.454 RB vs. 457

[jgh4445]

I'm shooting .454's in my 1860 Army now. Itt shaves a nice ring when I seat the bbullet. The acccuracy is fair..even good if I do my part. Do you think a 457 might shoot tighter groups or would it just put unnessary pressure on the loading lever?

 

[Hammerdown77]

Probably won't make a difference, other than requiring more force to seat the ball (and possibly deforming the ball more).

What will make more difference is experimenting with fillers/wads/powder charges. Try seating the ball out to the very end of the cylinder. I've gotten the best accuracy when this is the case.

 

[jgh4445]

Thanks Hammer, kinda what I was thinking. I can seat it out further with extra wads or filler. I'll experiment some.

 

[J-Bar]

A pure lead .457 round ball chambers easily in my Pietta 1860 Armies.

Using alloy or wheelweight balls might take more pressure on the rammer. If you cannot use pure lead balls, charging the chambers on a loading stand will reduce stress on the rammer. It depends on how much harder the ball is.

 

[BullRunBear]

I use .457 balls in the Ruger Old Army but get the same amount of ring shaved by .454s in the Uberti 1860 and Pietta Remington 1858. I can seat .457s in the Colt but with noticeable more force and no improvement in accuracy. I use my homemade felt wads as needed instead of filler.

Jeff

 

[jgh4445]

I'm not crazy about having to fool with filler as well as wads and gunpowder. Thought I'd just see how many of my 44 wads it would take to get the ball seated out as far as is practical and go from there. Pre lubed wads can only be a good thing.

 

[mykeal]

The most effective thing you can do to improve your accuracy is to match the chamber diameters with the groove diameter in your revolver. The chamber diameter should be 0.001" to 0.002" larger than the groove diameter.

Seating the ball close to the chamber mouth may help some (I can't honestly say it's helped me) but it's a small thing at best.

 

[J-Bar]

The most effective thing you can do to improve your accuracy is to match the chamber diameters with the groove diameter in your revolver. The chamber diameter should be 0.001" to 0.002" larger than the groove diameter.

How I check it:

Push a pure lead ball through the barrel with a wooden dowel. Then see if the swaged down ball is bigger or smaller than the mouth of the chambers...if the swaged surface of the ball enters the chamber mouth, you are good to go. If it won't go back into the chamber (meaning the barrel is a greater diameter than the chamber mouth), accuracy will suffer.

 

[Foto Joe]

Thought I'd just see how many of my 44 wads it would take to get the ball seated out as far as is practical and go from there. Pre lubed wads can only be a good thing.

Stacking wads under the ball (lubed or not) might not get you much of a positive result. I understand your reluctance to adding the additional step of filler but...filler will disperse and decelerate when it leaves the barrel rather quickly, wads not so much. I've printed a ten yard target with wads quite easily. Now think about this...if those wads "don't" detach from the ball evenly they "could" disrupt the trajectory of the ball.

All of this of course makes perfect sense to me after two beers, your results might vary. But it is something to consider.

 

[BHP FAN]

I'd suggest two more beers and deep thought.

 

[Dellbert]

.457s will just put unnessary pressure on the loading lever. .457s do good in ROAs, Colt Dragoons, and Walkers. In all the other .44s your just wasting your time, powder, and caps.