Conicals in C&B revolvers

[DaveP (UK)]

In a discussion recently I commented on the fact that there had been two or three people expressing interest in C&B revolvers and each in turn had made it clear that they intended to shoot conical bullets and nothing else. I said that I couldnt understand why this should be, the guns were designed for round ball, and I thought they should at least try them...things went slightly downhill from there, and eventually I had to concede a lack of detailed knowledge just so I could get away and put the kettle on!

Was I right? and if so, when did people start to use conical bullets in these guns?

Just to clarify, I dont object to the use of conicals in any way - I just thought that they were denying themselves an experience!

 

[Mark whiz]

I shoot both out of my 1858, but I use the conicals mainly for hunting purposes.
I can't say for sure if the ball or the bullet came first for these revolvers, but I do know that during the American Civil War, most of the standard loads for them used conicals.

If you think about, EVERY projectile fired from these pistols end up being conicals, because once you shave off that ring of lead from the ball as it enters the cylinder, it has then become a round nosed conical.

 

[mec]

From what I can tell, the Patersons were pretty much confined to round ball. With the walker colt in 1847, came a sharp pointed, flat based "Picket" bullet. At the time the walkers were issued, most people were unaccustomed to any projectile other than round balls. some of them even thought the pickets were supposed to be loaded sharp end downward to assist seating.

After about a year in service, an army officer named johnson begged a return to the old five shooters with round balls. He considered the bullets difficult and slow to load and their use requiring over large chambers to hold enough powder to drive them. Most of the literature we have indicates that 19th century shooters preferred the round balls and considered them more powerful and accurate than the bullets. Elmer Keith passed that information on after conversations with people who had used the guns in the 19th century. The moulds that were sold with colt revolvers had two cavities - one for bullet and another for ball. The bullets were universally used in the foil and paper cartridges that seem to have come along in the mid to later 1850s but loading loose ball with powder decanted from a flask remained a standard procedure

The bullets cast from original brass moulds and the modern replicas weren't particularly accurate. You can get fairly good accuracy from the traditional bullets cast from Dixie scissor moulds as long as the nose profile and the rammer are a good fit. Commercial buffalo bullets and ram loks seem just as accurate as round ball loads and this is often true with bullets cast from the Lee moulds for percussion revolvers. As a matter of practicality, the various bullets have no advantage over balls in traditional black powder revolvers.

 

[dwave]

I have found that in my Pietta 1851 Navy the conicals are more accurate hands down, but in my Pietta 1858 .44 both are about the same accuracy wise, but I would give the edge to the .457 RBs. I used Buffalo bullets in both revolvers.

 

[DaveP (UK)]

Well, looks as though I need to eat some humble pie! Where did I put that recipe?

Cant help wondering if the low quality of bullets produced by manufacturers moulds that you describe explains the view, that can still be encountered today, that round ball is more accurate. Especially if it was carelessly attributed to Elmer Keith.
I'll have to give some Buffalo bullets a try - but it won't prove much until I'm a better shot!

 

[mec]

You do get mixed results. Pedersoli, the maker of the replica moulds warn that they are mainly decorators and the bullets and balls are generally undersized. they are also somewhat out of round. A guy was nice enough to cast some bullets and balls for me from an original colt brass mould of the type you see in cased sets. these were for a 31 pocket revolver so I couldn't tell a whole lot about accuracy but They did come out at about the same quality as you get from a pedersoli replica.
Dixie makes and Iron scissor mould that the will cut for a numbr of different designs. there is no sprue plate so, you have to file away the stub on the base. These bullets are optimally sized and come out round and well filled. Very decent accuracy from them in the revolvers I've tried.

These were shot one=handed from 30 yards. the are .44" from the dixie scizzor mould

This is possible the first five shot group I fired from this Uberti dragoon. It was one handed using round ball

This is a bench group from the same distance using the commercial swaged, modern buffalo bullets. Pretty close to the off hand group with ball with some of the luck factored out by using a rest:

Same thing with bullets cast from Lee Mould. Not as accurate but still usable:

The balls will usually delver the best groups consistently but bullets can come very close or do as well at times. they can be a lot better than I thought before I really started experimenting with these things.

My biggest surprise came when I got a scissor mould for the old picket design used in the Walker colt. There is nothing about this bullet to make you believe it could be accurate. To make it work, I had to form a deep, sharp cone on the seating stem and slightly bevel the flat base to make the bullet seat straight and withou distortion.

 

[Chloe]

Duelist vs Bench for accuracy testing . .

When trying to determine the optimum accuracy for a bullet/load combo - what is the best position to use to get the tightest groups, and the best indication of how accurate the gun is - bench or duelist?

 

[pohill]

This could happen to you...
I tried shooting from a benchrest once - I rested the BP revolver on a sandbag and fired away. I noticed a little more smoke than usual - actually, alot more smoke...the sandbag caught on fire.

 

[Jim K]

Well, "back in the day" all ammunition sold by Colt and other companies was made with the conical ball. I don't think I have ever seen an old time cartridge loaded with a round ball, and am not even sure how it would be made. It is only relatively recently that round balls have come into general use. In the un-Civil War, cartridges were the norm; loading with a flask and round ball was almost unknown, as the regular armies didn't have loose powder or carry flasks. (Of course, the irregulars used anything they could get that would shoot.)

BTW, MEC, I don't know where those conicals in the last pic came from, but with no bearing surface, I am surprised they even stayed on the target.

Jim

 

[mec]

So long as you don't set anything on fire, bench shooting or shooting from any kind of brace is way better than standing one -handed. You can delve relative accuracy from shooting off-hand but it takes a lot more shooting.

