What load is best for the 1851 Navy .36?

R

Remington kid

New member
After playing with this new 1851 Navy .36 fora few days now I seem to have mixed feelings about the not only the best load the best way to load it.
All test have been done with Pyrodex "P" and the 380 cast ball.
22g of py.p ,dry wad, ball and grease over ball shoots great!

25g of py.p, dry wad, ball and grease over ball shoots great also.

I can load this way (see above) and let it sit for several days and it shoots perfectly with no problems.

22-25g py.p, dry wad, grease over wad, ball and get contaminated powder and some squib loads and really caked powder in the barrel.
Why is it I can load my Remington .44 with grease over the ball and let it sit for days and never get a squib or low power shot??? It just doesn't make sence to me.

This gun is a pleasure to shoot and I love it but I like the lubing effect of the grease over the wad better than over the ball for barrel cleaning.
 
OD , Never thought of that but it may work. It's just strang to me that one seems to get grease to the powder and the other one loaded the same way doesn't. The compression is even more on the .44 becuse of the full or close to full chambers and the fact that the Pyrodex "p" compresses so much easier than my Goex.
It's not going to kill me to load the Navy with the lube over the ball;) but it would have made it nice to be able to load them the same way.
I just thought that someone else may have had a problem with powder contamination when loading this way or with a lubed wad. The wonder wads don't have enough lube in them to hurt anything but I'm refering to home made wet lubed wads and Pyrodex P.
 
Perhaps the pressure with the .380 bals is pushing the grease around the wad. >375 Bsallay not have as much pressure.
Hope you find the cure,
SG and I are going to the range in the morning to Burn BP. Shoot BP C & B and conversions. Can't wait to shoot the Gunfighter.
 
grease over the wad

I couldn't say why the 36 gets contaminated powder and the 44 doesn't. Twilight zone??:confused: I know you can use lube pills made of beeswax and TC Natural Lube and a little paraffine wax added to stiffin it up some. Use the lube pill instead of the wad. Lube wad?!? The problem you have has to be because the lube you use is too soft so make it hard. Lube pills keep chambers from where the pill is up, clean and barrels clean. If you don't want to harden up the lube then you may solve the problem by keeping the lube from squishing past the wad by using a tighter wad and a little less grease. Maybe use a fiber wad on top the powder. Buffalo Arms sells fiber wads in 36-38 size so they may be tight in a 36. They sell wad punches too and you may find one that makes tight wads. Maybe just change over to FFg 777 Hodgdon powder or Qoex Pinacle powder and forget the wads.
 
Mike,

How often have you shot Pyrodex-P in your .44's? I thought you shot only Goex BP in them. BP is graphite coated partially as a water repellent, would assume it would keep out grease, too.

Don't know if PP is graphite coated as well.

36 cal, if you put the same pressure on the rammer, being smaller in diameter, pressure goes up, but I don't think there is any way in hell you could be milking the grease out of the wads way back to the nipple. Contaminate 10% of the powder, at the chamber end, mebbe, but still go boom.

Cheers,

George
 
Rem Kid I have never had a problem using Goex BP with a lube pill under or over the ball in a Colt .36...or bore butter and even Crisco over the top, I even use 3 in 1 oil. I don't like wonder wads lubed or dry. Take up way too much space and Wayne's Lube Pill recipe does what wonder wads do and more. Wonder wads don't season your bore as they clean. That's new one, maybe it was the Pyrodex. I just shot some .380 balls I made Wednesday in my Uberti 1851 Navy. So cold my Bore Butter wouldn't squirt and I gave the lube pills to my son to use...so I got to shoot my .36 with 28gr of FFFg Goex dry with no lube at all ... shot great just like the Old West did it...LoL! Sure was alot a cobwebs in my barrel when I cleaned it though...
 
The fit of the wads is perfect so thats not a problem. The lube I use over the wad is not runnie but it's not stiff either. When I made pills it was a totally different recipe and they worked great unless it was hot out and I would let the gun sit for a few days.
After useing wonder wads for years I was getting a little tired of shooting money down rang ,so I bought some felt/wool /fiber door/ window seal 1/8 thick to try for a few bucks and it gave me enough wads to last a few years,Lol. Yes, you can burn this stuff with a match but it WILL NOT burn when it leaves the barrel and it does a great job of sweeping the bore. I shoot at cardboard targets and you can find the wads all over my yard still in tack and no burn marks at all. Plus it's stiffer than felt and I like that.
over the years I have shot these Remingtons about every way possiable and never had a problem except with the pill and then only if I let it sit for a while.If you make a pill that has no effect on the powder then it must consist of mostly wax and I don't see and lubing effect from that. When you get BP wet with anything short of nitrate it will not burn at all or it will not burn at the same rate as it would if it was dry.
I may just stay with the powder, dry wad and grease on top. It works good in this Colt.
I sure do miss my Goex 3F after my supplier closed down but this Pyrodex "P" runs a close second to it and it's about the same price.
Thanks for all the suggestions guy's , guess these Remingtons just spoiled me:)
 
