Question for my fellow C&B revolver shooters

[Voodoochile]

Hello my friends I went to the range today with the better half & I carried my 58' Pietta NMA along with my Chronograph to meaure a few hand loads that I've done for her .45.

Well after a while Moma said that she wanted to see what my 58' would register at so I decided to run a cylinder or two through & record my results.

Now mind you I'm only pushing a .457 143gr. Ball, Remington #11's & using Pyrodex P because I'm running low on the good stuff.
35gr. Pyrodex P. - 1150 fps. avg.
30gr. Pyrodex P. - 1042 fps. avg.

BTW, I had the Chrono sitting 8 feet from the muzzle & normally it is very accurate by comparrison to 2 others that I had to check my Archery gear against "ASA only allows a max speed of 280fps."

Needless to say she was quite impressed with the velocities that I was achieving & so was I, I never thought that I'd see this type of velocities in any of my C&B revolvers except for my 3rd model Dragoon that my brother still has, does this sound right to any of you?

What have any of you achieved with your pieces?

 

[Pulp]

Sounds about right to me. Pyrodex P is a bit hotter than Goex, so I'm not surprised. One of these days I'm gonna take my guns out and try them with equal loads of everything I have.

 

[Smokin_Gun]

Voodoochile Sounds good here too...35gr. Pyrodex P. - 1150 fps. avg.
30gr. Pyrodex P. - 1042 fps. avg. is movin' right along.
Give it a try next time you have get the chance with fffg Holy Black jus' for the of it.

Pulp I don't know what kind of Black Powder you use but I have never found Pyrodex P to be hotter than Goex fffg. Now Hogdon 777 ffg & fffg are both hotter than BP by volume.

 

[mykeal]

Nope. Your numbers are too high.

From Gun Digest Blackpowder Loading Manual 4th edition by Sam Fadala, page 245, using a Navy Arms 1858 Remington NMA, .44 cal, shooting 40 gr Pyrodex P and a .454 140 gr Speer round ball: 882 fps MV, 244 fpe ME.

Your chrono was too close to the muzzle and was affected by the smoke.

By the way, Fadala got higher numbers with less powder using Goex: 35 gr FFFg and the same projectile yielded 907 fps MV and 258 fpe ME.

 

[Smokin_Gun]

Good info Mykeal, was gonna check my old Lyman BP Book out. And I did the only test guns were a Lyman 1860 and an ROA.
1860; .451" ball @ 138gr G-O fffg powder, *37.0gr was 1032fps & 326ftlbs, now with 37gr C&H fffg Powder was 852fps & 222ftlbs; 37gr ffffg G-O was 960 & 282. Ruger Old Army, why is it that the ROA is the only Rev listed that calls out * 3/4 of maximum charge weight-redueced volume taken up with corm meal filler material? (in this 1975 copyright boook Lyman Black Powder Handbook) ROA 143gr .457" ball G-O fffg powder 40gr @ 917fps & 263ftlbs. fffg G-o 41gr 1036fps & 340ftlbs.
Ok I'm done gettin' a headache...:banghead:

SG

 

[72coupe]

I chrono'ed some conicals I think they weigh about 200 grains out of Lyman 1858 with 37 grains of Pyrodex R. I was getting about 850 with very small SD (9) with the chrono set up at 12 feet.

 

[Voodoochile]

WOW 8 feet is still too close?!?

HMM I'll have to try it again to see if I get closer to Fadala's numbers because I thought that they were a tad bit high.

 

[mykeal]

Check your standard deviations at 8 and 15 feet; if there's no difference then 8's ok, but something has to account for those higher numbers.

 

[arcticap]

Maybe your measure is throwing a few gains extra making it closer to 40 grains. The tighter/heavier .457 balls may create a tighter seal which increases pressure in the cylinder and barrel and additionally, over-compressing the powder can also increase the velocity produced by Pyrodex.
I realize that it's a stretch, but realistically anything's possible...

Previously posted by mec:

28 Grain Pyrodex P 966
28 Grain Goex FFFG 795
28 Grain Swiss FFFG 959
35 Grain Swiss FFFG 1089
40 Grains Swiss FFFG 1104
40 Grains Pyrodex P 1125
.454 ball- Uberti 58

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=193394&highlight=velocity

 

[Voodoochile]

Maybe your measure is throwing a few gains extra making it closer to 40 grains. The tighter/heavier .457 balls may create a tighter seal which increases pressure in the cylinder and barrel and additionally, over-compressing the powder can also increase the velocity produced by Pyrodex.
I realize that it's a stretch, but realistically anything's possible...

