THis is my first cap and ball revolver, I purchased it at Cabelas with the help of their knowledgeable salespeople but am finding loads of conflicting information from the Pieta manual that came with the gun, a pamphlet from Cabelas telling me the Pieta instruction manual was somewhat vague and worthless and the advise of the salesperson. As I have always had great luck and trust with the advise of the staff at Cabelas I went with the reccomendation of the salesperson on how to load my new revolver. I decided to try it out today but stopped short for safety purposes because things didn't seem right. I then read some of the articles on this site and had even more questions. The book that the manufacturer provided reccomends a load of 12-15 grains of FFFG powder and a .454" ball. The guide makes no mention of substitutes like Pyrodex. By all accounts from what I have read and what the salesperson at Cabelas told me, this is about half of the typical load for this type of gun. The Cabelas pamphlet reccomends using 24-28 grains of FFFG powder or substitute and makes no mention of ball size. It does reccomend seating the ball directly on the powder charge and sealing it with a lubricant after seating the ball. The salesman reccomended 30 grain Pyrodex pistol pellets for ease of loading, they seemed a little loose in the chamber and a .451" round ball sealed with lubricant to avoid a chain fire. As the advise I got from Cabelas has not steered me wrong in the past I took his advise. Today when loading the gun after seating the balls they seemed to be very deep in the chamber, almost 1/4". I did get the ring of lead when seating the ball and it did seem to be a fairly tight fit. The manufacturer's manual said the ball should be about .040"below the top of the cylinder. This is when I decided not to shoot the gun. I'll have to go and get one of those CO2 things to unload it, just glad I didn't put the percussion caps on.
So, questions now:
Has anyone used Pyrodex revolver pellets and had the same seating concerns I did?
Would I be better off buying a powder measure and either conventional FFFG black powder or substitute?
What is the deepest the ball should be from the top of the chamber, remember Cabelas advised me that the manufacturer's manual was not accurate?
If I choose to seat the ball directly on the powder/pellet charge, how thick should the coating of lubricant be on top of the ball, should I fill most of the space in the chamber with it or just lightly coat the top of the ball? The salesperson at Cabelas advised Thomson Bore Butter as a good product to seal the ball.
Does anyone have any experience with the cartrige conversion kits to fire metalic cartridges from this type of gun. The cartrige conversion manufacturers state it is safe to use smokeless powder in a reduced Cowboy Load, but this concerns me as there are warnings in both the manufacturer's manual and the Cabelas pamphlet to "NEVER!!!!" use smokeless powder. If I choose this conversion, I will probably prefer to use black powder cartriges either hand loaded or from a manufacturer.
Thanks everyone for any response helping this newbie.
So, questions now:
Has anyone used Pyrodex revolver pellets and had the same seating concerns I did?
Would I be better off buying a powder measure and either conventional FFFG black powder or substitute?
What is the deepest the ball should be from the top of the chamber, remember Cabelas advised me that the manufacturer's manual was not accurate?
If I choose to seat the ball directly on the powder/pellet charge, how thick should the coating of lubricant be on top of the ball, should I fill most of the space in the chamber with it or just lightly coat the top of the ball? The salesperson at Cabelas advised Thomson Bore Butter as a good product to seal the ball.
Does anyone have any experience with the cartrige conversion kits to fire metalic cartridges from this type of gun. The cartrige conversion manufacturers state it is safe to use smokeless powder in a reduced Cowboy Load, but this concerns me as there are warnings in both the manufacturer's manual and the Cabelas pamphlet to "NEVER!!!!" use smokeless powder. If I choose this conversion, I will probably prefer to use black powder cartriges either hand loaded or from a manufacturer.
Thanks everyone for any response helping this newbie.