I have a Hopkins & Allen XL no. 8 in 44-40. There is a thread on this particular revolver here:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/hopkins-allen-xl-no-8-army.880718/
The revolver is a black powder cartridge gun and I want to order the correct Big Lube bullets for loading so I slugged the bore and cylinder throats with the following results:
Throats 0.425"
Bore 0.439"
The options are for 0.427" through 0.429". With 0.425" throats it doesn't make sense to order anything larger than the 0.427" as anything over that will just get swaged down to the 0.425". Is that correct?
Does anyone see a possible blow by issue with those numbers? Or will a dead soft bullet obturate to fill the grooves?
I know @Driftwood Johnson shoots these older black powder cartridges a lot. So maybe he has an opinion. I have been shooting 0.428" bullet but they are not the big lube bullets that I want to shoot. Accuracy is still somewhat of an unknown even after shooting the 0.428's. The front sight is so mismatched to the load my hold point is very different from the point of impact. So I don't have a lot of feedback from the shooting I have done so far.
As I develop a load for this revolver I may well have to devise an alternate front sight that is much taller than what is currently on the gun. It 25 yards it shoots way high with a full case og 3FG black. As in off the target at 25 yards. Not sure if someone filed the front sight or not, but what I have been shooting should be close to the original black powder load.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/hopkins-allen-xl-no-8-army.880718/
The revolver is a black powder cartridge gun and I want to order the correct Big Lube bullets for loading so I slugged the bore and cylinder throats with the following results:
Throats 0.425"
Bore 0.439"
The options are for 0.427" through 0.429". With 0.425" throats it doesn't make sense to order anything larger than the 0.427" as anything over that will just get swaged down to the 0.425". Is that correct?
Does anyone see a possible blow by issue with those numbers? Or will a dead soft bullet obturate to fill the grooves?
I know @Driftwood Johnson shoots these older black powder cartridges a lot. So maybe he has an opinion. I have been shooting 0.428" bullet but they are not the big lube bullets that I want to shoot. Accuracy is still somewhat of an unknown even after shooting the 0.428's. The front sight is so mismatched to the load my hold point is very different from the point of impact. So I don't have a lot of feedback from the shooting I have done so far.
As I develop a load for this revolver I may well have to devise an alternate front sight that is much taller than what is currently on the gun. It 25 yards it shoots way high with a full case og 3FG black. As in off the target at 25 yards. Not sure if someone filed the front sight or not, but what I have been shooting should be close to the original black powder load.