I recently bought a Uberti Walker from another member of this forum, and had a short shooting session with it a few days ago. I have to say, after 20 years of BP shooting, that was indeed a memorable experience! The boom it makes is just priceless.
I did not have the time that day to work up an accurate load for it, so I just wanted to experience the joy of shooting a Walker. As such, I will not yet comment on it's accuracy (although it seemed to be quite decent in a small sample size), but thought I would post some notes on my lessons learned.
My plan was to shoot 50gr Goex FFFg with a .454 RB and my homemade durofelt wads with lube. 50gr FFFg, just because I could!
I think this gun needs .457 RB. When I loaded the .454 and then retracted the loading lever, the ball came back up with it. So, I reseated the ball with a dowel and shot it out without loading more chambers. I tried loading a different chamber, to account for variation in chamber size, and the same thing happened. Again, think it needs .457.
I then abandoned the lubed felt wad thinking that the lube had slicked up the chamber wall allowing the ball to slip back out with the loading lever. I was right. Now the ball seated fine, with a minimal lead ring and didn't come back with the loading lever. Shot that one, and then loaded 5 chambers without a wad. It was awesome to shoot it!
The next issue that came up was cylinder binding.
After about 15 shots, the cylinder began to bind against the forcing cone. In retrospect, not surprising at all.
I'm sure there are 2-3 factors involved in this.
This gun has the tightest cylinder to forcing cone gap of any of my percussion revolvers. Without any lube (I didn't use lube over the ball in the cylinder), it fouled the gap quickly. The second factor is that 50gr is a lot of powder, and creates a lot of potential fouling. Hadn't really thought of that when I loaded it. Kind of like shooting a .45 cal ML rifle with a bare ball and no lube. Fouls quickly.
If you shoot an 1860 with 20gr FFFg without any lube, you will get more shots before it binds because you are using less powder (I think).
As fully expected, the loading lever fell down on recoil of most of the shots. No big deal. Doc Hoy is thankfully sending me one of his ingenious clips.
It was a great experience to shoot this gun, and all of the issues are easy to solve. The gun functioned as it was designed, and was a joy to shoot.
Lessons learned:
Use .457 RB
Make sure there is enough lube via a felt wad to keep it functioning.
Now, find the most accurate load which is likely less than 50gr.
Lastly, still shoot it sometimes with 50gr just because I can....
I did not have the time that day to work up an accurate load for it, so I just wanted to experience the joy of shooting a Walker. As such, I will not yet comment on it's accuracy (although it seemed to be quite decent in a small sample size), but thought I would post some notes on my lessons learned.
My plan was to shoot 50gr Goex FFFg with a .454 RB and my homemade durofelt wads with lube. 50gr FFFg, just because I could!
I think this gun needs .457 RB. When I loaded the .454 and then retracted the loading lever, the ball came back up with it. So, I reseated the ball with a dowel and shot it out without loading more chambers. I tried loading a different chamber, to account for variation in chamber size, and the same thing happened. Again, think it needs .457.
I then abandoned the lubed felt wad thinking that the lube had slicked up the chamber wall allowing the ball to slip back out with the loading lever. I was right. Now the ball seated fine, with a minimal lead ring and didn't come back with the loading lever. Shot that one, and then loaded 5 chambers without a wad. It was awesome to shoot it!
The next issue that came up was cylinder binding.
After about 15 shots, the cylinder began to bind against the forcing cone. In retrospect, not surprising at all.
I'm sure there are 2-3 factors involved in this.
This gun has the tightest cylinder to forcing cone gap of any of my percussion revolvers. Without any lube (I didn't use lube over the ball in the cylinder), it fouled the gap quickly. The second factor is that 50gr is a lot of powder, and creates a lot of potential fouling. Hadn't really thought of that when I loaded it. Kind of like shooting a .45 cal ML rifle with a bare ball and no lube. Fouls quickly.
If you shoot an 1860 with 20gr FFFg without any lube, you will get more shots before it binds because you are using less powder (I think).
As fully expected, the loading lever fell down on recoil of most of the shots. No big deal. Doc Hoy is thankfully sending me one of his ingenious clips.
It was a great experience to shoot this gun, and all of the issues are easy to solve. The gun functioned as it was designed, and was a joy to shoot.
Lessons learned:
Use .457 RB
Make sure there is enough lube via a felt wad to keep it functioning.
Now, find the most accurate load which is likely less than 50gr.
Lastly, still shoot it sometimes with 50gr just because I can....