NavyVet1959
New member
noelf2 said:I have one too. I prefer the look with a thunderer grip.
Yeah, it looks better with that style grip. Was that simple replacement for the existing grip or a different frame?
noelf2 said:I have one too. I prefer the look with a thunderer grip.
Yeah, it looks better with that style grip. Was that simple replacement for the existing grip or a different frame?
If Pietta has almost all of these parts in inventory, why do they not know that there would be a demand for these guns and instead produce Frankenguns with no historical significance
woodnbow said:It can’t be overloaded with black powder, because as the powder charge increases the barrel length decreases. Velocity with even a 30 grain charge would struggle to achieve 4-500 FPS... with smokeless, as mentioned above, you’re building a hand grenade and anyone who tries such a stunt, let alone posts about it on a public forum is foolish in the best case. All it takes is some knothead kid reading the post and acting upon it and poof, no fingers... I’m not concerned with any Navy Vets trying this, they should be old enough and wise enough to know better and if they aren’t, well, at least he’s lived a full life with all of his digits. He could learn to live the rest of it without them...
If Howell's would make a cylinder for these in either .32 or .38, rifled, I imagine I'd need one of those.
With no front sight, I'm not so sure a rifled barrel would make much of a difference. To me, this seems like an "up close and personal" type of weapon.
The rifling wouldn't be for accuracy. It's a belly gun for sure. Rifling would keep it from falling into the NFA category (a smooth barreled pistol).
Texas Penal Code - PENAL § 46.01. Definitions said:(3) “Firearm” means any device designed, made, or adapted to expel a projectile through a barrel by using the energy generated by an explosion or burning substance or any device readily convertible to that use. Firearm does not include a firearm that may have, as an integral part, a folding knife blade or other characteristics of weapons made illegal by this chapter and that is:
(A) an antique or curio firearm manufactured before 1899; or
(B) a replica of an antique or curio firearm manufactured before 1899, but only if the replica does not use rim fire or center fire ammunition.
From the engineering perspective, you will have to figure out what you will need to use, instead of nipples and caps, to ignite a magnum(ish) charge. There's that pesky little hole in the nipple that will allow hot gasses to backflow. 209 primers perhaps?
Best of luck in all your endeavors then...Whether you are using smokeless or blackpowder, you are in fact a reloader and you should be careful of what you are doing. You wouldn't just put any powder in a modern firearm at any quantity and expect it to work, right? What would happen if you took a 220 gr jacketed bullet and put it on top of a case full of Bullseye in a .30-06? Probably a safe bet that it is not going to end up that well for the firearm. On the other hand, what would happen if you replaced that Bullseye with a .50 BMG or 20mm powder like W872? Unless you duplex the load to account for / simulate the hotter arsenal primer that the .50 BMG uses, you're probably going to get a bit less velocity than a more optimal powder for this caliber. And, if you are using a straight walled case, it's even more difficult for W872 to generate excessive pressures if you are not adding a duplex "kicker" on top of the primer. It burns so slow that you are more likely to just get a bunch of unburnt powder out the barrel. I tried using W872 in a 10mm handgun once to prove this and it didn't even produce enough force to cycle the action enough to eject the brass. The slide came back slightly with the brass still in it and then went back, still holding the brass. Pretty quiet load though. Very little recoil. Very low pressure.
Maybe someone with QuickLoad would be interested in running the numbers for us on these two scenarios?
A blackpowder firearm is no different. It is designed to withstand a certain pressure and whether that pressure is from blackpowder, a blackpowder substitute, or smokeless powder, it doesn't matter. If you exceed that pressure (regardless of what type of powder you are using), bad things might happen to you. If you stay within the design pressure limits, you should be safe. Where people get in trouble with blackpowder is not seating the bullet all the way down on top of the powder. With blackpowder, this allows it to generate more pressure so that you get more of a mini-explosion instead of a controlled burn. With smokeless, you get in trouble by *decreasing* the distance from the powder to the bullet since this increases the pressure and then there is the issue with many smokeless powders having different burn rates at different pressures. Whereas when we are reloading cartridge ammunition, we have a high degree of control over the OAL of the loaded cartridges, we just don't have that sort of level of control over it with a muzzleloader. It's easier to just tell the BP shooter to just ram the ball down the muzzle / cylinder on top of the blackpowder until it won't go any further vs to tell the potential smokeless-in-BP shooter to ram the bullet down until there is a 1" space between the powder and the bullet. Of course, where inexperienced reloaders would get in trouble would be if they made the mistake of using smokeless, but with the same charge weights as was specified for blackpowder.
I'm an engineer and as such, I like to experiment with things and gain knowledge. Blanket statements of things like, "you can NEVER use smokeless in a BP firearm" just makes me want to test it out. I'm pretty sure that 8" of concrete will protect me if my initial hypothesis is incorrect.
Best of luck in all your endeavors then...
Thanks, I’ll keep an eye on the thread.If it blows up before I reach an acceptable load, I'll post the info here. Assuming they don't close this thread down at some point.
I'll also post it at this link...
http://www.monkeywrench.space/navy-vet-1959/default.htm?using-smokeless-in-blackpowder.htm
Looking at it from the screw head end, the cylinder rotates counterclockwise.Just a guess, but should turn opposite of cylinder rotation so anti-clockwise.
I suspect that I'm going to have to make a custom screwdriver head to fit it.