PIlls and more pills

Remington KId, if you make the pills with the right amount of beeswax and lube mixed then it would be hard enough to handle the pills and soft enough to squish with the fingers. I sent Smokin Gun some to use in the heat of the desert and they had a little paraffine wax in them. I make my pills such that I could leave my pills on top the powder in a chamber for a year if I wanted and they wouldn't contaminate the powder. They don't melt in hot weather. Get softer but not melted. I wish I could show you the lubing effect the pills have with my guns even with the wax in the mix. The barrels and top half of the chambers stay clean enough to fire a couple hundred rounds and may go more if I wanted. I have shot more than 200 balls thru a revolver and never needed to clean the barrel and the rifling never gets built up fouling in it. The bore will be black but not really fouled. When a ball is seated in the chambers it wipes them shinny since the walls of the chambers are coated with wax/lube I guess. Wax/lube going thru the barrel "melted" in front of the powder blast/heat must coat the barrel so the fouling doesn't stick. Not all the lube pill is melted and most of it goes out the barrel in front of the powder. All I know is that it works and I won't shoot without the lube pills under the balls with the 44's or over the balls with the 36's. The lube pill is somewhat thicker and sticky and when put "over the balls" in a chamber won't get blown off by the other chambers firing. If you don't want to make a punch/tube to make lube pills then take a mixture of beeswax and lube like TC Natural lube mixed so you can saturate wool wads with it with a mix that is more solid and not soft. The champion that won the cap&baller CAS three years in a row,Rowdy Yates, uses wool wads and Thompsons lube on them. I think he's over there in the forum "Brimstone Pistolerros" so maybe you can guestion him about the wool wads and the lube on them. I don't know anything about Thompsons lube or wads and how solid the lube is but Rowdy Yates does.
 
grease on wads

There's hydraulic pressure when the ball is seated on the grease and no matter how good a wad fits the hydraulic pressure on the grease is going to push it past the wad since the wad is soft.The path of least resistance. If the load chain with the 44's is higher in the chamber and lets some grease squish out the top before the balls widdest circumference seals the chamber on that end then it's just a matter of not much grease in the chamber under the ball. If the load chain in the 36 chamber is lower in the chamber and the widdest circumference of the ball seals the chamber and creates hydraulic pressure the grease is going to go somewhere since the pressure is so great. If the ball seals the top of the chamber then the grease is going to go past the wad pretty easily considering how soft a wool wad is. Since the Pyrodex will be compressed before the hydrauliuc pressure is at it's highest point then the Pyrodex is going to be in a somewhat solid form(pyrodex and blackpowder when compressed form a solid powder cylinder. The pressure of the ball and the hydraulic affect of it would push the grease past the wad and past the pyrodex along the sides of the chambers walls and end up back near the flash hole of the nipple. Anywhooo, Remington Kid, you must have the ball higher in the chamber with the 44's than the 36's and more grease squishes out with the 44's than the 36's when the ball starts into the chamber initially before the balls widdest circumference seals the chamber and creates the hydraulic pressure. I don't see the logic in trying to put a soft grease under the ball and try to keep it out of the powder without putting something between the ball and the wad to keep the ball from squishing most of the grease somewhere else besides right under the ball. Some grease undoubtedly goes into the wool wad so why not contain it all as much as possible in the wad by using less grease or by saturating the wool wad with a mixture of beeswax and lube so the wool wad containing the wax/lube is like a solid more than a non-solid? It will still lube good. Blackpowder cartridge shooters use SPG lube to good effect with a fiber wad over the powder and under the bullet with a lube pill in between. They usually use a compression die first to compress the powder into a solid first though. You may be able to compress your powder with the use of a fiber wad using the loading lever plunger and the loading lever and put something under the ball to keep it from compressing against the wool wad that would be on the fiber wad or the powder so the ball can't cause hydraulic pressure before you can feel the ball stop . Like what? Maybe a thin cardboard(milk carton) tube about 1/16th or 1/8th high. Big straws cut to small heights. Maybe rings of heavy twine with the ends glued together. Maybe a few no. 4 shot bee-bees. Anything to stop the ball before it compresses against the grease and the wool wad. Anything to keep a space between the ball and the wool wad as long as the space doesn't contain "air".:eek:
 
Thanks Wayner, I'm not giving up tottaly and will play a little more with the pills. I have cutters so that's no problem.
Your explanation of what may be going on with the lube in the .36 is right along the lines of what I was thinking but my brain just doesn't think in the same technical mode as yours :) That kind of of thinking would blow the top right off this little pea picken brain. Thanks again for the imput, Mike
 
Mike,

Why is it I can load my Remington .44 with grease over the ball and let it sit for days and never get a squib or low power shot??? It just doesn't make sence to me.

