.44 black powder for defense?

Well, they're pretty effective manstoppers, always have been. Unless forced by necessity however, I would never opt for my cap and ball over any of my modern guns for self or home defense.

That being said I will relate 2 local self defense shootings I have some knowledge of. In the first, the aggressor was quite legitimately shot through the torso with a 1860 Army, black, and a round ball at about 10 feet. Passed all the way through and the guy was talking all the way to the ER. In the second case, the one brother claimed self defense, the jury thought otherwise. He is out now and on parole. The offender shot his drunk belligerant brother through the sternum with a .44 Remington, black, and a roundball at about 3 feet. Dropped him like a sack of potatoes. The shooter drug his brother's body under a bush so he would be in the shade, took his girlfriend out on the town and to a fancy hotel for the night and turned himself in the next AM at the PD.

Families are tight here in the Ozarks. You just don't leave your kin out in the sun. That wouldn't do at all. Folks would talk and such.
 
In the first, the aggressor was quite legitimately shot through the torso with a 1860 Army, black, and a round ball at about 10 feet. Passed all the way through and the guy was talking all the way to the ER.

He was talking, but was he walking?
Did he live?
 
Simon Kenton, LOVE the name, great choice. I would bet you are an Allan Eckert fan.

Yes he lived and recovered OK. He was walking a little bit but he was kind of squinched up and moving away from the loud thing that hurt him.
 
Buffalo bullet company

I got a couple of boxes of .44 caliber/.451 diameter/ 137 grain swaged lead pistol balls and was wondering if anyone has any use for them?

Thanks,
Ken
 
Old Wild BIll wrote that he considered the round ball a much better man stopper than a pointed bullet, and he had some small experiance in the matter. Brings question to mind: how long can you leave a BP revolver loaded? As in sitting loaded and not attended too, BP being corrosive and all or only when fired with the by products being the problem? BP is also hydroscopic (draws water out of the air somewhat) so in a gun chamber capped by lead and a wad at one end and a fire cap at the other seems like it might sit for a while and still work. Maybe cover both ends with grease?
Just wondering
 
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I have kept this beauty loaded for 3 years. This is in the humid NC mountains and I don't use much ac, I draw the humid air through the house all night long in the summer using fans.
I kept the gun in a drawer, and after 3 years it fired fine, all 5 cylinders.
fffg Goex black powder, .457 round balls, CCI caps.
No wax or grease over the cap or ball, no felt wad.
I have an 1860 Colt Army that I have kept loaded for 2 years, same load, fired fine all five cylinders.
No corrosion was caused to the cylinders.
 
I've seen it recommended that one can (very carefully, I might add) drip candle wax around the caps to waterproof them, as well as around the seated balls.

Not sure how comfortable I'd be with the concept of using a burning candle in immediate proximity to a loaded black powder firearm - just sayin', that's what I've read.
 
There was a guy on one of these forums who sealed the caps and balls with beeswax.
He got a little piece of beeswax and rolled it back and forth between his thumb and finger until it softened up and made a long little "roll."
Then he took this roll of beeswax and carefully put it on top of the ball, and packed it in where it sealed between the lead and the cylinder wall.
Then, he made little bitty "rolls" and sealed the caps.

This guy put the cylinder underwater for 30 minutes and the gun still fired, all 5 cylinders!
I would try the beeswax trick, it certainly couldn't hurt anything, but I am getting such good results with no sealant at all that I just haven't messed with it.

Also I don't take these revolvers out in the woods, they just stay in the drawer.
 
I've seen it recommended that one can (very carefully, I might add) drip candle wax around the caps to waterproof them, as well as around the seated balls.

Not sure how comfortable I'd be with the concept of using a burning candle in immediate proximity to a loaded black powder firearm - just sayin', that's what I've read.
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With a large round candle, you can blow it out and the pool of wax will remain liquid for a while, so you wouldn't need to deal with an open flame. There are also ways to melt wax, that do not involve an open flame at all.
 
For denense?

Enjoy your BP pistols and Uberti Army pistols, just as I do. They are a hell of a lot of fun and shoot straight as can be. But for DEFENSE, buy a Glock.
 
Enjoy your BP pistols and Uberti Army pistols, just as I do. They are a hell of a lot of fun and shoot straight as can be. But for DEFENSE, buy a Glock.
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I thought tupperware was for leftovers in the refrigerator? :p
Self-loading pistols are just a fad of the times, and that Borchardt feller was just the initiator of the fad.

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Did I mention that the self-contained metallic cartridge is also a fad? ;)
 
[QUOTES] self-loading pistols are just a fad of the times, and that Borchardt feller was just the initiator of the fad.

Did I mention that the self-contained metallic cartridge is also a fad?
[/QUOTE]

+1
 
Whoah, this thread has just entered the event horizon of a parallel-universe conduit somewhere in Delta Quadrant.

"Engineer! Fire up the pulse plasma thrusters to full yield! Get the ship out of this zone, now!"

Anyways, back on topic here. I rely on my two Pietta 1858's for defense anywhere. I trust them even more than I trust the new things that use nitro. I think that both Elmer Keith and Montana legend Ed McGivern used BP guns to achieve their world records in aerial target shooting. Mr. Keith adopted a .44 Magnum only much later on. All of his previous competitions were done with a .36 cap and ball. That was in the 1920s and 30s I believe.
 
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