[CARRY'IN]

I notice from illustrations and a website I found on civil war bullets that the old pointy conicals for cap and balls revolvers are.....more pointy than the bullets I see now. I wonder what that does for penetration with the different calibers. Maybe the old .31 pocket models had more penetration than we give them credit for. I was also reading a book at Barnes n Noble "guns of the old west" I think, and it showed alot of pocket models with pretty long barrels. I am curious how many were made with what barrel lengths and the velocity/penetration difference. Good experiments if anyone is bored and needs a project.

[P95Carry]

Welcome :)

I never did any comparisons but - way back - I did cast some conicals as well as ball. Was not many but sufficient for me to see that they were not as accurate. Could be they were under size, or that driving band portion was too short - whatever - they did not (for me) seem to have any great benefits. Plus, when loading you do not get that nice ''wire'' cut off like with a ball - so not sure from that POV whether they were a suitable diameter. This was all thru just a Uberti repro BTW in .44. It was long ago too!

In theory tho I tend to agree, that they could have an edge regarding wounding potential - better penetration perhaps. I should have bought a quality mould to really tell - instead of which used just an ''old style'' brass dealie.

[mec]

Elmer Keith said that the "old timers" he talked with claimed that the balls had better killing ability while the bullets were better for penetration. He mentioned shooting wild cattle with a .36 colt as the example.

The current replica moulds by pedersoli are mainly for decoration in the cased revolver displays. They look very much like a lot of the originals but may be a bit lighter. My .36s cast out a 110 grains while the apparenlty identical Thompson center bullets that were made a few year ago, weighed 120. My 31 caliber bullets from the replica mould weigh 60 grains instead of circa 70 as listed in 19th century load recommendations. These .36 bullets produce occasional good groups at 25 and 50 yards but more often than not at least one bullet and often more will diverge several inches from the main cluster. It is hard to get a straight and consistent load when the bullet is sharp and the seating stem is more or less round.

Looking at some pictured 19th century cased revolvers, the bullets included are often sharp pointed but sometimes every bit as rounded as the Lee moulded bullets no available in a couple of diameters for the .44 revolvers. Accuracy with these lee bullets is usually not quite up to what you get with round balls but is often fairly good.

[CARRY'IN]

http://www.relicman.com/bul461.htm has pics of the sharp tipped conicals if anyone is interested. The .36's at the bottom of the page are pretty bizarre.

[Tinker2]

I could not see any advantage shooting conicals until
I got and used a detachable shoulder stock. That is
where conical bullets shine. Mine anyways.

[mec]

my 61 navy is sighted for balls but hits lower when I put the stock on it. I found that the Buffalo bullet 125 grain .36 bullets bring point of impact up to dead center at 50 feet or so. Those buffalo bullets seem about as accurate as ball too.

My Army with shoulder stock seems to hold the same point of aim/impact with or without the stock.