The RUGER OLD ARMY Club

my cast bullets

these are a sample of my cast bullets out of pure lead i got from my dentist the old style xrays have a thin film of lead in them it takes alot of them to add up but they actually shoot very close to the same point of impact as the 457 lead balls do !!! these are what i got the squirrel with
 

Attachments

  • IMG_8519.jpg
    IMG_8519.jpg
    105.5 KB · Views: 52
whitetailbobs' new kill.........

The residual radiation on those lead bullets could've contributed to that quick-kill you got out of those bullets! Gotta talk to my dentist too on Monday......
 
Ruger Old Army for game............

To those Ruger Old Army owners out there who have never hunted anything with their pistols, I can only say that the Old Army with THE right load and bullets, in the right hands of a seasoned hunter, WILL bring down ANY legal game that walks on all fours in the 48 states. It is NOT a squirrel gun at the slightest. It is a gun for all seasons and for all game, big or small, squirrel or deer, except them big white critters in Alaska. That is really saying something about an ROA. Quite an achievement for a cap & ball. An amazing pistol indeed.
 
Last edited:
I'm in the commercial roofing business and we have a 55 gallon barrel that we keep our scrap lead flashing in,there's probably more than 200 lbs in it right now, i might have to take up casting my own bullets.

What do you guys think of Swiss Black powder, the neighbor that got me interested in BP says it's the best.
 
re Ruger Old Army for game............

you are right it is not a squirrel gun but it does say something about the accuracy if you can hit one at 25 or 30 yards lol.
 
Swiss black powder and accuracy from an ROA.....

Davepool, oh yea, the finest and best there is, is Swiss black, and you usually in most cases get more velocity from it and if you use FFFFg [a priming type fine granulation powder] then you are really cooking! Hard to find, but it is out there. If you can't find it than standard Goex FFFg/FFFFg is fine. A bored out cylinder by Clements Custom Guns [David] or one from ClassicBallistix filled with Swiss FFFFg, a conical bullet in the 200-250 grain variety, and CCI magnum caps, turns your Old Army into one hell of a Super Gun! You would be in magnum territory by then. Pressure cooker stuff. Triple 7 powder would come close, but there is nothing quite like Swiss Black in FFFFG for sheer power and thunder. CRACK-A-BOOOOMS like a big bore rifle, hits hard, turning a bunch of lined-up 2X4s into mush, with safe pressures to boot. Also, Whitetailbob, yup, that pistol sure is accurate. Like you said, hitting a squirrel at 25-30 yards is like a deer at over 200 yards! which we would never atempt with a pistol. As you mentioned, plenty accurate, most of the time more accurate than most of us, yes sir! All the best....
 
Last edited:
these are a sample of my cast bullets out of pure lead i got from my dentist the old style xrays have a thin film of lead in them it takes alot of them to add up but they actually shoot very close to the same point of impact as the 457 lead balls do !!! these are what i got the squirrel with
As a retired dentist I can say that the lead from x-ray backing is not pure lead. It is close but not pure. The bullets I cast from it will show a slight scratch (indentation) from rubbing your fingernail on them but not like the deep groove produced when the fingernail test is used on pure lead.
Did you notice how much junk floated to the top when you fluxed those dental backings? Those impurities are just filler. Kodak wants to save $$ too. ;)

P.S. I've killed a hog and a deer with home cast bullets from my ROA. They work. However, I prefer the heavier flat-nosed types similar to a Keith SWC.
 
http://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/17007

Graf and sons has it in stock. I have 3 lbs on the way, and a lb of their house powder to try out. It's a bit of a wait to get, i think maybe 4-6 weeks, but nobody locally has it.

Check out their stocks on metallic reloading, they have NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH.

That's one of the reasons i'm going to start BP shooting. I am well stocked on ammo and loading supplies for my cartridge guns, but i'm gonna sit on it until things calm down.

Patocazador; every one keeps telling me how accurate the Old Army can be, the head shot on that itty bitty squirrel proves it.
 
