Ruger Old Army

I find about 30gr to be the most accurate with round ball in mine but it is fun to fill it up and make lots of smoke sometimes.

Make sure that there is enough powder that you can compress the charge a little when seating the ball or you will need some filler like cream of wheat or felt wads. Also make sure that you don't get it so full that you can't get the ball seated below the face of the cylinder or you won't be able to rotate it to firing position. Its a bugger to have to shave the lead down to flush.
 
Thanks for the info The first time I loaded it I had too much corn meal and the ball was too high. We played around with it untill we were putting equal powder then corn meal then ball then covering it with Crisco...it was more like baking than shooting A
Any other tips??
Thanks again
 
BPJim said:
Thanks for the info The first time I loaded it I had too much corn meal and the ball was too high. We played around with it untill we were putting equal powder then corn meal then ball then covering it with Crisco...it was more like baking than shooting A
Any other tips??
Thanks again
Click to expand...

Yup. Get yourself a Birchwood-Casey lead removal cloth if you have the stainless version.

Use any good spinning reel grease on the cylinder base pin - I'm still using the one pound tin of Shakespeare stuff I got way back when.

When putting the nipples back in the cylinder, hold the the cylinder right around the middle with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand and torque it up until the whole cylinder moves in your grasp - that's tight enuff.

Check ALL the action screw before and after shooting - they work loose on many ROAs.

Here in yUK many of us use an emulsified hand cream called E45 as a chamber sealant - it keeps the fouling soft as well as lubricates the forcing cone, and just washes away afterwards taking much of the crud with it.

Never use ANY hydro-carbon-based lubricant on the wad or as a chamber sealant - IF you use a wad AND BP. It will make an unholy and gummy mess that will take forever to clean up.

I urge you to shoot it every week.

Mine was a birthday present in 1986, and one of the best I've ever had.

tac
 
Thought this thread deserved a pic. :)

23oct10ROA001.jpg


I have found that 35-gr 3f 777 under 143-gr .457 Hornady balls (no filler, no wad, no grease) gets me just over 1100 fps and minimal spreads here at my range (5950' > sea level). Decently accurate, too (6 rounds benched at 10 yds):

1030100959.jpg
 
Thanks Tacfoley and Erich for your help also. I was going to try everyones suggestions this weekend but it was too cold..maybe this weekend.
Great picture!!
Last time I shot I had trouble with the primers. They are ccil#10 I couldn.t get them on far enough. Every time I pulled the trigger they would't fire. The second time around they did. I bought some #11 to try. Any other suggestions?
I would like to find a stainless one..mine is blued
Thanks again everyone
 
You're most welcome, amigo - I suspect your #11s will work fine. I've had people tell me to use Remington # 10s, but I've not been able to get CCI #10s (the only #10s I could find here locally) on the caps - situation was just like you describe). Stainless sure is nice insofar as you don't worry so much about it, but I've come to really appreciate the look of blued steel.

Oh, and I should note that I used CCI # 11 Magnum caps with the load listed above. (I knew that there was something that I forgot to write!)

My data for the load set forth supra - Mean velocity: 1102 fps/extreme spread: 27.80 fps/standard deviation from the mean: 11.53 fps/muzzle energy: 396 foot-pounds of energy (sorry about all the English measurements - I'm a Yank!)
 
#11's are what work on my Old Army but a lot of other cap and ball pistols take the #10's so sometimes people start to assume that they all take 10's. Just think of all the free extra practice that you get having to drop the hammer twice. :D

Erich: Nice pictures. That pistol looks brand new considering it sounds as though you get a lot of use out of it. Nice wood.
And a darn fine shooter too I might add!
 
Erich said:
Thought this thread deserved a pic. :)

23oct10ROA001.jpg


I have found that 35-gr 3f 777 under 143-gr .457 Hornady balls (no filler, no wad, no grease) gets me just over 1100 fps and minimal spreads here at my range (5950' > sea level). Decently accurate, too (6 rounds benched at 10 yds):

1030100959.jpg
Click to expand...



Nice !
I went with the stainless version . New in the box from Lever 12 yrs ago :D
PICT0159.jpg
 
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Erich said:
You're most welcome, amigo - I suspect your #11s will work fine. I've had people tell me to use Remington # 10s, but I've not been able to get CCI #10s (the only #10s I could find here locally) on the caps - situation was just like you describe). Stainless sure is nice insofar as you don't worry so much about it, but I've come to really appreciate the look of blued steel.

Oh, and I should note that I used CCI # 11 Magnum caps with the load listed above. (I knew that there was something that I forgot to write!)

QUOTE]

Never used anything BUT #11 caps on my ROA. ALL the ROAs in our club use #11 - I should know as I supply all the caps for them in bulk. We use either RWS Hot or CCI - whichever are available at a good price per thousand - 'magnum' caps are unheard of here in yUK. My second series Colt Walker [serial #1816] came with #26 nipples to take the original Joyce caps, so I changed them out for a set of #11 Hot Shot nipples and never looked back. The standard cap works well on the 50gr 3F charges I use in that.

tac
Click to expand...
 
Should have mentioned that I get to shoot my ROA at least twice a month, maybe more, at our guest days. Reason being that a guest can legally shoot a BP muzzle-loading handgun, but not my Ruger Super Redhawk LBR. Figure about 250 shots a month for 24 years - and I'm still using the original nipples.

tac
 
Too much practice pulling trigger twice. I am getting good at not flinching. Thanks for the info. I will get some pics of mine up also
Where in UK tacfoley? Where in AB viking?
Thanks Jim
 
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