Theseus
Member
I have a Navy Arms (Pietta) 1851 Navy in .36 cal. I've had it for about 20 years, but only used it a few times and am planning on getting back into blackpowder shooting more now.
From what I can see, the recommended charge for this is 20-25 gr of FFFg (black powder or Pyrodex, etc.). In the past, I shot it with 30 gr without a problem, but not much, and I'm happy to use the lower charge. But it appears that the the ball won't seat on the lower charge -- at least using the ram on the pistol -- and so it will leave a powder/ball gap.
So the common/recommended response to that is to use an over-powder wad to take up the slack. Fine, but ...
Surely in the "old days" (when these things were actually used), shooters didn't use wads The manual of arms makes no mention of a wad in loading the revolver. So what -- historically -- did people do? My guess is that they just loaded it with whatever charge they liked, seated the ball as far as they could, slapped some bear grease over the top of the ball (if they had the time and inclination to do this), and went on their way. I imagine that while reloading in the heat of battle, they did little more than dump charge, seat ball, and go for it.
So why the emphasis on the wads today? Yeah, I'm sure that the old boys got less than perfect ignition and burning of the charge. So there will be some variation in muzzle velocity between shots. But is that all that's at issue? And how much difference -- as a matter of practice -- does that make? We're not talking about bench rest accuracy for these guns.
From what I can see, the recommended charge for this is 20-25 gr of FFFg (black powder or Pyrodex, etc.). In the past, I shot it with 30 gr without a problem, but not much, and I'm happy to use the lower charge. But it appears that the the ball won't seat on the lower charge -- at least using the ram on the pistol -- and so it will leave a powder/ball gap.
So the common/recommended response to that is to use an over-powder wad to take up the slack. Fine, but ...
Surely in the "old days" (when these things were actually used), shooters didn't use wads The manual of arms makes no mention of a wad in loading the revolver. So what -- historically -- did people do? My guess is that they just loaded it with whatever charge they liked, seated the ball as far as they could, slapped some bear grease over the top of the ball (if they had the time and inclination to do this), and went on their way. I imagine that while reloading in the heat of battle, they did little more than dump charge, seat ball, and go for it.
So why the emphasis on the wads today? Yeah, I'm sure that the old boys got less than perfect ignition and burning of the charge. So there will be some variation in muzzle velocity between shots. But is that all that's at issue? And how much difference -- as a matter of practice -- does that make? We're not talking about bench rest accuracy for these guns.