I figgure I tried hard enough to a stranger.
On the loads;
I tried all sorts of combos with my 5 different revolvers including deep setting the ball, COW filler and no filler with wads.
Seems different guns like different set-ups.
In my 2 '58 Remmies the short one needs a COW filler, Wad, and the ball HAS to be within 1/8" of the edge of the cylinder with almost no jump to thwe forcing cone. Otherwise it shoots poor groups. loaded right it shoots great.
The long '58 wants just powder a wad and dosen't seem to matter how long the ball travels, just as long as the powder is compressed.
Both are ,44's
My .36's all like wads and COW fillers to within 1/8" of the Cyl face,
Pyrodex charges have been best for me as such, /44 35 gr, and .36 .22 gr pyrodex.
I have read and been told all sorts of stuff, from fill her up to 16 gr for the .44's... Seems this changes person to person. Really frustrating trying to find out if I'm doing it correctly!
Yea the Ball has a small contact surface and if you use a little larger ball you seem to get the most positive contact area as it swages into the cylinder. Therefore I use .452" if I can find em. You're pretty well stuck with the standard .36 ball .351 IIRC.
I shot some conicals and liked em , They kicked because of heavy weights. and I prefer the ease of loading Balls.
Now maybe I have been clear enough to have explained this to everyones satisfaction and understanding. As you can see it's a bewildering topic for a newcomer to grasp completely and correctly!
ZVP