Old Army
My 7 1/2" with adj sights will print 1 1/2"-2 1/2" groups at 25 yds, at 800fps.I have found that loading 30 grs 777 FFFg by holding a piece of thin cardboard,[ such as what blister packs are backed up with],and giving it a shake, shrinks the groups. I do the same for each chamber.[One good solid shake] This instead of the tip of your finger gives you a more uniform load.I then place the veg wad [.462 dia. .30 thick], over powder and ram it down to set on top of load. Then I seat the ball and compress.I do not use any lube over ball. From what I understand, this is to help lube the bore when shooting dry burning powders more than preventing cross fires. More so in the Rugers because of the safety notch between each chamber. Ignition usually jumps at the nipple end. 777 shoots very wet. This stuff seems to make water!! Using the wad is sort of insurance to prevent the ignition of the other chambers and more importantly keeping the powder evenly compressed. I have been reloading cased cartridges for almost 20 yrs now and by taking the same ideals of consistant and uniform loads equal accuracy to the BP pays off. I really can't complain about grps like this using round balls. I bought a Lee connicle 220 grn .456 dia. mold about a month ago, and am waiting to cast in order see what is possible with these. From what I have read in various publications, The OAs prefer the .456-.457 bullets.