I missed this the first time. That isn't what you meant to say, was it? You meant grease over the wad, and seated? Like you did what Wayner is saying, squished the grease through the powder?

If you take hydraulics into consideration, it's possible you are squishing the grease through the powder, not down the chamber walls, as Wayner says, if you have made what you could call a powder "pill", it will be as tight against the chamber walls as the powder column itself. Would have to seep through the powder, contaminate it all, not just around the powder to the nipple holes.

I'll ask you again, do you have ANY Goex left to try a couple cylinders full, with your wads and grease over? If you do, try loadin' that the same way, and, I hate to ask it, let 'er sit as long as it took for the Pyro-P to go to squib. If it ain't a squib, BP doesn't absorb grease like the Pyro-P does.

If you are gonna make any pills, at all, and if Harbor Freight stores are anywhere near you, the hole punches would do just as well as making a "pill cutter. They'll just stack up and fall out the top cut out.

Cheers,

George
 
Sorry George but I have to be to differ with ya on the Lube Pill Cutters vs a hole punch... here's my BP Notes from Wayne and a pic. You can't buy a hole punch with the right size tube to stack the pills and pushum out with no damage to them. I have a set Oldelm made for me and the work great a .44 cutter/tube and a .36 cal.
Take a little piece of 3/8's brass tube soldered into a
longer piece of brass tube that is the next size bigger than the 3/8's tube.The end
that actually cuts into the lube was cut with a little hardware store pipe cutter and
little smaller ring"(the cutter makes it) around the end left as is and not filed off.
That way the pills are actually cut a little smaller than the inside of the first
short section of pipe and the pills don't stick. Of course the pills don't stick in the
upper longer piece of tube since it is the next size bigger than the first short
section soldered in that is 3/8's.That is why the pills just come out of the tube
when they are cut and don't stick in the tube and have to be pushed out with a
dowell..I like to leave them in rows like the pic shows coming out of the top of
the tube so I can fit them into my Altoids tin box I got from the drug store. I
like tin boxes for the pills because they open easy and protect the pills in my
pouch or back pocket.When I go shooting a percussion I load standing or walking. (Wayner's)
Photo: http://tinypic.com/view/?pic=jueiyt
 
Smoke.

I think it don't matter, if the pills are hard enough to cut with a "cutter", they're hard enough to pop up through a hole punch. If they come out as a "column", a stuck together stick, I'm pretty sure you can peel one from the other, make individual pills.

Man, why do yunz make me go try it and prove it. Damn, it's cold in my garage, and I really don't want to fire up the overhead furnace. 150 thou BTU, costs too much to fire up, with gas what it is today.

Hell, the boiler in my whole 1900 sq.ft house is just 43 thou BTU. Keeps me toasty. 4 times the gas just to warm up the garage, and it's only 24 X 28.

Cheers,

George
 
OLDELM the master craftsman has some good pics of the tube lube pill cutters he made. I thought he trained his pet ground hog to cut out the lube pills for him. :D
 
Wayner, The punches are only tapered on the outside and you can just keep cutting the pills and they come out through the slot in a column. Very easy to sperate. When you punch leather holes or make felt wads you just keep cutting and once the puch fills up the wads will just push out and land on the bench slick as a whistle. When your done just take a small stick (I use a small paint bruch handle ) and push up on the column of wads from the cutting end and they will all push out very esily.
 
Mike,

Thanks, I was just about to say that. The hole doesn't get smaller the farther up you go, the wads or pills or leater plugs or whatever the hell you are punching does not get smaller the higher up you go.

Seems I can't suggest anything without someone saying, well, I think this, or I think that. Jeejuz, if I am saying a ball don't get pushed big from firing is WAY to hell different than saying a hole punch, that measures, by my caliper, .500, is not actually a real 1/2 inch in diameter. Now, if I take a sheet of lead and punch a hole in it, with the 1/2 inch punch, and it measures from .498 to .502, wiould those naysayers say it just MIGHT punch a 1/2 inch chunk out of a piece of felt?

Mike said it, the inside is .500, the outside is tapered. Why it matters, with your pills, I don't know, since you say we should mash the pill onto the ball, or into the chamber, where the ball will mash it to fill the chamber. Not like it requires a .445 pill for a .445 chamber. Isn't that why we are supposed to make the pill with stuff that will be mashable? Not a disc of parrafin, hard as a rock.

What the hell, I know too much or I don't know enough? Some of you don't know some of this. Some of you do. Should I shut up?

Cheers,
George
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top