Range Report Walker at 100 meters

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Afy

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Well one way to look at it is that it does reach 100 meters easily with 60-70 grains of Swiss FFFG.

The load was powder, lube pill, .457 Hornady ball.

Wierdly enough the sights are not spot on...

It shoots high at 25 meters by about 6 inches, and at 100 meters it is high by about 1.5 feet.

I even shot it using a bench rest with simmillar effects. In all I fired 24 shots,
of which I witnessed two shots hitting the ricochette berm at 50 meters. Which is about 6 feet above the Line of Aim. I attributed that to my lousy shooting...

Common sense would state that the ball should actually drop significantly at that range, since the velocities are not that high to begin with. I am completely confused now...
 
walker

Clean your Walker and lay it aside....Find some real, authenic books on the Sharps. Real historical books; not junk. Find a quiet place and study those books. Really study then. Read between the lines. Rifling, powder charges, balls, trajectories, ranges, etc. Study it all. Get your Walker back out. Lay it on the table in front of you. In your mind, take everything you know about that Walker and everything you learned about those big Sharps .45-70 buffalo rifles, and in your mind, you put all of that in a jug, and shake it up all together real good, and then dump all of it out onto the table. It will come to you, and as the light bulb in your head start's to glow, it will also start to come to you what a smart man Mr. Colt really was...
 
Why dont you guide me along in the right direction.
Since not being in the US of A good material is difficult and very expensive to come by...
 
My Uberti Walker is right now at about 15 yards and I remember having no real problems hitting a post at 100 yrds with it using a rest. I don't honestly remember doing much for the "Kentucky windage". I think I just sighted the rear sight at the base of the front.


walker_target1.jpg

I wrote my field notes on the target. 50 grns put two cylinders just below the point of aim and 60 grns was about an 1" high. I think 55 grns would have been right on target.
 
I'm having trouble interpreting what he's saying, too.

Maybe Glen Walker is telling you to buy a Sharps?

My own 1874 Sharps Business Rifle in .45-70 is somewhat boring at 100 meters/yards. I'd love to try a Walker at that range.
 
I'd like to try my 1860 at that range, as well as my .36 1862 and my .31 Wells Fargo.

Yes, I enjoy crazy stuff. Busting balloons at 100 yards with a snub-nose or a black powder gun for me is fun stuff. (Who says Bob Munden can have all the fun?)

The Doc is out now. :cool:
 
I have they idea that the Walker is more than capable to shoot 100 meter, especially with the powerfull Swiss behind the bullet.

Please think with me and correct me when I go wrong...
If you would shoot your gun at 1 meter from the target I bet it would not hit the target real high.
At 25 meters it already hits 6 inch high and even 1 1/2 feet (about 18 inch) high at 100 meter.
My guess is that the rainbow trajectory of the bullet is to blaim... more specificly, the man at Urberti that is responsible for the front sight. Since it is too low the gun shoots way too high and when the distances increases it shoots ever higher.
Until the bullet comes down again obviously.
May it will shoot POA at 200 meters...?

My Walker shoots high as well and am wondering how to increase the hight of the front sight since I think that is where the solution to be found.

Was not the story, I believe as told by Mec(?), that a Walker was designed shoot hit a man in the middle of his chest when aiming at his belt buckle at a 100 yards? Isn't that about a foot, or 1 1/2 foot?
In that case you're shooting was not bad at all Afy!
 
wasn't me though I've heard that said about percussion revolvers in general. My walker tend to hit a few inches high with ball loads and right on a 30 yards with picket bullets.

This post: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=254841


Shooting it at 100 yards would only depress me. 50 is ok though:
attachment.php

Had to shoot this one at 30 yards instead of 25. It just wasn't fair with the 18" canon reaching so close to the target.
attachment.php
 
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Alfy

I was out of town the last couple of days, and didn't see your post. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound all weird and secretive. It wasn't meant like that at all....I am putting together some of what I call 'load data'. (probably not the right term) I will post it for you (and any who may be interested) as soon as I get it in order. I don't shoot the Walker much, Alfy. But I own one. When I first got it, I just wiped it and held it and so forth. I went to an old man I knew, who had probably 5 or 6 of them. (He's dead; would be way over a hundred years old by now) I think one of those things may have been one (or close to being one) of the original 1100 or so. He never said for sure, (he probably didn't care. he wasn't into all of that collecting and stuff) and I never actually seen it, and I was too polite to pry. Anyway, I carried over some 'Old Crow' bourbon, (that's what he liked) and we sat at his old kitchen table and he took my gun apart and tried to explain things to me. Anyway, I have a notebook full of stuff about the charges and the balls, and what have you. We shot some. I wrote down all the ranges and so forth, and lot's of the things he told me. I haven't even seen that notebook for years, but I have it put away here. One thing I remember for sure. If you consider the wind, and the drop, and apply some Kentucky windage, 200 yards ain't no big step for a Walker. You're firing at what? Ninety to 100 yards?...Got any 2x4's you need shortened up, and you ain't got no saw?..I'm glad I own one. I'vd got mine coated down pretty well inside and out with Cabela's Muzzle Loading Lube, and put away. That's where it's going to stay to, because I'm getting to be and old man myself now, and that thing (with a full charge) is just simply too much gun for me to want to deal with. I promise I will post that stuff. No, I'm not telling you to buy a Sharps, Alfy, but I will go ahead and say this...If you can't do it with a Walker loaded all the way around, then you probably can't do it anyway...God Bless..Glen..
 
