Defensive Cap and Ball

Interesting to me was the one he had loaded for 3yrs and all 6 went BANG without a hitch! Ive kept em loaded for 6mos to test it one time and had the same result.... That being said, I still wouldnt make it standard practice.
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It's well documented that Hickock would fire empty his revolvers, clean them, and reload them at the beginning of the day, then go about his day's business. But that was a personal thing with him.

The other end of the range, I have some personal experience with. A fellow had a cap & ball revolver in a display case. Family heirloom, had been in that case for at LEAST 80 years. And, apparently it was loaded! He never bothered to check, might not have even known, UNTIL, while he was away one of his son's took the pistol from its case to show some friends, and FIRED a shot!!!:eek:

No one was hurt, thankfully. The guy brought the gun to our local smith to be "unloaded". The smith took it, went back to his test fire barrel, and fired off the remaining 5 shots without malfunction . After the smoke cleared, literally, the smith gave the guy a quick lesson on cleaning, and loading the gun.

As mentioned, black powder, stored right, will last almost indefinitely.

For defensive use, the standard .36 cal cap&ball has about the energy of a .380ACP. However, the soft lead round ball makes it more effective than a .380ACP FMJ.
 
Depends on the powder used in that .36. More energetic powders have been shown to produce .38 Spl +P performance with a ball. Use the more common weaker powders and .380 ACP is about all you’ll get.
 
Published chronograph velocity data for a 5.5 inch Remington 1858 revolver.

Powder by Volume-------Bullet Weight ------ Average Velocity
28 grains 3F Pyrodex----138 grain 451 ball----593 ft/s
32 grains 3F Pyrodex----138 grain 451 ball----700 ft/s
32 grains 3F Pyrodex----140 grain.454 ball----850 ft/s
35 grains 3F Pyrodex----138 grain 451 ball----875 ft/s
35 grains 3F Pyrodex----140 grain 454 ball----945 ft/s
35 grains 3F Pyrodex----143 grain 457 ball----960 ft/s
37 grains 3F Pyrodex----138 grain 451 ball----950 ft/s
37 grains 3F Pyrodex----143 grain 457 ball----960 ft/s
42 grains 3F Pyrodex----143 grain 457 ball----1019 ft/s
46 grains 3F Pyrodex----143 grain 457 ball----1050 ft/s
37 grains 3F GOEX BP--140 grain 454 ball----898 ft/s
40 grains 3F GOEX BP--140 grain 454 ball----949 ft/s
42 grains 3F GOEX BP--140 grain 454 ball----964 ft/s

Source:

http://poconoshooting.com/blackpowderballistics.html
 
T. O'Heir said:
Like home internet, YouTube is for entertainment only.
"...the self defense capabilities of cap and ball revolvers..." Date from the early to mid 19th Century. Worked then. No reason for 'em not to work now. Just a great deal more fiddling to make 'em and keep 'em working.
"...where modern smokeless guns cannot be legally obtained or utilized..." That does not make BP firearms any more legal. Despite then not being considered to be firearms in the U.S., that doesn't mean using one for CCW is legal.
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I would just as soon get my cap and ball self defensive shooting information from Clint Eastwood , He puts on a good demonstration in "Pale Rider"

If memory serves me right James Butler Hickok defended himself with a brace of 1851 Navy Colts.

Some of the stuff posted on U-Tube , by so called experts, is not only wrong but dangerous . The things I watched on reloading were scary
Gary
 
I'm obtaining about 1000/1050 fps with Lee 200 grns conicals and 1350/1400 fps with 140 grns Hornady .454 balls from my Pietta Remington 1858 .44 with my homemade powder.
Hard kicking shots, the 200 grns being as powerful as a .45 acp +p for this bullet weight and the 140 grns almost a full house .357 Magnum but with a bigger caliber.

In both cases I feel this loads plenty of power for a defensive or hunting use. I'm loading as much powder as the cylinder can accept, then the bullet and my own made cow grease/olive oil lube.
 
Centurion said:
I'm obtaining about 1000/1050 fps with Lee 200 grns conicals and 1350/1400 fps with 140 grns Hornady .454 balls from my Pietta Remington 1858 .44 with my homemade powder.
Hard kicking shots, the 200 grns being as powerful as a .45 acp +p for this bullet weight and the 140 grns almost a full house .357 Magnum but with a bigger caliber.

In both cases I feel this loads plenty of power for a defensive or hunting use. I'm loading as much powder as the cylinder can accept, then the bullet and my own made cow grease/olive oil lube.
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Just a quick comment...of course those are maximum loads, that I know I can obtain and my revolver can stand, but are not the ones that I prefer...it is more pleasant to shot milder loads, of course...
 
I am rather curious about your powder. Obviously it is quite energetic. What granulation is it?

Impressive numbers! I use 3F Olde Eynsford and Triple 7. I weighed my 30 grn charges and found Olde E weighs ~33 grns. Looking over chronographed results I figure I’m easily in standard .45 ACP performance and possibly just above it, which is why I weighed it as a fellow in Alaska with the same guns and powders has been sent some of my bullets for testing and said he would chronograph them too, but he has a small window in which to do so and has been busy.
 
For SD, with black powder, I'll take a brace of .58 cal Dragoon pistols loaded with mini-balls.
 

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For muzzleloaders I’d prefer a brace of Howdahs in 20 ga. I’d have to see how effective they’d be with those short barrels and various buckshot to determine if a patched ball would be better.
 
rodwhaincamo said:
I am rather curious about your powder. Obviously it is quite energetic. What granulation is it?

