't want a cannon either. Just something comfortable to shoot that does NOT require filler, etc.

Prairie Dawg · July 13, 2005, 08:45:53 AM

I shoot 25 grains FFg + cornmeal to the top of the cylinder. I know you don't want to have filler, but you need something to fill up the space unless you have a really long rammer. You could use a wonder wad under the ball -- pricey. Or you could use a 38 caliber lead slug to temporarily extend your rammer so you can seat the ball deeper-- a hassle. I tried both of those options and settled on the cornmeal filler. On my ROAs, accuracy fell off if I used more than 25 grains powder. I bought a black dawge cylinder loader from brother dave, and now loading between stages goes quickly & effortlessly.
--Prairie Dawg

Tangle Eye · July 13, 2005, 09:00:06 AM

Well I'm thinkin 30 grains since that's the spout that's on the new powder flask I bought. Will it shoot 30 grains and no filler or do you still need filler with 30 grains?

French Jack · July 13, 2005, 11:53:57 AM

I had the best results from 35 gr. FFg , a Wonder Wad and a .457 round ball. Just enough load column to work with the ram length on the ROA. Shot to POA which was great.

Howdy Doody · July 14, 2005, 04:11:45 PM

30 grs has always been my load. As mentioned you do need to figure a way to ram that ball down onto the powder though. A wad, filler, 38 bullet or what I did was go the extended rams bit.
30grs seems about right for shooting CAS to me. Plenty of smoke, very little recoil and great accuracy.
The loading tool sounds like a great solution, but you would have to take out and then reinstall your cylinders, but that is do-able.
In case you are interested, I enjoy shooting Kirst Konverters in mine too. I do only load 25 gr and filler under the 45lc PRS bullet and obtain the same great accuracy at short distances.
Another thing that helps me a lot is that I had my C&B cylinders engraved. What I had done was a fluer de lis engraved on one cylinder chamber side only. With that it is real easy for me to see which chamber I am leaving unloaded and the one not to cap too. It is easier with that to show a loading table officer that that is the chamber not capped and they can watch the fluer de lis rotate into position under the hammer. Leaving the nipples all in makes it easy for me when I run into stages that require reloads and I can load all six and cap the sixth on the clock before shooting. I had the engraving done to my pistols $10 each at a match by Texas Jack. Plus they are personalized for me and it looks good.

Wes Virginian · July 14, 2005, 05:13:58 PM

I use 35 grains mostly because that's what my spout holds. I also use a wonder wad with a .457 ball. Not trying to be like French Jack, but that's not a bad Pard to model oneself after. I recently bought a tool from BroDave to reload my cylinders with, a wad cutting tool and felt from other vendors. So, I'll be in high clover as soon as I get some time to cut and lube my homemade wads, cast some more .457 balls, and get ready to shoot in the Mason Dixon Stampede!

Wes Virginian

Cactus Cris · July 14, 2005, 05:30:07 PM

I also got one of the BroDave loader dealy's. I tried loads from 18 on up to 30 2f Schutzen. Found 24 gr to be the best for me. BP-unlubed felt wad- lube- ball. Tried a few cylinders w/o lube and found that the insides of the cylinder's were caked with HARD fouling and made it difficult to ram the ball in. So I went back to using lube every time. Either under the ball or on top. I have 5 1/2 ROA's and with the loading dealy I could take the ram off completely, and not even lock the cylinder pin as the lever latch keeps the pin in place and the rammer don't fall off each time I pull the cylinder out to reload.
BroDave sent me a brass/bronze bushing yesterday--Anyone else get one & what is it for??

Mason Stillwell · July 14, 2005, 06:09:36 PM

Cactus I got one also . Called Dave and he told me it is an upgrade to the loader and he sent everyone that had purchased a loader from him one for FREE!!!

Now you cannot beat that in my book !!!

Mason (what likes the loader) Stillwell

Wes Virginian · July 14, 2005, 06:52:20 PM

I just got back from Caintuck' today and had one in the mail! I don't know what it's for but I do know BroDave is near the top of my list of Pard's to do business with!

Wes Virginian

Howdy Doody · August 16, 2005, 11:48:15 AM

Cactus Cris, another thing I have done and I don't really recommend it, is the mouth of my cylinder chambers have a small 1/16" taper. This starts the ball a lot easier. I don't know if that would help with caked powder, I don't shoot shutzen. The reason I don't recommend it is that you get no shaved ring of lead indicating you have the proper sized ball and a real good seal to prevent the chance of flashover and the dread chain fire.
I am having pretty good luck lately with the Goex Pinnacle. Pretty good stuff in cartridge and C&B. I probably won't try it in shotgun. Too pricey for that. I just like powder then ball on top. No lubes, no wads. Again, I don't really recommend that, it's just the way I do it.
Everyone does something different. I possied up with two thoer C&Bers last weekend. One of them stuffed about a 40 gr load in and no wad. The other a 25gr load and a thick card wad and then ball. I just use a 30 gr load and can get away with no wad because of my extended rams. FYI, both the other shooters beat me, but that is more like the person holding the grips. None of us had any misfires or any trouble at all in the 12 stages. Two of us shot 8" ROAs and the other 5 1/2" ones.
There is a lot of variences but we all strive for the reliability factor. It is nice to try out other recipes and it is great that we all share in the BP community. I still use the Cactus Cris shotgun load and have been for a couple years now. I would never have thought of mixing shot sizes.

Tangle Eye · August 16, 2005, 12:10:17 PM

Howdy I'm a bit curious as you've mentioned your seating rams are longer than stock. Mine are right straight out of the box. The only times I've used them so far I put in 30 gr of powder, a thin felt wad dipped in lube (probably won't make a habit of that) and seated the bullet. I didn't get any indication I was near the end of the ram or that I was about to be too deep to seat the bullet. From what you are saying, it wouldn't be a good idea to use just 30 gr of powder with the ball directly on top - is that right?