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If you happen to have the opportunity to handle a like-new original Colt cap & ball revolver (usually only found is a cased set) and cock it, you may notice that at full-cock that hammer is all the way back against the backstrap. It was fitted that way for a number of reasons, but for this discussion we’ll limit it to the rear sight.

The rear sight is usually a small “V” notch in the hammer nose. Since the hammer pivots on a screw and moves in a radius, the hammer nose (and sight) can be a little bit higher or lower depending on how much distance there is between the backstrap and hammer when the hammer is at full-cock. While this is a small difference, the effect is multiplied as the shooting distance is increased. Many replica gunmakers to not pay attention to this small but important detail.

Some Dragoon revolvers were set up to be used with shoulder stocks, and these often had a rear sight dovetailed into the back end of the barrel. These were intended to be used as carbines, and shot, at longer ranges. Obviously, unlike the sight on the hammer nose, the sight wouldn’t move.

The service manual of the 1870’s – 80’s covering the Colt model 1873 revolver had trajectory tables going out to 1000 yards!! No, that isn’t a typo. The Walker could easily duplicate the ballistic performance of the black powder .45 Colt cartridge. The Army usually used a Frankfort Arsenal load designed to be used in both Colt and Smith & Wesson revolvers that only contained 28 grains of black powder behind a 230/235-grain bullet.

What Afy's experiment showed was that with a full charge of modern black powder the trajectory of his ball was still going up or had leveled off at 100 yards. Somehow this doesn’t come as a surprise to the Old Fuff.

I have in my collection an account of a shooting that occurred in West Texas shortly after the Civil War. The location was an isolated stagecoach station, and the manager was alone when a stranger showed up. Seeing an opportunity to commit a robbery, the stranger shot the manager in the back. Although mortally wounded, the manager managed to get his 1860 Army pistol. By this time the shooter had lost his nerve, and was fleeing. As his victim came out the front door he braced himself up against an awning post and fired one shot before he expired. That shot hit and killed his assailant at a later measured 100 yards.
 
Correction

I made a couple of bad mistakes on a couple of my previous posts. (I was reading them over) I said Pietta Cattleman. I meant to say Uberti.....I also bad mouthed Dixie Gun Works, and talked wonderfully about Midway. It was supposed to be the other way around. I had some real bad luck with Midway. (maybe no one else ever has) I like DGW. I have bought holsters, extra clyinders and stuff from Dixie, and have had no problems. Anyway, I was deep into that bottle of Wild Turkey while I was typing. Glen..
 
Attention, all ye who wander across this

I think I have got down to the cardboard box that contain's the stuff about us shooting the Walker. I'll find out for sure tonight. That's not what's important. Here's what is important. I had mentioned in one of my posts that I had a Remington (Pietta) 1858 New Model Army stainless that I had never fired. Well, I shot it this morning just after daylight. I got me a wild hog. There were several of them under some trees, and I picked out a sort of small one. It took two shots. It was misty and gloomy up under those cypress trees so I put my first round in his chest at maybe twenty to twenty two yards. It knocked him little self completely down and back about two feet! He wasn't THAT little. He just wasn't as big as the rest of them. He was hurt bad and no doubt on his way out of this world, so I put one through his head and finished up the business. Hey, I'm not lying! I have a hind quarter in the oven now, seasoned up with some salt, garlic, and some onion. I was using a .451 ball and exactly 31 grains of Triple 3f. That's a real hot load for a '58, but it shot it good. (I knew it would) I'm not sure, but I think I might have hit just a little bit high. I couldn't tell if it moved a little to the right or left. If it did, AND if it shot high, it might have been me. I always set the tip of the front sight at 6:00 on the target....One thing for you beginners here from this old man. Remember this..With a handgun, forget about the rear sight. Whatever the tip of that front sight is resting on, all things being equal, that's where the ball is going to hit. If you don't believe it, then go and try it. You'll see. Straight out in front, sideways, upside down, whatever; it dosen't matter. Well, thank ya'll for letting me brag a little! I'vd got to close now and see if I can find that notebook for that young man shooting 60 grains of powder in that big .44 Magnum (.45 actually) they call a Walker, and then wonders why it bucks and jumps over the target at 100 yards. (Yes indeed it's a .45. What do you think a .457 is?) If anyone want's to congradulate me over my young pig, I wouldn't get upset. May God Bless.. When I shot my Walker (Iwas younger then) at out to about 60 yards, I set my sight at 6:00 on the target and then dropped 3 to 4 inches below 6:00, using 45 grains of powder. The buck and jump would almost always lay the ball in the center of the 'bullseye', so to speak. I added this onto this post because I just happened to remember it. As a matter of fact the pet name I had for my Walker was (is) 'my .44-45' ....Glen
 
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Boy! Wild pig jerky is good! Hint, Hint, Hint...LOL
Congratulations on the pig shoot.
I'm going to try RK's Pietta '58 Remy (He has already taken deer, pigs and small game, not to mention Rattlers with this pistol and the '51 Navy) on pigs next spring. He told me how to load and how to hold it...would you believe the same way you do! I hold the same way on all my pistolas, I like to hold the rear sight even with the front sight, with the front centered in the notch.

Again Good piggy Shooting!

The Guns I got from RK (Remington Kid).
Pietta 1851 Navy and the homemade holster that came with it.
Pietta "58 Remy w/ extra cylinder.
RKsRemyand51Navy-2.jpg
 
Congratulations on the pig. I live down in the Ozarkd behind Fort Leonard Wood and the invite the public to hunt feral hogs. I think I'll give it a try, They have became a major nuicance there.
 
Glen,

Congratulations on piggy, and I will try your advice on concentrating on foresight only....
 
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