1858 remington shot wide groups today

[midland man]

took out the 1858 Remington 44cal today and used .454 round balls and 25gr bp pryodex pistol and my groups were wide not sure why? you guys have any suggestions on how to tight'n up the groups when shooting??

 

[MCgunner]

Did you bench it or just shooting off hand? Benching it is the only way to tell if it's actually the gun.

 

[Crawdad1]

Sounds like YOUR revolver doesn't like 25 grains of pyrodex combined with a 454 ball. Some might, but YOUR'S doesn't.

You have some work ahead of you!!

 

[Hellgate]

I've had Pyro cause delayed ignition and erratic shooting. You get a paBOOM rather than just BOOM. Also Pyro P is very compressible and you can get variable seating pressure. i.e. it doesn't just suddenly bottom out in the chamber. It is quite spongy.

 

[BCRider]

All in all you make it sound from your post like you've shot the gun before and done so successfully. So if things have gone to hell'n gone now then the first question is "what did you change?". Or is this the first time out for you and this gun?

Pyrodex and true BP are supposed to have roughly equal volumes. And I found that when I load my Uberti '58s with 30gns of black with the ball directly on the powder that the ram is just barely able to seat the balls far enough down to crunch against the powder. So my first question is are you SURE you could feel the balls seat against the powder charge? I understand that this is a maker to maker thing but that does seem like a very light charge for a .44cal '58.

Next up is the distance the ball would have to run up the chamber throat before it gets to the forcing cone. With that light a charge you're extending the run by that much more.

And of course every barrel and bullet will have a charge where the bullet/ball works well with the rifling twist rate. 25gns is a light charge on a gun which would normally be used with 30 to 40gns of powder. Maybe TOO light?

Next up is to ask if this is the first time you've tried to shoot with only 25gns? If yes then what did you use before?

And what sort of amount of lead was shaved off the .454? I know that my Ubertis need to use .457 to get a good full ring to shave off. A .454 shaves off only a hair strand like ring. And any out of roundness on a .454 results in a low spot that doesn't shave at all. And that ain't good. The .457's shave a ring that is roughly the thickness of a piece of heavy carpet thread. Or 20lb test monofilament if you're a fishing sort of fella.

 

[Hellgate]

I think BCRider is onto it. 25grs BP, which is less compressible than Pyrodex P, is the minimum I would shoot in a Remington without a wad to take up extra space to give it adequate compression. When I used Pyro P with wads I found I had to really ram it hard to pack it well enough to get consistent ignition. I'm suspicious the Pyro P is just not getting packed hard enough to give it consistency.

 

[midland man]

here what I have I bought this pistol new last year it came with the owners manual in the manual it states to use between 22-30gr of powder as this is a brass frame revolver and to use .454 round balls well I do once I press in the balls I do get a ring of lead shaved off pretty thick at that. so I noticed also that I had leading in the barrel but not severe just a little so I was prepared to reduce it down to 22gr but I really couldn't see that 3gr drop would make that much difference and yes I was using a rest so I plagued me as to why plus I did use a ramrod from my singleshot 50cal pistol to help seat the balls as my seater didn't go far enough so should I go up in powder like the max the manual says of 30gr or a little more? thanks!

 

[midland man]

and whats weird I used 25gr last year all seemed fine but also how you guys fully clean your '58 rem's? it took me almost an hour and a half a lot of work? but didn't mind doing it I used dawn dishwashing liquid in hot water and brushes and soforth then dried it and used bore butter to lube the barrel and bore butter over the outside as well and 3 in 1 oil on the action parts so does it take this long to clean these revolvers?

 

[Hellgate]

Cleaning: Just take out the cylinder and hose it down/toothbrush/Q-Tip it it. Leave the nipples in. Dry with a spritzer bottle of rubbing alcohol dry with canned air then oil. Swab the barrel, dry & oil. Hose the internals with WD-40 or drizzle oil into the innards. Do a complete teardown when you find the gun getting gummy or malfunctioning (which might be once or twice a year if you shoot it about 50-100 rounds every month). I would recommend taking out the nipples one last time and putting anti-sieze grease on the threads, reinstalling and then leave them in (almost) for good. Don't make cleaning so tedious that you won't shoot the gun. I had a Colt Navy that I couldn't get the trigger/bolt spring out for YEARS. I shot maybe 1000 rounds through it before I could finally get the internals apart (bought a house with a vise & workshop). The insides had cap fragments and large quantities of black mush but NOT A SPECK OF RIST. It was still shooting fine. I used the above cleaning method for the first 5 or 6 years of shooting the gun and no problems. I still do. If metal surfaces are oily they won't rust as long as the gun doesn't get and stay wet.

