Blackpowder cartridges in modern revolver

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Perfecty safe.

However, you are not going to like cleaning up after it in a modern DA revolver.

rc
 
I just bought the Judge Public Defender and now the 4" Judge I have is going to become a fun gun, so I am going to loads all kinds of rounds in it just for fun.

I am not a Taurus fan, but the Judge I like and the public defender is small enough to fit in my pocket.
Great BUG for my Colt 1911.
 
Just be sure you understand all the implications of shooting black powder.

Gun cleaning takes on a whole nother meaning when black powder fouling is left to set and ruin your gun.

Scroll down to the "Cleaning Revolving Pistols" section of this:

http://www.civilwarguns.com/9502.html

rc
 
Tweety Bird!

Anyway, I've shot homemade BP .38s in a Ruger SP-101 before. I had to wipe off the front of the cylinder with a damp cloth after every 5 shots, because it would start to bind!

For more fun, you should load some .410 shotshells with BP.

Clean it well, and you'll have no problems. Also, remember to clean the brass if you're going to reload! I cleaned my gun, but forgot to clean the shells. They were bright green and crumbly a week later.
 
The pressure will not harm the revolver in the slightest. Even a fully compressed load has lower pressure, over a longer duration, than smokeless powder with its fast pressure "spike." The cleanup afterwards will be messy. But WHY?
 
rcmodel, I read the link.

Thanks

Will I have to remove the judge's cylinder and detail strip it in order to clean it?
Or should I purchase a dunk kit and remove the grips and soak the gun?


BTW, the shotgun shells are already pretty nasty in the Judge. I have the stainless steel model and after about 80 shells the gun looks like its blued from mid-cylinder to muzzle forget using the fiber optic sight.
 
For BP Metallic Cartridge in a modern Revolver, Home-Made 'Lube Wafer' under the Bullet, makes fouling a lot less, and, clean up, easier...should be able to do quite a few dozen shots without any binding.
 
Cleaning a cartridge gun after black powder would be easy peasy compared to my cap and ball revolvers with their dead ended cylinder bores. Just hose the cylinder and barrel with hot water and then patch out the chambers and barrel with windex instead of smokeless powder solvent. For occasional use I can't see it getting into the action enough to worry about.

One thing to keep in mind if you've read the BP fundementals sticky is that black and petroleum based oils do not go together well. You'll need to clean the gun with solvent and re-lube with vegtable or animal based oil. Or something that isn't petro based such as Ballistol.
 
It's certainly safe. I have a stainless New Vaquero in 45 Colt I use for BP cartridge handloads. They are comfortable to shoot, quite accurate, and boy howdy, do they noticed on the firing line. (If possible, I try to stay down wind as a courtesy to other shooters.)

Cleaning is the same as for C&B revolvers and easier as you don't have to remove and clean the nipples. Haven't tried this with a double action. The idea of cleaning crane hinges, the star extractor and shaft and the other nooks and crannies on a DA doesn't appeal.

I keep a hundred 45 Colt cases separated for BP loading. When I get back from the range, I decap the empties and let them soak in hot soapy water while I clean the gun. I scrub them out with a nylon bristle brush, rinse, and let them air dry. A little extra work but worth it for the extra fun and novelty.

Jeff
 
I've loaded up 16 gr. of Triple Seven in a .38 S&W for my ''war finish'' Webley and Scott revolver. Jolly good fun, that.
Click to expand...

Love shooting BP from my Webley, it's been cut for .45acp but I'm going to repair the cylinder and shoot .455. I shot this yesterday and had a blast.
PICT0022.jpg
PICT0020-1.jpg
 
One thing to keep in mind if you've read the BP fundementals sticky is that black and petroleum based oils do not go together well. You'll need to clean the gun with solvent and re-lube with vegtable or animal based oil. Or something that isn't petro based such as Ballistol.
Click to expand...

BCRider, Thanks for the tip.

What gun oil would you suggest?
 
The other pundits around here are all about the Ballistol. And now that I've found a source for it I also use it for after cleaning to lube and protect.