Patocazador

Patocazador you are right the hardness tester shows 99% lead 1 % tin you melt the lead tin is light it floats to to surface you skim it off the surface then you flux it thus the very close pure lead its free its accurate they load great actually more accurate than the speer round balls witch i prefer over the hornady round balls they shave off a ring for good seal im just trying to help others out to find good free lead that works good in the ROA i am very pleased with the outcome oh and the bore cleans up great after shot what else do you want to know !!! Oh and most of the junk on the surface is the paper and plastic that got mixed and not pulled out when melted.( LOL thanks for keeping me honest there it is)



eddie56
great looking bullets did you cast those if so what and where did you get your mold do they shoot higher than round balls if so how much
 
eddie 56------those nice lead hollow points you got in your photo, where can you get them and what size and weight are they. They sure look nice. davepool------in my side of town, all of Los Angeles county that is, we too have Nada, Zero, Ziltch. Some guys here, well dozens of guys, wait for the local Big 5 sporting goods and other retailers to open and are lined-up an hour or two before they open, only to find out that no ammo arrived. They leave cursing and hooting like little kids being told that the party is over. Those are the ones our mommas told us to watch-out for. Never seen old grown-up adults act like that. They were likely extreme liberals anyway. Good for them I say, good. Patocazador-------- real nice to have a dentist on board, a quick question by the way,......those heavy lead-lined vests they put on patients before doing a dental X-ray, are they pure lead? are they safe to handle, melt, etc. having been used so much, are they radioactive. Had a chance once to retrieve a couple of well used ones at one time, but was scared to store them thinking they would have absorved too much radiation. Did not have access to a Gieger counter or whatever, so I passed on them. They sure would have made a whole lot of bullets, as their very heavy weight would suggest. My, were they heavy. Any comments on that.
 
Sumikoto: The answer to one of your questions is in the post just above yours.

Lead really doesn't absorb x-rays; it blocks it .. kind of like the shielding on tanks doesn't absorb bullets. Dental x-radiation is high intensity stuff that is actually safer than low intensity radiation. Low intensity (energy) radiation is absorbed by the cells of the body and makes molecules unstable usually resulting in the ejection of an electron. This leads to cell mutation and possible malignancy.

As far as I know, the lead aprons are pure lead to give them the flexibility necessary to be used as a protective garment.
 
Eddie56, is that a trigger shoe you got on your ROA? Never seen an ROA with that before. Works good? Thanks Patocazador, should have kept those aprons now that I know they would have been safe. They would have made a whole lot of nice castings. Oh and yes while typing up these questions, the guys beat me to the answer regarding those nice cast hollow points by Lyman. But I wonder what diameter they are?? .451, .452, .453, .454, .455, .456, or .457, wonder which one. If it is close to the ideal .457 the ROA calls for, then that would be great as I don't use any form of greasy stuff slobbered all over the cylinder holes. Kinda messy to deal with, you know. A nice tight fit would be good for a great seal against a chainfire, without slimmy hands. Gotta do some checking regarding those bullets eddie56 has. Would make for some good squirrel medicine come to think about it. Thats all we city duellers here have to contend with, exept for the occational possum or two on the rooftop. Hmmm, Devastator. Watch out squirrels!
 
Last edited:
Lyman Devastator in .45 cal.Its about 185 grn.#452374

midway says the size for that mold is a 452 for the long colt wouldnt that be a little small dia. for the ROA
 
With the way things are going with gun laws and ammo shortages like they are maybe we will see Ruger bring back the old army,i sure hope so.I feel like we may see the ammo shortage become better than it is now but i dont think it will ever be like it was before and i am sure the prices will never be the same again either. I have been thinking about what i would love to see Ruger do with the old army that would be improvments on an already great gun. A stronger cylinder pin with a quick lock on it.Taller front sight blades with fiber optic inserts so you can see the sights in low light hunting.An option for the bisley grip frame and hammer. An option for a 5 shot cylinder with thicker walls and a bottle neck chamber in both .36 and .45 so you can use long heavy bullets but still easily fit 45 or so grains of powder in and a riffle twist to stabilize the longer bullets.This would be a blast for long range steel target shooting. Also an octogon barrel option just for giggles. And new bullet molds the right dia. with a stepped heel in diffrent weights and nose styles.While the old army may not be historically correct,,it for sure is a shooters gun and is a dream for experimenting with diff. loads and bullets if we could get more molds that really work well with it.
 
