Ruger Old Army .45 Colt Cartridge Conversion - Poor Accuracy

[Frenchie]

Howdy. First post in this section.

I just got a Howell cartridge conversion cylinder for my Ruger Old Army. Took it to the range yesterday and ran 10 rounds through it, 30 feet, aiming carefully from a rest, and the groups were disappointing, 4 to 5 inches despite my (admittedly less than stellar) best efforts. I can do much better than that with all my other revolvers.

Winchester Cowboy 250 grain flat nose.

Any thoughts, advice, suggestions?

[Pettifogger]

Try a lighter bullet.  The ROA is designed for round balls and the rifling twist may not be fast enough for your "long" 250 grain bullets.  What I use in my BP practice loads is a round ball seated below its centerline with a light crimp to aid in chambering.  Works fine, hits in the same place and is as accurate as my standard round ball cap and  all BP load.  If you are using smokeless powder and don't want to go the round ball route, try the 160's that are available for the .45.

[Howdy Doody]

That Larson is always right on the money. I have had great luck with duplicating my C&B load with 45lc cartridge with my Kirsts in my ROAs. I use a 160gr bullet and the same amount of powder as I do when shooting C&B. I am making the cartridge be my cylinder chamber. When I shoot them and they are shooting the same either way. Bullet weight does make a difference.  

FYI, it is a EPP bullet, over 30grs Goex 3F and a wad. I use the EPP big lube bullet anyway. I lube and size them at .454 and load them into the C&B cylinders with a loading tool/stand out of the gun. These I cast from pure soft lead and I do not use the .457 balls any more, but If you have a taper crimp die I do not know why you could not use a .454 ball in your cartridges. Using a ball would make you need to adjust the chamber height, sort of like a shotgun, so you could just seat a ball onto the load and give it a good tight crimp. You can even go so far as use the 45 special shorter cartridges too.

[Frenchie]

Well, rats. That all sounds too much like work. I was hoping I could reload and use standard .45 Colt rounds and get decent accuracy.

I think I'll just sell the revolver and conversion cylinder. Another lesson: Do more research before putting out the money.

Thanks for the info, gents. At least now I know more about it than I did before.

[Cliff Fendley]

Honestly I never could understand a ROA with a conversion cylinder. It's not replicating anything historic so why not just buy a Blackhawk?

Shoot round balls with the original cylinder and have fun with it.

[Howdy Doody]

But Cliff. You can shoot multiple SASS classes with the same pair of six guns. C&B is a class, but so is frontier cartridge and frontier cartridge duelist and now we have frontier cartridge gunfighter too. Shooting the same guns and same load gives you a big choice of classes to shoot. A lot of other classes that normally you see smokeless powder shooting, you can still shoot with black powder, like B western, classic cowboy and the others.
Now if you spent good money to have your ROAs tuned up and you like the feel and the weight, conversions make sense, although I admit they are not cheap. I have my main match ROAs and if you figured in the converters, then I guess I have near a grand in each one, but I have been shooting them many years and the cost per match is decreasing all the time, so my investment is now starting to look good on paper, plus I just plain like them, even if they are not period correct actually. If I could only have one set of six shooters, Heaven forbid, I would opt to shoot only the ROAs, but that is just me and I have a couple pairs of regular Rugers besides, still I favor the heavier ROAs.
Frenchie, don't forget that Ruger Old Army revolvers are going up in value all the time. They haven't made one in what 5 years. Keep it and sell it when you absolutely need to. I think if you were to shoot only the conversions that in short time you would get used to a heavy bullet and adjust your sights accordingly. 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Just ten rounds through the gun and you're ready to sell it? Lots of guns are fussy about what ammo they use.

[cpt dan blodgett]

Try a lighter bullet.  The ROA is designed for round balls and the rifling twist may not be fast enough for your "long" 250 grain bullets.  What I use in my BP practice loads is a round ball seated below its centerline with a light crimp to aid in chambering.  Works fine, hits in the same place and is as accurate as my standard round ball cap and  all BP load.  If you are using smokeless powder and don't want to go the round ball route, try the 160's that are available for the .45.

I got good success doing the same thing with 45 /70 approx 1.9 CC FFg and 2.2 CC Walnut med a couple of wad, and either a lube cookie or homemade wonder wad

[Tall Dark Slim]

First off don't sell anything.

Get a caliper and measure the cylinder throats they may be irregular or out of spec. If so get them reamed or replace the cylinder.  You should see what the bore actually measures too.

Try 230 grn lrn's or 185 swc's. Clays is a favorite powder for ACP loads and Solo 1000 works well with lead. See if there isn't any data for 45 LC. Bullseye is also a good powder if you want to have a non corrosive smoky load.

[knucklehead]

strange that you cant hit the broad side of a barn with you conversions.

i shoot my ruger old armies with kirst conversions loaded with any load of cas legal 45 colt ammo and can hit no problems.
i prefer the cowboy special shells with black powder and a 200 grain bullet to top off the shell.

mabey the conversion cylinder is giving you some grief. i would check out the cylinder specs mabey have a gunsmith insure the cylinder is lining up correctly with the barrel when you cock the firearm.