What the one-handed shooting lets you do is get a feel for the useful ranges people might have gotten with these things back when they were in general use. If I can shoot a group like some of those "duelist " groups pictured above, I know the gun is capable of doing a lot better

 

[Plink]

Pohill, I've done that with my XP-100 pistol on .308. Not only does it set things on fire if you're not careful of what's near the muzzle, but it blows things apart too. Haven't done it with a black powder gun yet, but your experience is going to make me more watchful!

 

[mec]

original loads bullet/ball

Boxed sets from this period (1856) often have only the flask and a bullet mould. This one also has a box containing self consuming paper cartridges. The mould appears to be one of the colt variations without a sprue cutter. Like the dixie scissor moulds, these left quite a stub on the base of the bullet and ball. Later revolver cases generally have the same equipment and the box of cartridges. As displayed, many have compartments with mixed bullets and balls and sometimes the moulds are blue steal rather than brass.

 

[Snowdog]

MEC,

That was an impressive and informative posting! Excellent photos and thanks for the ballistics!

Seems the energies from the old cap and ball revolvers weren't anything to tease one over.

Kinda figured the old revolvers could do some damage when I found the "disruption" and penetration of a .454 Hornady RB over 35gr of FFFG from my steel-frame Pietta compared favorably to more modern rounds.

115gr +P Georgia Arms Gold Dot 9mm from a Glock 19 for comparison:

 

[mec]

I remember that picture but had forgotten the comparison pictures with the expanded JHPs. Your recovered ball looks just like the one's we've shot through water and beef brisket. The don't expand appreciably bu they really do present an effective meplate.
When these things were state of the art. the round balls were used more than bullets or paper cartridges.
the Picket bullet was the first conical a lot of the Mexican War soldiers ever saw. they loaded it pointed end first beliieving that the purpose of the point was to make the bullet load easier. The earlier Paterson was before bullets started coming into use. Early cased sets of Navies have flask and mould but are without the cartridge boxes that began to appear later. Sets of the revovlers made after 1860 genereally have the moulds for bullet and ball, a flask for loading loose components and often, a box of cartridges.

In the 1850's the bullets with rebated heals evolved from the picket. These were easier to load into the chambers and proviced a point of attachment for either foil or paper envelops. Early cartridges were metallic foil and needed to be opened with a nipple prick prior to capping. The above cartridges boxies were drilled wooden blocks with six individual compartments for the cartridges. The block was sawn in half so as to make a clam shell around the ctgs. the whole thing was rapped with the paper lable and was rigged with a rip string for fast opening.

The cartridges were made of nitrated paper dipped in wax. The were made in-mass by cottage industry and the major suppliers were Hazard (Colt), Johnson and Dow, Bartholows and Hotchkiss. The powder charges were usually much lighter than loosely loaded balls. It appears that they were mainly a military phenomena whith the majority of users prefering a round ball and flask loading.

 

[SeanSw]

I don't load my .44 1851 Navy over 28gr with pyrodex RS powder but those lead balls were doing quite a bit of damage to the junk I was shooting at. I also shot it better than my cz-52 at the same distance. If we walked back another 15 yards I might see different results but within standard pistol range I was impressed.

 

[Imaginos]

Berry's Preferred Plated Bullets

I have fired the Berry's .451 185gr plated hollow base RN bullets sold as reloading components for .45 ACP from my Ruger Old Army with good results.
The bullets were shared by my C-n-B shooting buddy who likes to use them in the Uberti Remington clone. The hardest part was getting them to load stright. The big round nose profile really helped in that regard.

I want to get some of the plated HPs to try, but the store where my buddy got the others doesn't carry them and Midway stopped carrying them last summer.

 

[DaveP (UK)]

I notice that no one has mentioned any difficulties in loading with conicals. I haven't tried them myself but I remember very clearly reading an article in some magazine which stated that one of the reasons for their disappointing accuracy was that it was extremely difficult to seat them squarely in the cylinder.
That article is part of the reason why I havent tried them...any truth in it?

 

[mec]

Loading a flat based conical is pretty hard. Most revolvers woudn't admit the berry bullets under the ram. rugers and remingtons are very forgiving in that area though. The bullets designed for the percussion revolvers have a rebated heal on them that allows them to enter the chamber. If the seating stem fits the nose closely, good accuracy is at least more likely. the Lees and Buffalo bullets have a nose profile like round ball which helps them seat straight (er) in most revolvers.
Original colt revolvers have a relative deep cone in the seating stem compared to replicas.
a couple of years back, the Warren (later, Ozark) bullet company was dry lubing and packaging .45acp wadcutter bullets and labling them for percussion revolvers. similar thing with a cast nominal .36 bullet. they wouldn't go under the loading lever in our revolvers until we used .41 caliber bullet sizing die to form a heal. Even then, they weren't a bit accurate. The bigiron Ramlok bullets slide into the chambers a close fit until they bring up against the belt at the front of the bullet. being hollow based, they slug out when fired and prove very accurate.

this is a one of a kind bullet from a mould cobbled up specifically for percussion revolvers. to look at it, you would think that it would be super accurate. But it was only indifferent accurate. Could have been because the Armeeeee San Barfo dragoon was the only dragoon we had at the time and it had a number of issues. It shot good with ball but it took a lot of work before it would even do that

 

[DaveP (UK)]

I think I'll have a quiet word with my man tomorrow and whistle up some buffalo ballets (I think they're called)!

The more detail you give me the less I feel like sniggering at the idea of bunch of soldiers loading picket bullets back to front. Seems like a reasonable answer to "what the .... are these?"
They are, after all, just wadcutters with an easy load feature, am I right?

 

[frosty]

conicals in cap and ball revolvers

I'm curious as to how berry's plated bullets work well over black powder...I would think there would be problems with fowling(no lubrication)