goldpelican
Member
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2015
- Messages
- 259
Finally got out to use my Pietta 44 (brass framed "Navy") this weekend. First black powder experience, and went well.
Loading was a bit experimental though - I removed the cylinder from the revolver, used 20g of Pyrodex P, popped a wad into each chamber, tamped them down gently using the brass butt of a wedge removal tool (perfect size to push the wad down), squeezed a gob of bore butter over each wad, then fitted the cylinder back into the revolver. I found tipping the revolver onto its left side let me just drop a .451 ball in front of the chamber, and pressed it in with the loading lever. After 18 shots it was still clean and goop free, only hassle was a stuck cap between the hammer and frame on one F2F that was quickly cleared (learnt to check for an obstruction between each shot).
The balls depressed deeper into the chamber than I would have liked - but two wads was too much, so I just had to deal with balls being seated a little deeper than desirable - next time I will use 25g, I know that's not ideal in a brass frame gun, but honestly I'm not going to be putting thousand or even hundreds of shots through it.
Now the caps were the PITA part. I bought a capper tool from BassPro, but found it was very difficult to place a cap on the cylinder using this tool - it seems to be slightly too long to safely place a cap onto the nipple, it just doesn't fit.
Is it safe to cap the nipples BEFORE placing the cylinder back into the revolver? Or is this a safety no-no?
Firing was very surprising - hardly any recoil from 20g, nowhere near as loud as I expected, and everyone on the firing line just stopped to watch
Loading was a bit experimental though - I removed the cylinder from the revolver, used 20g of Pyrodex P, popped a wad into each chamber, tamped them down gently using the brass butt of a wedge removal tool (perfect size to push the wad down), squeezed a gob of bore butter over each wad, then fitted the cylinder back into the revolver. I found tipping the revolver onto its left side let me just drop a .451 ball in front of the chamber, and pressed it in with the loading lever. After 18 shots it was still clean and goop free, only hassle was a stuck cap between the hammer and frame on one F2F that was quickly cleared (learnt to check for an obstruction between each shot).
The balls depressed deeper into the chamber than I would have liked - but two wads was too much, so I just had to deal with balls being seated a little deeper than desirable - next time I will use 25g, I know that's not ideal in a brass frame gun, but honestly I'm not going to be putting thousand or even hundreds of shots through it.
Now the caps were the PITA part. I bought a capper tool from BassPro, but found it was very difficult to place a cap on the cylinder using this tool - it seems to be slightly too long to safely place a cap onto the nipple, it just doesn't fit.
Is it safe to cap the nipples BEFORE placing the cylinder back into the revolver? Or is this a safety no-no?
Firing was very surprising - hardly any recoil from 20g, nowhere near as loud as I expected, and everyone on the firing line just stopped to watch