What you really need to watch is the bullet not locking up the cyclinder from jumping forward.I use a small shim to cast mine a bit larger.And yes they do hit a little high.Also to get them to start easy I bevel the base some.I can't get used to the narrow trigger on the ROA without the trigger shoe.
 
Response to improving the Ruger Old Army..........

On bringing back the Old Army......no way its gonna happen. Are we to expect Ruger to start re-tooling again and pushing aside the very profitable and fast selling Vaquero line to re-start-up Old Army production again for a few cry babies wanting it back when they ignored it WHEN it WAS in steady production. Ain't gonna happen. Stronger cylinder pin? Why? Again why? What is wrong with the the cylinder pin. It is as strong as it can be. The only reason it bends is when you forget, again, forget to lock that damn cylinder pin latch all the way to the right as it should be. All of the time. To the right. Clockwise! It is as strong AS CAN BE! Too much press about bent cylinder pins from, I will put it mildly, complaining shooters, WHO FORGOT to turn that latch to the right, locked, does not make it a weak part. Hell, all that brute leverage exerted on that loading lever while loading and forcing a bullet into that cylinder, and guess what, SOMEONE, some really nice guy, [wink] forgot to turn and lock that pin,and we start calling that pin a weak part! C'mon now! lets try to understand the workings of how all these parts work together to give you all the durability the gun was designed with. All those heavy duty lever loaders out there were designed to make it easier for YOU, the shooter, not the Old Army. The pistol was made to take a beating, a good licking AND keep on ticking. It is as strong as can be. Just dont ever, ever forget to lock that pin after replacing the cylinder, and the pistol will outlast you, guaranteed. On the bottle necked chamber to hold a smaller caliber, and longer bullet? Ala .30 caliber luger, .22 jet magnum, .22 hornet, or putting it mildly, a 44/40. Small bullet, lots of powder, right. Thats kinda hard to imagine on a cap & ball cylinder. Whatcha gonna do if you push that ball or bullet too far in and ends up dropping into and ratling inside your sexy shaped cylinder chamber.Whooops. You would have a nice very expensive rattle in your hands. Cha cha cha, shake shake shake,whoops! Lets leave that idea to cartridges, and cartridges alone. Long range steel targets, chickens and boars etc. where meant from the very start to be used with powerfull magnum class pistols with very flat shooting cartriges of the .454 Casull, .357 maximum type of performance and the like. Historically Correct? What, again. Too much has been said about this term by some very ill infomed shooters that it has spread like wildfire, contaminated the minds of new shooters and now it is called A FACT. Those guys that say those words, do not have, own, or are the least familiar guys in regards to the Old Army. Armchair experts fondling their brand new brass framed $150.00 cap and ball revolver kits and trying to pick up a turd by its clean end, is what they are good at. The Ruger Old Army was not, again, was not meant to in the slightest, a representation of anything historic. NOTHING! Just like a bicycle, looks the same as a hundred or more years ago. But should you build one today and it does not look like anything from the 19th century, then your superior bicycle built with the best materials and engineering available today would be what, Not Historically Correct !!! The Old Army IS what it is. Not anything else, past or present. Got all worked up again, whew. Now where are those pill bottles I just put down next to my glass of water. Need some help here next time guys. Gulp, gulp, gulp. Ahem.
 
Last edited:
robhof

I have to disagree about the ROA not being a squirrel gun, at least for one pesky squirres. Back during B/p season I carry the ROA as a back-up or if I get a deer in close. On my way out one day a pesky squirrel was chattering and getting closer and closer, drew my ROA and shot without aiming to scare it, well I had to clean and freeze up a bushy tail that evening, if I had only aimed, he would probably survived!!:cuss::banghead:
 
For those who like to shoot conical and like to experiment. In the late 70’s I modified a Lee mold for use in the ROA. It was a 452 diameter mold with three grease grooves at 252 grains (semi wad cutter). I took a dremel tool and routed out at the bands to achieve the lager diameter needed for a good seal in the chambers. Using pure lead it will shave off the excess lead to form a good seal. Lee molds are aluminum and are easy to modify. There are several other ones in the .452 that will also work well. It done well for the intended use in it’s day. Sold that one, but started thinking I should get back to some more experimenting.
 