But before I found a supplier locally for Ballistol I used good old Canola cooking oil for the whole season on my cap and ball revolvers. I even ran a rust test on it with raw steel, Breakfree CLP and Canola test subjects. The canola actually turned out to be the BEST at rust proofing the steel. However after sitting in the sun it dried to a varnish like clear coat so that may have been why it won. Because I know that it'll eventually get sticky from drying even away from the sun I won't use it for serious long term storage. But for a month or so at a time it works superbly. And if you're just going to clean the gun from smokeless, take it out for a day of black powder and then clean and lube it again for smokeless then the far, far cheaper Canola cooking oil will do you just dandy. And the BP munge when mixed with Canola just cleans right away with the typical hot and soapy water.

At our noon lunch break at a cowboy action day I can remember pulling my cylinders out and looking down the barrel. IT WAS SCARY LOOKING IN THERE! :D Loose gooey strands of black corruption were spiderwebbed back and forth along the barrel. It was a soft combination of the Canola and BP residue because I was using a drop of Canola over the balls to seal them from chainfire and to help lube the barrel. As it turned out there was nothing at all to worry about and I could have carried on shooting just fine. But on this occasion I chose to wash it out with a spritz of Windex. The mess just hosed away and out onto the ground from the two squirts I gave it and the drying swab that I pushed through with a bit of dowel came out with hardly a mark. So again the Canola worked well at keeping the fouling soft to aid with avoiding any jams.

Assuming that you're loading your own cartridges another source of bad lube that may produce tar like deposits would be the bullet lube on cast bullets. This should be boiled out of the grooves and replaced with a vegtable shortening and beeswax mix to again be sure to stay away from petroleum products. Although I seem to remember something about parrafin wax as used for sealing canning jars as being OK with black powder. But only when mixed with some vegtable shortening such as Crisco. Mind you I may be worrying about nothing on this count. I'll have to ask the guys that shoot black from their 1873 replicas to see what their cleaning issues are like.
 
At our noon lunch break at a cowboy action day I can remember pulling my cylinders out and looking down the barrel. IT WAS SCARY LOOKING IN THERE! :D Loose gooey strands of black corruption were spiderwebbed back and forth along the barrel.
Click to expand...

Ha, that made me laugh.

Thanks, for the info I am going to put some canola in my range bag.
Now with the windex, did you spray a patch and run it through the barrel or spray directly into the barrel?

BTW, I love cleaning tricks like this.

I use a three-headed tooth brush to clean the small parts of my 1911:

http://dencare.en.alibaba.com/product/244746381-209330719/Dencare_three_sided_toothbrush.html
 
BFR_zwartkruitB.jpg

I don't use anything anymore but Black in my BFR in 45-70 and it works fine, smokeless is a little hard on the wrist.
No problem in cleaning at all.

Since the lands & grooves in the barrels of smokeless guns are cut less deep then those of BP weapons. I'm not sure if this has an actual effect on accuracy.
I seeme not to get a grouping as small as with my true BP revolvers.

Anyone know something about this?

Hildo
 
Mesinge2, Just put the nozzle on stream and shot it down the barrel from the forcing cone end with the barrel pointed downwards. It went in blue and rolled out the other end black as a moonless overcast night in a thick forest. The "patch" following the Windex was just a wadded up blob of paper towel pushed through with a stick of hardwood dowel to swab out any remaining boogers. Following that I pushed through another one wetted with canola to lube it. This WAS a field cleaning job after all... :D

351Win' I'm not sure what Ballistol is based on but it's had any bad issues refined out of it if it is petroleum based. As I said, all the pundits here say it's as good as a proper vegtable oil or shortening (Crisco). So who am I to argue? But I'll likely continue to rely on Canola for short term use as before since it's about 1/4 the price and works just fine for during the active use shooting season where at most a month will go by before the guns are used again.
 
I much prefer BP (cowboy load) cartridges to smokeless. My 1858 New Army Uberti will handle smokeless quite easily (long as it isn't "high velocity"), but at a maximum 75' range or so, why invite the stronger recoil? And cleaning a cartridge BP pistol is a JOY compared to a cap and ball.
 
Madcratebuilder!I love that gun! Why ''repair'' anything? You have the best of all things,ammo is cheap and easy to make with black powder and easily available .45 acp cases...
 
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