 

[BCRider]

....plus I did use a ramrod from my singleshot 50cal pistol to help seat the balls as my seater didn't go far enough.....

This along with Hellgate's post about Pyrodex needing a little more compression to run consistently is your clue.

Since it's a brass frame gun I would not go for more powder just yet. Instead I'd go with LESS powder and work up. But at the same time I'd pack the chambers over top of the powder with a thick felt wad or a filler such as Cream of Wheat or oat bran so you can get the ball up where the ram can work without getting close to the travel limit.

I'd work to a balance between the powder and filler such that the ball seats with the forward end roughly 1/16 inch behind the face of the cylinder. Start with that and work up the Pyrodex in 2 or 3 grain increments with correspondingly smaller fillers over top. And work at trying to achieve a consistent ramming pressure. No need to use a fish scale or anything like that. Just try for a consistent press with your hands on the ram.

If you don't hit a suitable sweet spot maybe try the whole string again with the balls sitting deeper or closer.

If you're getting leading then your lubrication is failing or you are getting a bad blowby around the balls once into the bore.

Let's start with a lubrication failure. Whatever you're using try something different. There's lots of lubrication suggestions to be found in the stickys at the top of the BP forum threads listing.

One that does not show up all that often is to use a drop of Canola cooking oil to wick around the ball and chamber joint. That's what I've been using on all my C&B revolvers for around 5 years now. And it works great. I've never had any sign of leading. And it cleans up easily. And if that's not enough it does a great job of clearing and lubricating the cylinder arbor when it becomes sticky from the fouling. In fact one drop on the cylinder to arbor or base pin joint with every loading keeps my Colt and Remington replicas spinning smoothly all day long. And it's MUCH less messy than spooning in over ball grease.

 

[midland man]

thanks guys much appreciated help and will try these ideas, as soon i'm gonna take it out again!

 

[midland man]

hey guys I have an over supply of cornmeal would that work as a filler?

 

[Hellgate]

I've never used it but have read that it is a little more compressible than cream of wheat (COW). I'm not sure if that will make any difference. Both fillers seem to do the job intended. I used a separate flask for the COW.

 

[kBob]

I have used corn meal with success. Only problem is the smell of cornbread and hush puppies makes me hungry....... just teasing about that. A friend thought my preloaded tubes of corn meal were odd but otherwise no problem.

-kBob

 

[jgh4445]

The OP left out some stuff that would be good to know when trying to diagnose his/her problem. Stuff like:

1. Distance. 7yds? 15? 25? 50? a hundred? Different distances can cause wider groups as the ditance increases.

Bench bagged in or no? For me, offhand produces wider, larger groups than on a bench. Even with a bench refer to number 1.

One or two hands? I shoot differently with each. Again, refer to number 1.

Wads or no wads? Can have a bearing.

Wind or no wind? Can also have a bearing.

Seems like these things should have been considered before suggestions were made.

 

[kBob]

Thought about this thread today while stopping in Stienhatchee for supper at Roy's and had the hush puppies with my shrimp. Saw a sign for a gunsmith out at Keyton Beach and the turn off was less than 100 yards to the gulf......got to wonder if he has any rust problems. Folks were bringing in limits on scollops. Had inteneded to hit a few shops on the way over but as usual got behind the curve and could not be late for picking up daughter that spent the week with "MeMaw" before spending today on the boat or in the water casing scallops.

Did carry a Remington NMA to the range this AM but thankfully did not try to load it before I found out my caps were still at home..... and did have corn meal for reduced loads with me.

-kBob

 

[midland man]

shots were no wind at 7 yards and I used wonder wads no lube on top of ball as I went exactly by the owners manual I was given when I bought this last year this is traditions instructions.