You do bring up a good point, for the longest time in years past I would use one of those small pistol measures that you see now in those starter kits & would happily throw the charge that it was set with no thoughts but as of last year I was shooting my Hawken & my 60' Army & forgot the pistol measure & thought "oh well a measure is a measure" & set the one I use for the rifle to 35gr. & let it go, well come to find out the rifle measure "I have two identicle ones BTW" throws closer to actual weight than the little pistol ones.

Let me explain:

My pistol measures are the simple brass tube type with no swinging funnel that read 5gr. to 50gr..
My Rifle measure is also brass but it does have a swinging funnel & it reads from 10gr. to 120gr..
When I use my rifle measure & back it up with the scale it is usually 1gr. less by weight than the volume reading on the measure no matter what amount I want to use on the measure, not bad.
When I use the pistol measures they degrade a bit as you go up the scale, 10gr. = 9gr., 40gr. = 35gr. not alot granted but just wondering if the smaller measures aren't as accurate as they could be..

Also my Cast .457 Balls are made from a 50/50 of Plumbers Lead & Stick on Wheel Weights yielding approximatly 98% pure lead with very little Tin & Antimony in it but it is a little stiffer than Hornady's .457 Swaged Balls so that could also play a role.

What do you think?

Oh BTW this is using Real Black Powder as the Volume to Weight measurement on those measures.

 

[arcticap]

I still think that on any given day anything is possible.
For instance, in one post mec posted a bunch of velocity figures for a Colt 1860 Army including these:

35Gr/Vol. Pyrodex P 1047 116
35 Gr/Vol Pyrodex P with Wonder Wad 1055 69
35 Gr/Vol. Pyrodex P different Day 1046 77

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=256866&highlight=velocity

It's accepted that the Remington can produce more velocity than the Colt and 100 fps is only ~10% more, so it's just that your velocity is closer to loading with 777 or 40 grains of Pyrodex P from previous reports.

Maybe your balls are lighter and you have a tight bore, or it could be that the chronograph was too close or that it isn't calibrated. Who knows? The only way to check would be to move the chronograph further away next time and to try to duplicate the readings by doing everything else the same way.

 

[Voodoochile]

I know the the balls weigh between 142.5 - 143.6 grains because I weigh all of mine that I cast "to make sure that they are consistent" & I've tried 777 in it once & the accuracy wasn't what I was expecting so I'll stick to Pyrodex P or the real Black "when I can get more."

 

[Pulp]

Smokin' Gun, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I did a trial with a .31 Remington, using Goex 3f, Triple 7 2f and 3f, and Pyro P. The Pyro P produced the highest velocities, Goex the lowest. I was using a Lee 0.7cc dipper of each powder.

Also, I tried the Pyro .45/30 pellets in .44-40. Revolver averaged 850 fps, rifle 1150 fps. A 33 grain load of Goex produced 750 and 1050 respectively.

 

[Donny]

Chrony data is a funny thing. Never found two sets that completely agreed.

Don

 

[Omnivore]

My Pietta '51 Colt Knockoff in .44 averages 841 fps with a weighed 27 grains of Goex pushing a .454 ball. It starts out slower and gets faster with some fouling. It has a rather large cylinder gap compared to my Pietta '58, and the barrel's a half inch shorter than the '58 barrel.

I'd expect my particular .58 to get a little higher velocity than my '51, but your numbers do seem pretty high. You're registering Mach 1+ there, and that should be apparent from the muzzle blast and the "whip-snap" of the ball, not just from the chrono.

There are tons of variables. Ambient temp, powder lots (you're talking P and I'm talking Goex 3f), your powder measure, bore, chamber-to-bore dimensions, cylinder gap, your chrono and the spacing of your sensors, smoke or junk coming out ahead of the ball (but wait-- does anything get ahead of the ball at 8 feet? Something tells me "No"). Not to mention the SD and the extreme spread, which in my '51 at least is pretty wide.

 

[g.willikers]

The distance between the sensors makes a big difference, too,
unless you're using a chrono with fixed distances like the ones from the Chrony company. If you haven't already, check for the recommended distances.

 

[Voodoochile]

Mine is just a fixed distance chrono like this one http://www.midwayusa.com/eproductpage.exe/showproduct?saleitemid=852429.

It has worked reliably for years & this is the only real time I've had a question of it's accuracy.