how much of what powder do I use??
- Thread starter IBM
- Start date
stevejones
Regular
- Location
- Courtenay, BC
Get a copy of the Lyman black powder manual. It has a section for percussion revolvers I believe. You will want to load with 3F black powder or Pyrodex P. For projectiles you will need some .454 round ball. Get some #10 percussion caps. If you use #11 caps they will fall off and probably go into the gear works and jam it up big time. Also I would recommend getting some pre-lubed wads to place between the powder charge and ball. This will help deal with fouling and prevent a chain fire....
Are you sure its a Navy...? The navy is a 36 caliber. If yours is 44 I think you have an Army...?
Cheers. Steve.
Are you sure its a Navy...? The navy is a 36 caliber. If yours is 44 I think you have an Army...?
Cheers. Steve.
Here is load data for the various Colt revolvers using FFFG Black Powder, if yours is a brass frame .44 cal I would recommend reducing the maximum load by 25%:
http://pw1.netcom.com/~heliboy/guns/bploads.html
http://pw1.netcom.com/~heliboy/guns/bploads.html
nowarningshot
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Newbie to casting...just picked up a lot of molds. two that might interest u guys...appear 36 for the navy and 45 for the army.
stevejones
Regular
- Location
- Courtenay, BC
You need a .375 mold for the navy and a .454 for the army. When the ball is pressed into the cylinder a ring of lead will be cut off. This ensures that the ball does not move when the gun is being fired.
fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
Fortunately chain fires are very rare if you take much of any care at all.
I find that in a .44 that 30 gns of black powder gives a nice solid kick without being over the top. And if you load with no wad or filler like I do then 30gns of powder is pretty much the minimum you need to allow the ram to seat the ball on the powder. With black powder and the BP substitutes it's important that you do not allow the ball or bullet to sit over the powder with any sort of significant air gap. Pressures peak to much higher levels as the amount of air goes up. Proper loading sees the projectile compress the powder from just barely touching to a moderate pressure. Ideally you want to feel the ball land on the powder through the lever. I often feel a slight "crunching" feel back through the lever when the ball contacts the powder.
Some form of lube is important to aid in keeping the powder fouling soft. The common one is some sort of grease/wax mixture over top of the ball. Another is a lube filled wad that goes between the powder and the ball. Another more rarely seen option is the one I use. I put a drop or two of Canola cooking oil down on the joint between the ball and chamber wall. The oil wicks around the joint fully on it's own and viscosity holds most of it in place. It's far less messy than the over ball grease mix and far less costly than buying lubed wads.
If you have a brass framed gun then you want to limit the charge to more like 20 to 25gns of BP or subs. You'll then need 10 gns volume worth of a filler between the powder and ball to make up the distance. Cream of Wheat is one commonly used filler. Oat bran is another. Makes for a toasty smell along with the black powder sulphur smell....
Some guns do better with .457 round ball. If you find that the wire edge is thin and sometimes isn't a complete ring or doesn't occur at all you'll want to try some .457 size balls. The ring that gets shaved off should look like a ring of heavy carpet thread. If it looks like a ring of common clothing thread then I'm thinking that your chambers are telling you that they need the bigger size. Now some guns have been given a slight trumpet like mouth on the chambers. Such guns won't shave any lead at all. But they do swage a flat ring waist on the ball. It just does it by forming one instead of cutting away the lead. Such forming vs cutting chambers should still make you push on the loading ram lever with a good 8 to 10 lbs of pressure. If it's any less then the balls are too small.
Caps need to fit the nipples well but not be so small that they don't seat fully. I found that it's better to have caps which are too large and simply pinch the end into an oval shape before loading than to have caps which are too small and simply won't seat so the compound is against the rim of the nipple. No compression from the hammer pinching the compound between nipple and hammer face = no BANG!
My experience with the Itallian guns is that out of 7 only one would accept CCI #10's. The rest all have nipples that are too large for these. Instead I use CCI #11 or Remington #10's.
Yep you read that right. The companies do not have a consistent number to size from company to company. Just another part of the "mystique"...
One more item on powders and measuring. The use of volume "grains" is linked to black powder ONLY! Because BP is so consistent from maker to maker and fairly consistent from grade to grade it is possible to mark volume measures in "grains" which will drop that many grains WEIGHT for black powder. So if you buy and use proper black powder then a 30 grain volume measure should drop 30gns by weight of powder.
Note that Pyrodex and the other subs are NOT the same density as black powder. So when they say to use the same VOLUME they mean it. Do not measure out any BP substitute by weight or you'll seriously over charge your gun.
All the best with your new toy. Come on back if you have more questions.
