Powder load for an euroarms 1858 44?

Hello everyone wanting your guys's opinion how many grains of pyrodex (It's all I have locally) should I start with in my 44 euro arms I'll have wonder wad and .454 ball. 25gr? 30?
I want to keep it as close to the cylinder faces possible for accuracy.

 

My normal load is 25 grains of Pyrodex in my .36. I would recommend loading one cylinder with 25 grains and the wonder wads and see how it preforms. I assume that you have not shot it yet. I recommend snapping at cap on an empty cylinder to remove any oil or grease that might be in the cylinder.

 

Nope it'll be here tomorrow but it'll get a thorough cleaning before I shoot it. Thanks for the info

 

30 grains is my preferred.44 load. 25 for a .36. Unless you're shooting off a rest and maybe not then having the ball close to the mouth won't make any difference.

 

I will be shooting off hands. I think I need the ball closet to the mouth for better accuracy . That is what I have watch and read. Am I correct?

 

Maybe you will see a tiny increase in accuracy if you shoot off a rest.

 

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on your gun. I shoot 30 grains of black in my .44s under a lubed felt wad and a round ball. I haven’t shot much of anything else since this is fun and accurate enough for me. Watch some Old Ranger videos on YouTube for perspective; he loads off the gun, with powder and ball and lubes over the top, and often there is quite a bit of space left. He regularly shoots 1”-2” groups at 21 yards.

 

Try 15 grains, with Cream of Wheat filler on top.

 

My Remington 44s get 35 grains and a lubed wad under a ball.

 

all my 44's also use 35 grains 3f whether it be Regular Goex or Old Eyensford

 

Something I ran across recently that seemed a bit peculiar so I tried it and it works. Point the pistol barrel up, lower the loading lever till it stops on an empty chamber, this is your powder charge with a wad seated on top. Once the powder and wad are loaded with light compression, put a small amount of lube on top of the wad. Seat the ball slowly untill it touches the wad. The idea is consistency in the loading so each chamber is loaded the same as the other. I tried this method with a Pietta 1860 Navy that I couldn't hit the side of a truck with half the time. This loading method brought it in to minute of beer can at 20 yards. This pistol would throw a flyer high and to the left about every 2 nd shot, that stopped. Supposedly this is a loading method being used by guys who are winning matches on a regular basis.Give it a try, I'm convinced it works.

 

I have a Euroarms 1858. I'll shoot 25 to 30 grains, wad, and .454 ball. Powder charge depends on my mood. Either works fine on targets. Naturally, if I was using it for hunting anything bigger than a rabbit or for defense I'd use a max load of about 35 grains.

 

Howdy

I bought my EuroArms 1858 Remington in 1975. Before installing a cartridge conversion cylinder I used to regularly load it with 40 grains of Goex FFg Black Powder.

Pyrodex does not weigh the same as real Black Powder, but if you use one of these powder measures, set it to 40 and you will get an equivalent amount of powder.






I used to use Crisco over the ball in those days, Wonder Wads had not been invented yet. Figure a little bit less powder to allow for the Wonder Wad.

I seem to recall using .451 diameter balls in my old Remmie, but I could be wrong about that, it was a long time ago. Worst case,.454 balls will just require a little bit more force to seat.

Be sure to use balls that are pure lead, no tin or antimony.

 

If you are just trying to keep the ball close to the end of the cylinder go with 15 [ or 20grs as I did for years of competitive shooting ] and a filler such as corn meal or cream of wheat. Back in the 70s everyone just put some lube over the ball. The 20gr charge was pretty common for 25 yard targets and 25grs for 50 yard targets. That wat I didn't have to change my sight picture and why use more powder than necessary for paper punching ? I personally liked corn meal more because it seemed to compress easier in case too much was put in. A 451 was used for years. The 454 didn't seem anymore accurate, just harder to load and if you're working that loading lever 10 to 12 times every 45 minutes all day long you'll know what I mean.