My woods gun... 1858 .36 Pietta & VKV 140 gr mold.

[perldog007]

Back when I started doing armed security work, I lived where I could roam any number of wooded properties and target shoot / attempt / harvest small game with my .38 service revolver(s). Got to like the .38 special 158 gr RNL with a 4" bbl as a handy woods gun.
Years later there were times when I had a .44 or .357 mag and a shot presented that made me long for my service revolver. Love my BP .44s and even have a Howell cylinder for my 1858. All was right with the world until I found out about Kaido's 140 grain VKV slug. Similar to a Keith design with some subtle improvements.
Turns out I got one of the last two cavity molds extant, and my 1851 became much more versatile. The thought of more powder and easy to swap cylinders got me to wanting a Pietta 1858 6.5" bbl .36.
A field trip to Taylors and Company in Winchester VA yeilded this specimen right off the truck and a spare cylinder. I may add a conversion cylinder when they get some more in stock.
I decided that the frame notch sight and extra powder capacity would be worth the stretch and added this plain steel smooth grip 6.5" bbl .36 to my Pietta collection, we are now five
Picked up a spare cylinder so we can go afield with round ball and the excellent 140 grain VKV slugs.

20200614_083834

• perldog007
• Jun 14, 2020

1858 Pietta Belt Pistol in .36 caliber 6.5" bbl

 

[Steel Hayes]

Solid choice, I carry a pair of Pietta NMN when walking the dogs in the back 40.

 

[TheOutlawKid]

I have the same two cavity mold and i love that bullet. Its very accurate and gives the .36 cal a huge improvement on power and performance. Ive actually moved to shooting only kaidos conical and my custom conicals in my .36 navies...i dont even mess with roundballs anymore

 

[Pete D.]

How about a picture of the VKV slug?

 

[TheOutlawKid]

Heres a couple next to some custom .36 i designed...its just a tapered REAL style bullet. The kaido conical is on the left.

 

[Pete D.]

Thanks. I have a Pietta .36 that is why I asked.

 

[TheOutlawKid]

Mr. Pete D, i love the .36 navy cal...its very underrated. I also made soms custom bullets that really make the .36 a hard hitter and very accurate. Check it out if you got time
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...tridge-works-and-remington-36-conical.865212/

 

[bannockburn]

perldog007

Love my Pietta NMN and I also have a Howell .38 Special conversion cylinder to go with it. Can readily see the woods gun set-up with this handy revolver.


Added another Pietta this past Christmas and this time it was an engraved Pietta NMA along with a .45 Colt conversion cylinder for it as well.

 

[rodwha]

I’d love to hear some real world hunting use from these. I’m curious how well it performs and penetrates. With the right powder it should be able to achieve .38 Spl +P performance from what I’ve seen.

 

[TheOutlawKid]

Ive had some folks tell me they have killed deer with the bullet. Personally i havent...but with an energetic powder i could definately see it doing the job. It weighs as much as a .44 round ball, kaido conicals weigh in at 140 grains...i use pure lead and it weighs in at 143 grains.

 

[rodwha]

I know poconoshooting.com shows a .36 cal loaded with 32 grns of Pyrodex P under a 130 grn bullet is said to produce 976 FPS and 275 ft/lbs of energy, or about on par with a .38 Spl +P. I must point out that 32 grns seems like a tremendous amount of powder under a bullet. My understanding is something like 30 grns with a wad and ball is a full charge. I created a custom bullet that’s the length of a ball but weighs 189 grns. That’s a good amount of lead in the same amount of space. Regardless he is as able to load it and shoot it so it fit (could be a measure that reads high).

So let’s give an energetic load for this 140 grn bullet producing 925 FPS and 266 ft/lbs. I know these have a large meplat so I chose .280” as it’s large for a .357 and small for a .41 cal bullet. According to BearTooth that meplat at 900 FPS creates a roughly .630” permanent hole. Down to 600 FPS and it’s making a .420” hole. What we typically see in gel from a handgun is a ball producing close to projectile diameter holes so this .37 cal bullet would create a larger wound until the speed really dropped vs a .44 cal ball. As it’s mass is condensed into a small diameter it should penetrate better and we typically see low to mid 20” penetration in gel with a ball.

So I think it likely better than a .44 cal ball, but I don’t use ball either. In fact I’m really contemplating a final modified version of my bullet to fill in the excess space. A .375” meplat creates an ever bigger permanent hole! I do like the .36 caliber, but I’d likely have it in the smaller Colt Police size as it’s about on par with a low end .380 ACP with the right powder and bullet, but to my thinking would be nice with that 6.5” barrel and a ball for small game.

Anyone able to chronograph their load?

 

[TheOutlawKid]

I wish i had a chrono but i dont...although if u want to see the damage Murphys Muskets/The Natural Man did a video where he uses the .36 kaido conical at 140 grains using 25 grains of regular goex powder and shoots it into gel and bone that's inbedded in the gel. And the results are FREAKIN AMAZING. Just imagine had he ussd an energetic powder such as Olde Eynseford . Swiss, or 777...it would have given that load even more performance. Check this video out...