Impressive numbers! I use 3F Olde Eynsford and Triple 7. I weighed my 30 grn charges and found Olde E weighs ~33 grns. Looking over chronographed results I figure I’m easily in standard .45 ACP performance and possibly just above it, which is why I weighed it as a fellow in Alaska with the same guns and powders has been sent some of my bullets for testing and said he would chronograph them too, but he has a small window in which to do so and has been busy.
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Somewhere in between a 3F and a 4F, with homemade willow charcoal, extremely fine milled in a coffee mill, then mixed in a ball mill with the sulfur and saltpeter for 6 hours.

After that I use to mix it with jelly alcohol, then I granulate it to 3F/4F when almost dry.
 
A Walker is not a holster gun but that heavy frame absorbs a lot of recoil.
A cap and ball revolver was State of the Art in its day and a HUGE advance over the single shot.
Yes, Wild Bill was fond of his Navy Colts.
 
https://youtu.be/rCxOgvbVVko

The shooting test of the LEE 200 grains bullet from my NMA at +1000 fps. You can clearly note the hard recoil from that load...

Remember it is a full size NMA with 8 in barrel that jumps in my hand as a 44 magnum...
 
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tests and comparison

Somewhere I have an article, maybe two, possibly in an old issue of Gun Digest or Guns and Ammo where a scribe (maybe Rick Hacker) tested a number of BP percussion revolvers, with ball and conical, for speed, accuracy and even in gel. I have not read the article(s) in a long time, but have posted of then before in these forums.

As I recall....
The Walker with a full charge is a powerhouse, but a behemoth as noted. The Dragoons were easier to wield, but the Colt and Rem .44 's seemed optimum. The .36's were a delight to shoot and handled well, but the performance was in the .380 acp range and not that impressive. The even shot a .31 Baby Dragoon and equated it to a .22lr.
 
No hunting with the ROA during muzzleloading season in Texas? Too bad. Is it single shot only? No double guns or swivel guns?
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You cant hunt with any type of bp pistol during primitive weapons seasons in MS but during the second and third pw seasons you can use your AR 15 with 30 round mags on private land.
 
I use an 8" barrel Pietta 1858 as my go to arm for both vehicle carry and shoulder holster under a jacket for camping and hiking trips. I have never had any issue with powder getting wet or contaminated after I started cutting off pieces from plastic hospital O2 nasal lines and using them to cover the capped nipples. No water has been able to get past the sheathing, never mention anywhere near the primer or propellant, and I have carried the old warhorse through rain, snow and floods.

One of the best things I love about caplock revolvers is the versatility of choosing loads and projectiles for them. Just like the cartridge revolvers that fire straight-walled cases, they can be tailored for a variety of different needs. Most of my shooting involves punching cardboard targets so light loads of 20 grains and swaged roundballs work perfectly. But for hunting and defense against dangerous game, when that old Remington is packed with 36 grains of Olde Eynsford and a 200 grain Buffalo conical, it will take down a fully grown feral hog with complete pass-through performance and a pretty impressive wound channel. Done that a few times enough to know what this old stallion can do. Shots through a chrony have clocked 1200fps with that load. That is almost .357 magnum levels of power. The sound is absolutely deafening also. Just like a howitzer.

I have absolutely no problem with trusting my safety to this old hunk of steel, because loaded and primed properly it delivers the same performance as a .45 LC levergun or SA cartridge handgun. Combine that with experience and decent marksmanship and you have a weapon that will serve you well in most kinds of defensive situations where lethal force is required. Even if some POS psycho with an AR-15 was pumping rounds into a crowd of innocent shoppers at a mall, if I can happen to place my ass behind something concealing like a car or dumpster, draw the Remington and fire one well aimed round, that POS is going down and not coming back up, and that is a most certain thing. No one, not even a raging psycho pumped up on uppers is going to absorb 450 foot pounds of impact on center mass or CNS and continue going. Not happening. Like the old swordfighter Musashi said "The difference between an armed man and a true warrior is that the warrior knows his weapon". Merely having a weapon does not prove anything when a life or death struggle is happening. Knowing your weapon and mastering the techniques of it's use is what will determine if you, your loved ones and the crowd of innocents around you will survive the encounter. The samurai sword may not be in regular use as a combat arm today but Musashi had the principles of it's use converted into a timeless tutorial of the psychology of combat, no matter what weapons may be used. That is the Book of Five Rings.
 
JohnKSa said:
The TX rule says that it must be an actual muzzleloader--i.e. literally loaded ONLY through the muzzle.

https://tpwd.texas.gov/regulations/outdoor-annual/hunting/general-regulations/means-and-methods

"Muzzleloader: any firearm that is loaded only through the muzzle (as opposed to breech-loading firearms). A cap and ball firearm in which the powder and ball are loaded into a cylinder is not a muzzleloader. Muzzleloader deer seasons are restricted to muzzleloading firearms only."​
Since a cap & ball revolver cylinder can be loaded directly without going through the muzzle it doesn't qualify.

As far as I can tell, there is no prohibition on multi-shot muzzleloaders as long as they are truly muzzleloaders.
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I wonder what they would think about the Pietta Pepperbox since although a revolver, it does not have a barrel per se, just 6 really long cylinders that you load from the "muzzle" end. Not that it would be practical for anything that I hunt...
 
Armed with a brace of cap and ball revolvers , Remington or Colt , Army or Navy ,
I would not feel defenseless at all.
Maybe I watched too many westerns but a lot of men have died to percussion arms.
Plus I like the fact that I can mail order them ...delivered to my door , no forms , paperwork or permit required... In Louisiana at least .
Gary
 
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