Howdy
I shoot nothing but Black Powder in Cowboy Action Shooting. I have five rifles, all chambered for 44-40. I shoot BP in all of them.
A few points:
You do not need a Stainless gun to shoot Black Powder. Since corrosive primers pretty much went away, Black Powder fouling is nowhere near as corrosive as most shooters believe. It was the combination of corrosive primer residue and BP fouling that caused most of the problems. None of my rifles are Stainless, I simply clean them promptly after shooting them and there is no problem with corrosion.
The 30-30 cartridge was never a Black Powder cartridge, it was always loaded with Smokeless powder. Most of the reports I have read over the years from shooters who have experimented with it and Black Powder is that it does not perform well with Black Powder. The bore is too narrow and fouling builds up too fast and affects accuracy.
The were never any rifles chambered for 45 Colt in the 19th Century. That is a relatively modern development, based mostly on the resurgent popularity of 45 Colt brought on by Cowboy shooting.The Winchester Centerfire Cartridges, 44-40, 38-40, 32-20, and 25-20 were the cartridges most commonly chambered in lever rifles in the 19th Century.
It is the relatively thin brass at the mouth of the WCF cartridges, not the bottleneck shape, that allows them to seal the chamber and keep all the fouling in the bore and out of the action. On average, 44-40 brass is only about .007 thick at the case mouth. 45 Colt tends to run around .012 thick. At the relatively low pressures of Black Powder, the thinner brass seals the chamber better. My 44-40 BP rounds eject from my rifles just as clean as Smokeless brass, because they have completely sealed the chamber. Most shooters using 45 Colt and 38 Special wind up with sooty brass and more fouling in their actions because those cartridges do not seal the chamber as well. When a chamber is properly sealed by the brass, shooting Black Powder in a lever gun is no different than shooting it in a single shot rifle. All the fouling stays in the bore, where it belongs.
Yes, plenty of shooters do shoot 45 Colt and 38 Special loaded with Black Powder in their rifles. A little bit of BP fouling in the action is not the end of the world. Using a good water based BP solvent it can all be removed very easily. Yes, a full load of powder, a heavy bullet, and a firm crimp will help keep blowback to a minimum. I recommend a 250 grain bullet with 45 Colt in a rifle, nothing lighter.
Yes, the toggle link actions; the Henry, Winchester 1866, and Winchester 1873, do tend to keep any fouling that got past the brass away from the guts of the action, because the cartridge elevator is in front of the rest of the action. Most of the fouling will remain around the elevator and bolt, very little of it will work its way back into the rest of the action. It is not uncommon for BP shooters with toggle link rifles chambered for 45 Colt to spritz a little bit of BP solvent on their cartridge elevators to keep things working smoothly until it is time to clean the rifle. Yes, with the Winchester Model 1892 and Marlin Model 1894, because the design is more open, any fouling that gets past the brass will tend to get into the action too. But as I said earlier, this is not the end of the world.
Yes, the toggle link rifles are expensive. Period.
Yes, a Rossi 1892 can run Black Powder just fine, along with the caveats I have made earlier.
Yes, the Marlin 1894 design runs Black Powder just fine too. In addition, the Marlin is easier to clean than any of the Winchesters. Removing one screw allows the action to be completely disassembled, and a cleaning rod can be run through the barrel from the chamber. This is impossible with any Winchester lever gun design, a bore snake must be used if cleaning from the chamber is desired with a Winchester. Unfortunately, quality has declined so badly since Marlin closed the Connecticut plant and move the operation to the Remington plant in Ilion NY, that they completely stopped production of the Model 1894 a few months ago until they could work the bugs out. The last thing I read about this is that they expect production to resume sometime in January.
One last thing. If you want to shoot real Black Powder in a rifle you will need a bullet that carries plenty of Black Powder compatible bullet lube. Modern bullet lubes do not work well with Black Power, the fouling tends to dry out and quickly builds up a hard to remove coating that fills the rifling and ruins accuracy. Black Powder bullet lubes, such as SPG or a 50/50 Crisco/Beeswax mix will keep the fouling moist, so that each succeeding bullet pushes out most of the fouling left behind by the preceding bullet. This is true with real Black Powder such as Goex, Schuetzen, Elephant, Swiss, Graf, or any other real Black Powder. It is also true with Pyrodex. However, some of the Black Powder substitutes, particularly Hodgdon Triple 7 and American Pioneer Powder do not need special bullet lubes and work fine with standard hard cast Smokeless bullets lubed with standard bullet lubes.
Hope this is of some help. There is nothing like the boom and smoke of firing Black Powder out of a lever gun.
