Yes, that is what I said, black powder 45 Colt rounds. Why? Why not, plus I bought a Howell conversion cylinder for my Uberti 1858 Remington New Model Army.
So, I tried once already - goofed hard. Long time casters here will instantly realize what went wrong when I say first, I used wheelweight lead. You never use anything but dead soft or as close as you can get with black powder.
Second, look at the lube grooves - perfect for modern smokeless lube, but WAY too small for black powder lube, which is a whole different animal from what a modern round has on it.
Third,, the lube itself - I made it from wax bullets I had been given and olive oil. AFTER this was all said and done the guy who gave them to me, (great dude), mentioned they were over 40 years old, and the beeswax MIGHT be a little deteriorated. You don't say?
It didn't help that I didn't have a cookie cutter, so they went through the sizer like this.
Aha, I see someone in the back doing the facepalm thing, yes, it was a HUGE mess. Needless to say, it was a heckuva mess to clean up.
First, I tested some smokeless powder loads with powder coated bullets, and the results were encouraging. With the steel used in these guns, cartridge loads MUST be either black powder or Cowboy Action levels, i.e., nothing above 850FPS. They are also loaded shorter because the cylinder is shorter than a standard 45 Colt.
But, I came to talk about black powder...So, I loaded 20, and we tested them on the firing line. Oh, did I mention I followed someones advice on the starting loads, and I was light? It should have been about 35 grains.
Da Boy wasn't really impressed, but I think it's because accuracy was nil.
11 paces.
When we fired the last one, the cylinder didn't want to move and I had to almost hammer out the cylinder pin, because there was no good lube softening the fouling. However, I DID get this awesome shot.
So, after talking to several MORE knowledgeable people I cast up a different bullet, this time from recovered range lead, which is as close to dead soft as I can get, seeing that most of it comes from jacketed bullets...which tend to be dead soft. This is the Lee 200 grain SWC. Notice something different? Yes, that is one HUGE lube groove!
All I needed was a decent lube, and today, my SPG tropical lube came in from MidwayUSA. It's a black powder hard lube made specifically for hot climates, so this might work well. Yes, I also powder coated some of them to trey with smokeless, of course.
So, this weekend...we will try again.