Oh, one more thing. When I put the caps on the nipples I use a push stick made from a good softwood like Fir or Hemlock to seat the caps firmly. This has reduced the number of failures to ignite the caps by leaps and bounds and I highly recommend it. But at the same time I also strongly recommend that when you hold the gun to seat the caps with a push stick that you do NOT fold your fingers around the front of the cylinder. Smoothly applied pressure should not ignite the cap. But all the same you now have an officially loaded gun and you do not put your body parts in front of the openings like the mouths of the chambers which are capped. Besides, if by some chance seating the caps DID produce ignition you don't want your fingers around the front of the cylinder anyway.
I find that in a .44 that 30 gns of black powder gives a nice solid kick without being over the top. And if you load with no wad or filler like I do then 30gns of powder is pretty much the minimum you need to allow the ram to seat the ball on the powder. With black powder and the BP substitutes it's important that you do not allow the ball or bullet to sit over the powder with any sort of significant air gap. Pressures peak to much higher levels as the amount of air goes up. Proper loading sees the projectile compress the powder from just barely touching to a moderate pressure. Ideally you want to feel the ball land on the powder through the lever. I often feel a slight "crunching" feel back through the lever when the ball contacts the powder.
Some form of lube is important to aid in keeping the powder fouling soft. The common one is some sort of grease/wax mixture over top of the ball. Another is a lube filled wad that goes between the powder and the ball. Another more rarely seen option is the one I use. I put a drop or two of Canola cooking oil down on the joint between the ball and chamber wall. The oil wicks around the joint fully on it's own and viscosity holds most of it in place. It's far less messy than the over ball grease mix and far less costly than buying lubed wads.
If you have a brass framed gun then you want to limit the charge to more like 20 to 25gns of BP or subs. You'll then need 10 gns volume worth of a filler between the powder and ball to make up the distance. Cream of Wheat is one commonly used filler. Oat bran is another. Makes for a toasty smell along with the black powder sulphur smell....
Some guns do better with .457 round ball. If you find that the wire edge is thin and sometimes isn't a complete ring or doesn't occur at all you'll want to try some .457 size balls. The ring that gets shaved off should look like a ring of heavy carpet thread. If it looks like a ring of common clothing thread then I'm thinking that your chambers are telling you that they need the bigger size. Now some guns have been given a slight trumpet like mouth on the chambers. Such guns won't shave any lead at all. But they do swage a flat ring waist on the ball. It just does it by forming one instead of cutting away the lead. Such forming vs cutting chambers should still make you push on the loading ram lever with a good 8 to 10 lbs of pressure. If it's any less then the balls are too small.
Caps need to fit the nipples well but not be so small that they don't seat fully. I found that it's better to have caps which are too large and simply pinch the end into an oval shape before loading than to have caps which are too small and simply won't seat so the compound is against the rim of the nipple. No compression from the hammer pinching the compound between nipple and hammer face = no BANG!
My experience with the Itallian guns is that out of 7 only one would accept CCI #10's. The rest all have nipples that are too large for these. Instead I use CCI #11 or Remington #10's.
Yep you read that right. The companies do not have a consistent number to size from company to company. Just another part of the "mystique"...
One more item on powders and measuring. The use of volume "grains" is linked to black powder ONLY! Because BP is so consistent from maker to maker and fairly consistent from grade to grade it is possible to mark volume measures in "grains" which will drop that many grains WEIGHT for black powder. So if you buy and use proper black powder then a 30 grain volume measure should drop 30gns by weight of powder.
Note that Pyrodex and the other subs are NOT the same density as black powder. So when they say to use the same VOLUME they mean it. Do not measure out any BP substitute by weight or you'll seriously over charge your gun.
All the best with your new toy. Come on back if you have more questions.
Oh, one more thing. When I put the caps on the nipples I use a push stick made from a good softwood like Fir or Hemlock to seat the caps firmly. This has reduced the number of failures to ignite the caps by leaps and bounds and I highly recommend it. But at the same time I also strongly recommend that when you hold the gun to seat the caps with a push stick that you do NOT fold your fingers around the front of the cylinder. Smoothly applied pressure should not ignite the cap. But all the same you now have an officially loaded gun and you do not put your body parts in front of the openings like the mouths of the chambers which are capped. Besides, if by some chance seating the caps DID produce ignition you don't want your fingers around the front of the cylinder anyway.
Fortunately chain fires are very rare if you take much of any care at all.
If you have a brass framed gun then you want to limit the charge to more like 20 to 25gns of BP or subs. You'll then need 10 gns volume worth of a filler between the powder and ball to make up the distance. Cream of Wheat is one commonly used filler. Oat bran is another. Makes for a toasty smell along with the black powder sulphur smell....