Any idea what Ruger recommends as a load?

Tangle Eye · August 16, 2005, 12:28:22 PM

OK - I just called Ruger Technical Services to see what they say. According to them the starting load is 20 grains of powder with a filler - the maximum is 41 grains. The tech I talked to said with 30 grains you "probably need a filler". So - I guess I better break out the grits or felt wads or something.

Howdy Doody · August 16, 2005, 02:03:38 PM

Howdy Tangle Eye,
Yes back a few years ago a co worker that has a machine shop made me up some longer rams. I had to buy the cutter for the slot that goes on the rammer tangs. It took three passes with an end mill to duplicate the slot. Then the rams were chucked up and cut to size and made concave at the end to fit the 457 ball exactly. Also a bevel at the top for looks. The new rams are made from drill rod. I have my ROAs outfitted with them and you cannot use a conical with them in place, but a ball resting on top of the cylinder has plenty of room to go under the ram. Too bad I couldn't talk him into some production on them, but he only does machine work as a hobby. Now, I have seen two other kinds of extended rams. One type had the ram cut in two with a piece welded in the center and trued up on a lathe. Another was drilled and tapped on the bottom and a machine bolt with hex head was threaded into the hole and loctited. Unfortunately that type made the top of the ball flat somewhat on the top after ramming. I remember another pard that had a brass thing made with a handle on it. He would ram once with the ram and then insert the brass device and ram a second time. That was pretty time consuming. I have seen others do the same and use a regular 357 diam lead bullet and ram twice. I just like to load up with 30 grs and ram a ball down onto powder and be done with it. It doesn't take me very long to load up with my method. I am going to email you a picture of the rams installed and side by side with a standard one. You might come up with an even easier method. I am always interested in a better way. Just born to tinker, that's me.

Tangle Eye · August 16, 2005, 02:11:06 PM

Thanks Howdy. I guess for the short term I'll just use some felt wads. I splurged a while back and bought a .45 wad cutter die that goes on my press to make my own wads for my .45-70s. I don't use it much and this is just another reason I guess. I think I'll leave the wads dry though instead of soaking them in lube to avoid any possibility of powder contaminaton. That - or I may just get me a tiny little spout for a spare powder measure and use it to dump grits for a filler.

Tangle Eye · August 16, 2005, 02:32:03 PM

Howdy - got your pics. I guess those longer rammers aren't quite as long as I thought they might be so I guess the stock rammers will almost get a ball seated on top of 30 grains.

I guess the queston is this: Do we know for sure that the ball is NOT being seated on top of 30 grains of powder (FFg or FFFg - not a substitute) with the stock rammer. I gather most folks think its not but does anybody know for sure?

Howdy Doody · August 16, 2005, 03:55:59 PM

I don't know about all powders. APP and Goex Pinnacle only need to kiss the top of the powder, yet others like regular Goex and Goex Cowboy need some compression. 777 does not need comression either, but 30gr of it is way too powerful for me. To answer your question, no a 30gr load with no filler and no wad, the ball will not be down far enough, the rammer lever will hit the frame stopping progress.

The rams in the pictures I sent you are, if memory serves, .090 longer. If you want I can measure to be sure.

Now to open another can of worms for you, I do not load with a flask either. I load with those slick, but period incorrect loading tubes that are made out of a urethane plastic and last forever. I load fast, so fast that some can't shoot a stage faster. I like to load at the unloading table and I can get both pistols loaded in about the time a shooter gets to the line, shoots the stage, picks up his rifle and shotgun and arrives at the unloading table. What would that be? Something in the 3-4 minute range? Then I have time to do posse chores or stay there and man the unloading table for a while.
Other things I do to keep my gear running is when I place my SXS in the cart, before I put it in all the way and with the muzzles up, I run a home made 10 gauge mop in and out of my 12 gauge chambers and that keeps my fired hulls flying out with a flick. I drilled and epoxied the mop in the end of an old broom stick. Takes a few seconds only. My rifle takes nothing during a match, but I do like to add a drop of breakfree to my ROA pins front of the bushing and at the rear down the cylinder at one of those slots between the nipples that you could actually park your hammer in. That keeps me running, since I do not use anything other than a thin coat of breakfree on my center pins. The Ruger bushing is just about the best thing about Rugers.
Now all this stuff is nice, but it isn't for everyone. I am not the inventor of it either. This is how I do it these days after fooling around and trying this and that and finding methods and things I like to use. Probably near 5 years of shooting every week and visiting with other BP shooters and swapping ideas is what I have going for me now. I like to throw this stuff out for consideration every once in a while, because there are new to C&B folks getting interested all the time and I think a bunch of info that helps a shooter decide how he wants to do things can help.

Tangle Eye · August 16, 2005, 04:10:30 PM

You're right - everybody has their own little tricks. I know I do when shooting Frontier Cartridge Duelist. I haven't shot enough Frontiersman to have all my quirks in place yet.

Now - by urethane tubes - do you carry enough to the shoot with you to not have to refill them during the match? Your speed has my interest up because I feel self-concious about hang out loading cylinders while others are counting, picking up brass, etc., etc. I'm familiar with the tubes I used to use muzzleloading where the patched ball was in one end and the powder in the other - is that what you mean?

Howdy Doody · August 16, 2005, 06:03:30 PM

Tangle Eye
I am going out to the shop and take another picture for you. I will take one of the loading tubes. They are not the ones you use, they are CB antenna covers. I am also going to take a pic of the ROA grips and see what you think. This is great, it is turning out like show and tell, but I always enjoy swapping tips and stuff with pards from around the country and the world. This is the way I pick up on what others have done.