Operating pressures for original Black powder cartridge pistols
- Thread starter DEZ
- Start date
I think as long as you stick with black powder, you can fill the case with 3F and not have to worry. I certainly load my Webley pistols that way (webley model 5, webley pryse and webley mk 5 or 6 the 1st ww one). On the other hand if you are loading smokeless in a Webley, I think you have to be careful not to overload as I don't think the cylinders are as strong as we would like to think. I do recall receiving an email on loading .455 shells in which examples were given of more than one person bursting a cylinder.
cheers mooncoon
cheers mooncoon
I'm not aware of anyone who has published the BP pressure for the 44 Russian. There is, however, a way to indirectly know what it is. FFFg has a peak pressure curve very similar to Blue Dot and FFg has a peak pressure curve very similar to 2400 for the same bullet weight and muzzle velocity. So if you find a published load and pressure for 2400, you know that FFFg will have a higher peak pressure (since 2400 has a burn rate slower than FFFg). This only works for the same bullet, same balloon head case (which is the kind of case originally used) and the same muzzle velocity. You are unlikely to find any published loads and pressures for balloon head cases, which have a greater volume and, therefore a lower pressure. But you can extrapolate accordingly. In general, for BP pistol cartridges, if you use a powder that is slower than Blue Dot in a load that uses the same weight bullet as was originally used, and the same velocity, you will have a lower peak pressure. For more on this, see the sticky that talks about using smokeless in BP guns.
I have only compared ballon head case velocities vs. modern case velocities for one cartridge, the .45-60 with is the only cartridge I have safe working original balloon head cases. A working rule of thumb is that if your modern brass has 10% less case capacity than the balloon head brass, then the pressure in the modern case will be approximately 10% higher. You can compensate for this by sitting your bullet further out to give a larger effective case capacity.
I have only compared ballon head case velocities vs. modern case velocities for one cartridge, the .45-60 with is the only cartridge I have safe working original balloon head cases. A working rule of thumb is that if your modern brass has 10% less case capacity than the balloon head brass, then the pressure in the modern case will be approximately 10% higher. You can compensate for this by sitting your bullet further out to give a larger effective case capacity.
I have been using 6grs of blue dot in my 44Russian with a 240gr bullet and getting a velocity of around 640fps I did find a place on the web they had a pressure for black and pyrodex the black was 10000psi and pyrodex was up to 13000psi but this was in a 45long colt
The cordite PROOF load for the .455" gave 7 long tons per si pressure or 15400 psi. Cordite cartridges were approved for all marks of Webley including the early ones made when only BP was on issue. Proof loads were about 30% over service pressure. Cordite MkI,II and III ctgs were also approved for use in the .476" Enfield.
