Remington 1858 shot

[George Mabry]

I just bought my first 1858 Remington (Pietta) and was wondering about the size shot to use. The Pietta booklet calls for a .454. I've already got molds for .457 to use in my ROA so I'm going to give those a try but I wondered what is the most common size shot you Remington shooters use in the '58.

George

 

[dlon21]

I tried out an original ´58 I've had laying around for about three years, for the first time a couple days ago. I used a .457 ball and they didn't shave a ring, felt a bit too small. But replicas are tighter I guess?

 

[MCgunner]

I've loaded .457 from my ROA mold (Lee) in my .454 Navy. I have a mold in .454, though. It just shaves a little more off the bullet to load the larger one. It shoots fine, a little harder to ram. Soft lead helps.

I have a 58 remmy coming and can't wait! I'm becoming a black powder junky, I guess.

 

[Acorn Mush]

I use a .457 in mine. Works just fine.

 

[Busyhands94]

i took mine shooting today and had a great time. i used .454 balls and .450 conical bullets! the .454s shaved a little bit of lead and shot great!

 

[junkman_01]

.451 RB is the MOST common round ball size.

 

[arcticap]

I use .451's in my Pietta 1858 and it shaves a very thin ring.

 

[tango2echo]

.451's don't shave a full ring at all in any of mine. .454's make a nice thin ring and shoot great. .457's shave a heavy ring and do not shoot quite as well as the .454's.

 

[1858remington]

I'd stick with the .454. the larger ball will work but your also applying extra pressure to the loader when you seat the larger ball. No need to put undo stress on the ram rod.

I use .454 speer or Hornady round balls over 25grs 3F, or a 30gr pyrodex pellet and top off the chamber with Thompson Center Bore Butter. I get excellent groupings, and the bore butter keeps the fouling soft.

 

[Zombiphobia]

I use .454 in both my 1858 Remmington replica and my 1851 Navy .44 replica and they shoot great in both.

 

[arcticap]

While it's a more desireable sign to have a thin ring of lead shaved off of the ball when it's rammed, it's not absolutely necessary that it occurs either.
The chambers of some guns have chamfered chamber mouths which swage or force the ball into the smaller chamber without producing any lead ring. Yet the ball still effectively seals the chamber. Some Pietta Remington chambers have been measured to be .446 in diameter.

What I had to do with my Pietta Remington New Model Army was ream the chambers to accomodate the grove diameter of my barrel.

Originally the Barrel on my revolver was .4495 but the chambers were all .4460 - .4465.

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=566244&highlight=diameter

 

[George Mabry]

Thanks to everyone for the input. I can see that I'll have to give .454s a try. I'm hoping to go to the range tomorrow and try it out. I've got .457s on hand and if they have .454s at the range I'll pick up a box and compare their groupings.

Also my thanks to whoever the poster was that told of making his own nipple wrench by cutting a slot in a socket wrench. When I got home with the gun, I tried to clean it up and found that out of the half dozen nipple wrenches I have, none fit the Remington. I remembered that post and in 5 minutes I had a working wrench.

George

 

[Jaymo]

I use .454 in mine, because that's what I had on hand.
I have a .454 RB mold from RCBS, because I bought it locally for 29 bux.
I also have the Lee Conical mold for the ROA. Looks like I'll finally have an ROA do use with the conicals.

 

[AJumbo]

457s will probably function just fine, but since they're tougher to ram into the chambers, the rammer might deform the ball more than it would a 451 or 454, so accuracy might suffer a bit. I keep 454s on hand because they seem to give good results in my '58 and my Old Army, at least for plinking purposes.

 

[Cult of 1858]

+1 on the 454. I use my Remmie's quite a lot, and when loading with ball, .454 is all I go with. It gives me a tiny little sliver of lead and seats nice and firmly with no slippage on recoil.