Howdy folks. I took my 1860 out yesterday to test out some paper cartridges I'd made up, and I have to say that I was incredibly disappointed. I'm here to see if my experience is very typical, if I might perhaps be doing something wrong, or if there's anything I can do to improve things.
A while back, I ordered some .36 Colt and .44 Johnston and Dow conicals from Gimcrack and Bunkum (great shop by the way, and absolutely a quality product). I've already tested the .36 Colt in my Navy, and I was very impressed; they seated easily, and I found them to be extremely accurate.
My experience with the .44s was entirely the opposite. I found it very difficult to even get the heel of the bullet into the cylinder to allow them to be seated, as the bullets are just much wider than the space I have to work with. Even upon getting them under the ram, it took what seemed to me an excessive amount of force to get them to seat, to the point where the loading lever scraped up my hand. Even then, I found that most of them would not seat deeply enough to quite clear the end of the cylinder, resulting in the tips of the bullets being shaved off as I cycled the action. They are seated over 25 grains of FFF, which I understand to be the typical load for this cartridge; seems like that should be a small enough charge to allow it to seat all the way down.
I also found them to be very inaccurate. Only 5 out of 18 shots ended up on paper at seven yards. Now, I'm not the best shot, but when shooting roundballs out of this gun, I don't have much issue at least getting most if not all shots on paper. Interestingly, they seemed to be shooting very low (a few even by a foot or better), which is strange because like most '60s mine tends to shoot high with roundballs. The bore was pretty fouled up by the end, so perhaps I didn't give the bullets quite enough lube when I rolled them up, although interestingly the last group was the best, with 3 of 6 shots landing on paper.
It just seems like I must be doing something wrong here, as I know this is a very popular cartridge among BP shooters. My thoughts on next steps would be to try a lesser charge and put the lube over the loaded bullet instead of directly on the bullet. Thanks in advance for whatever tips you guys might be able to share!
A while back, I ordered some .36 Colt and .44 Johnston and Dow conicals from Gimcrack and Bunkum (great shop by the way, and absolutely a quality product). I've already tested the .36 Colt in my Navy, and I was very impressed; they seated easily, and I found them to be extremely accurate.
My experience with the .44s was entirely the opposite. I found it very difficult to even get the heel of the bullet into the cylinder to allow them to be seated, as the bullets are just much wider than the space I have to work with. Even upon getting them under the ram, it took what seemed to me an excessive amount of force to get them to seat, to the point where the loading lever scraped up my hand. Even then, I found that most of them would not seat deeply enough to quite clear the end of the cylinder, resulting in the tips of the bullets being shaved off as I cycled the action. They are seated over 25 grains of FFF, which I understand to be the typical load for this cartridge; seems like that should be a small enough charge to allow it to seat all the way down.
I also found them to be very inaccurate. Only 5 out of 18 shots ended up on paper at seven yards. Now, I'm not the best shot, but when shooting roundballs out of this gun, I don't have much issue at least getting most if not all shots on paper. Interestingly, they seemed to be shooting very low (a few even by a foot or better), which is strange because like most '60s mine tends to shoot high with roundballs. The bore was pretty fouled up by the end, so perhaps I didn't give the bullets quite enough lube when I rolled them up, although interestingly the last group was the best, with 3 of 6 shots landing on paper.
It just seems like I must be doing something wrong here, as I know this is a very popular cartridge among BP shooters. My thoughts on next steps would be to try a lesser charge and put the lube over the loaded bullet instead of directly on the bullet. Thanks in advance for whatever tips you guys might be able to share!