First off, i was not being a cry baby,i had several ROA's when they were still being made. They may have just been a gun made before their time.A lot of things have changed and are still changing in this country when it comes to guns.Now is there enough intrest in the ROA to be a profit for Ruger to start back up makeing them,,i have no idea.And yes the ROA was made to be bullet proof.I have never bent a loading ram but that is the one thing on them i do hear people having a problem with.But, not everyone is a gun expert or have as much time to spend with them as others but i dont think that makes them stupid.As far as historically correct,,i mentioned that because by far the most shooters of cap n ball guns are into that sort of thing but i see more and more that just want one that shoots good and holds up well especially now that ammo is hard to get and in some places a reg handgun is so regulated it just about does not pay to mess with one anymore.I dont shoot SAS or that type of thing.For those that are into that i think its great but myself i dont much get into compitition of any kind except informal with shooting buddies and i dont like doing anything that requires other than a pair of jeans or sweat pants and a t-shirt,lol.Shooting silloettes is great fun,i have several i cut out myself that i shoot at a lot and its great practice for hunting.Its cool to get together with others and hit a life size deer cut out over and over with an iron sighted .45 colt and then watch them miss repeatedly with their favorite scoped deer rifle they think is a 400 yard sniper rifle,lol.Actually there is nothing wrong with their rifle its just common for a LOT of people to sight one in till they can hit a five gallon bucket at one hundred yards and think they are good to go.Again,,that dont make them dummies, just misinformed and most people now days have to spend so much time trying to make a living that they havnt learned what they need to about guns.That and less and less people are taught about guns,shooting, and hunting by their Dad or uncle like was common for us old farts.I even see lots of boys that spent several tours in the military nowdays that are extremely ignorant about guns. My intent on my comments of Ruger making the old army again,was mostly because i would so love to see them bring back a great gun and to start conversation about them on what others would like to see diffrent on them if they did.Some of the things i said of coarse would not be practical for a factory gun,like the bottle neck chambers,but it for sure would not be a problem.Ramming a bullet in past the neck could be avoided just by a ram that limited how far you could seat a bullet.
 
For those who like to shoot conical and like to experiment. In the late 70’s I modified a Lee mold for use in the ROA. It was a 452 diameter mold with three grease grooves at 252 grains (semi wad cutter). I took a dremel tool and routed out at the bands to achieve the lager diameter needed for a good seal in the chambers. Using pure lead it will shave off the excess lead to form a good seal. Lee molds are aluminum and are easy to modify. There are several other ones in the .452 that will also work well. It done well for the intended use in it’s day. Sold that one, but started thinking I should get back to some more experimenting.
Rather than modify my Lee 255 gr. swc mold, I put the cast bullets in a vice and compress them slightly. This causes them to shorten and give a larger diameter in the process. It seems to work well and does shave some lead when seated.
Someone on this forum said they gave their bullets a rap with a mallet to achieve the same result. I was worried about the grinding of the mold causing irregularities that would allow lead to adhere to the mold and not allow the bullets to separate easily.
 
Bent loading ram on Ruger Old Army..............

:):):)Any one here or anywhere else in the world have a 'bent loading ram'. Well I have good news for you. Just send me a PM in regards to your bent loading ram and how it happened and how you managed to bend it. I will send you, at my cost, yes FREE, a brand new loading ram for your Old Army, on the condition that you send me YOUR bent loading ram on a exchange basis. Has to be an original Ruger Old Army loading ram. Exchange basis only. I have plenty here. Send me your broken loading rams now folks. I love collecting broken Ruger Old Army loading rams. This offer stands for as long as I have them in stock. Hurry now! Dont miss out on this once in a lifetime offer. Act now! When they are gone, their gone! .........Cheers
 
Back
Top