Hi Checkman,
I second the mention by Old Fuff to limit your Ammunition to Bkack Powder Loadings for this Revolver.
Learn about making correct Organic Plant and Insect Based Wax Lube Wafers, for placing between Powder and Bullet, and, you will have no fouling to be worth mentioning, and, clean up will be a snap.
While vastly kinder to the Gun, and, of course needing a little warm Soap and Water clean up after, the 158 Grain plain Lead Bullet of the old standard Loading, will if anything, be just as fast or faster for FPS, than the same weight Bullet of any standard Loading off the shelf .38 special Ammunition now.
It is no slouch.
A standard Loading Black Powder Cartridge for your S & W Model of 1899, will feel more like a +P when fired, and, will have more and deeper of a report, and, what seems l like more recoil than a +P.
A good Black Powder, and, you will likely be well into the 700s of FPS with the 158 Grain Bullet with your Barrel Length....maybe even high 700s.
If you had the long Barrel version of the S & W M 1899, in theory, you would be around 950 FPS.
Pearl, as with Ivory also, is a material which somehow permits the Hand to grip with more friction, than Walnut or other Woods tend to do.
It makes sense to me from a sheer practical point of view, that people to whom this mattered, would have elected Pearl or Ivory Stocks for their Carry Revolvers.
Others of course, prefer or preferred these materials, for their look.
It is also interesting to me, that Mother of Pearl, as with all Sea Shells, is basically Calcium Carbonate.
Our own Bones and Teeth of course, as with Ivory, are also Molecular combinations of Calcium, Magnesium, Boron, Phosphorous, Carbon etc.
Calcium and all these others, are Metals, ( though of course Carbon is not ) and, this may be verified by an appeal to the Periodic Table of elements, if one doubts it.
Our own endoskeletens, and, the exoskeletens of Mullosks etc, are essentially elemental Metals arranged in Molecular composition with Carbon and other Elements, though we normally would never think of them in that way.
So, in a manner of thinking, or speaking, a Revolver having Ivory or Mother of Pearl Stocks, is in effect, all Metal, or, all Alloys of Metal, even if some of that Alloy occurred Organically.
Lol...
