Wild West Tech

[Surly Bob]

OK, this may seem kinda anal but I was just watching "Wild West Tech" on the History channel.  Big mistake huh?
Well, anyway, they were talking about Wild Bill's '51 Navy pistols.  They showed how to load them, why he often reloaded, and they said that the pistol would shoot a ball at "about 600 MILES PER HOUR".   

Well, I did some figuring, at 600 mph, the ball had to be travelling out of a 7.5" barrel at over 800 fps. 
Is that possible out of a '51 navy?  I would think it would be under 700 fps no matter how much powder is used behind a round ball load.

Anyone ever chronograph these guns? 

[St. George]

Lyman did - a long time ago, when they'd published their 'Black Powder Handbook'.

Depending upon the bullet weight, charge and granulation, Lyman published information that a .36 Navy could push an 81 grain projectile up to 1033fps, using FFFFG - without using their special pressure revolver.

This can be found on pages 72 and 73.

Scouts Out!

[Cuts Crooked]

Depending upon the bullet weight, charge and granulation, Lyman published information that a .36 Navy could puch an 81 grain projectile up to 1033fps, using FFFFG without using their special pressure revolver.

Hmmm? .36 Magnum

[will52100]

Been awhile, but I borrowed a chony and tested out several guns.  If I remember rite with a round ball and a full chamber of swiss 3f powder, not sure how much, just enough room for the face of the ball to be flush or a hair under the cylinder face, they were clocking at 1030 max, with lowest at 980FPS, seems swiss didn't like that much compression.  Graf's on the other hand only had about a 20FPS variation, but they were around 920FPS.  Anouther thing to think of is how tight the cylinder gap is, a newer tighter gun will shoot a hair faster than one that's well broken in.  The little 51 loaded to the max realy do put them out there.  I didn't have my walkers at the time, would love to know what a full charge is doing.

[Surly Bob]

Wow.  That's pretty impressive.  Gives one a new respect for Cap 'n ball! 

[will52100]

Yup, the thing to remember is that from most accounts the black powder was a bit hotter, think Swiss, they were using a sporting powder, most grades we use arn't quite that hot.  I'm sure there was a good bit of variation, but black powder was the only propelant of the day and if someone had a hotter powder it would stand to reason it sold a bit better.  Also a lot of people forget that for all the fun of taking and knocking cans and steel targets around at one time they were state of the art weopons.  And a lot of times we don't load to the full potential.  If I was going to use a 51' navy or a 60 army for self defense you can believe it'd be loaded to the max, not a mid level target load.