My experience with the Itallian guns is that out of 7 only one would accept CCI #10's. The rest all have nipples that are too large for these. Instead I use CCI #11 or Remington #10's.
This is the first I've heard about filler. The pistol is brass framed but my research up to now was indicating that 30 grains of BP would be an acceptable load. It's also very hard to find a powder measure that is convenient to use at the range in increments other than 20 or 30.
On another forum (The High Road) there's a very active BP sub forum. There's been a couple of reports there of brassers in .44 size that have shot loose or had the frame otherwise deformed from using 30gns or more on a consistent basis. If the gun will be shot seldom then you'll likely get an acceptable life span from it. But if you shoot a lot expect it to go bad in a year or two. I've not seen a shot count but I gather that it is around 250 to 500 shots before damage occurs if you shoot 30 or more grains per shot.
The looseness that occurs first is the cylinder arbor becoming wobbly in the frame where it screws into the recoil shield area. From there various other issues and damage in the form of frame deformity can occur.
Fillers that allow for lighter charges are a pretty common topic on that forum. Mostly for experimenting for finding a charge that delivers the optimum accuracy. And as I mentioned 30gns of powder if you don't use a lube wad or filler of some sort is pretty much the minimum acceptable charge that allows the ram to seat a ball onto the powder. The idea of fillers or wads that act as a filler is to move the ball closer to the forcing cone. With only 30gns of BP and no filler or wad the ball is recessed well back and on my .44's the ball has as much as a 1/2 inch to travel before the waist of the ball makes contact with the forcing cone. This meaning that the nose of the ball is around 1/4 to 5/16 inch back from the front face of the cylinder. Lots of serious accuracy shooters think that this jump is far too much and that there are significant accuracy gains to be had from using a filler that lets the ball seat with the nose just shy of flush with the cylinder's front face. For myself I've not bothered with that to date since the guns have shown that they already shoot as well as I can hold them.
The looseness that occurs first is the cylinder arbor becoming wobbly in the frame where it screws into the recoil shield area. From there various other issues and damage in the form of frame deformity can occur.
Fillers that allow for lighter charges are a pretty common topic on that forum. Mostly for experimenting for finding a charge that delivers the optimum accuracy. And as I mentioned 30gns of powder if you don't use a lube wad or filler of some sort is pretty much the minimum acceptable charge that allows the ram to seat a ball onto the powder. The idea of fillers or wads that act as a filler is to move the ball closer to the forcing cone. With only 30gns of BP and no filler or wad the ball is recessed well back and on my .44's the ball has as much as a 1/2 inch to travel before the waist of the ball makes contact with the forcing cone. This meaning that the nose of the ball is around 1/4 to 5/16 inch back from the front face of the cylinder. Lots of serious accuracy shooters think that this jump is far too much and that there are significant accuracy gains to be had from using a filler that lets the ball seat with the nose just shy of flush with the cylinder's front face. For myself I've not bothered with that to date since the guns have shown that they already shoot as well as I can hold them.
- Location
- Not really sure.
Cartridge Grains
.22 LR = 5
.320 ACP = 7
.380 ACP = 10
9mm = 13.3
.40 S&W = 19.3
.38 Special = 23
.45 Auto = 26
.357 Mag = 27
.44 Spl = 34
.44 Rem Mag = 39
.45 Colt = 41.6
Looks like a .38 special or .45 Auto case would be about perfect for a consistent load in that brass frame without stressing the gun. Just solder a little piece of stiff wire on the case for a handle and there you go, cheap easy consistent powder measure.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the powder measure thing.
If you're using a flask of some sort with the measuring spout and valve in the cap then get a spare 30gn spout and cut it down.
You can calibrate it using a weight scale as you work down the spout if you are using gen-you-wine black powder. Whatever weight the spout drops in proper BP is what it is rated for in terms of volume as well. This can be done for proper black powder because the density of BP is very consistent and has been so since well back into the 1800's and even earlier.
If you're using a flask of some sort with the measuring spout and valve in the cap then get a spare 30gn spout and cut it down.
You can calibrate it using a weight scale as you work down the spout if you are using gen-you-wine black powder. Whatever weight the spout drops in proper BP is what it is rated for in terms of volume as well. This can be done for proper black powder because the density of BP is very consistent and has been so since well back into the 1800's and even earlier.
- Location
- vancouver island
If you happen to be making your own wads try the thicker underfelt used under floor mats in older cars. Dip in mix bore butter and beeswax and put on top of powder. Very inexpensive and puts the ball close to the top of chamber. Flush off with bore butter and good to go. I've been using 25 grns fffg in an original Remington New Army with decent results.
