does any one know if the pietta .44, 1851 army is suppose to take a .451 ball? because my Taylors 1860 army takes a .454 ball and the the .454 ball is a little hard to get into the 1851 chamber! I was using the .457-8 ball in my 1860 till I ran out of pure lead. and they are a little harder to get into the cylinder now.
In my opinion, a .457 roundball is too big for anything except the Ruger Old Army. It's supposed to be a little hard to force a ball into a chamber - that's why a ring of lead will be shaved off, unless the chamber mouths are chamfered. By using an oversized ball (.457) you run the risk of bending the loading lever. A .451 might be too small, but it might also fit.
A guy that I used to shoot SASS with used .451 in his Piettas because he could load them faster at the bench. I use my cast .454 because I like the fine lead rings it throws showing I have a solid chamber seal. GF
Check the diameter of your chambers with plug gages. Get a mold to cast a ball 0.003-0.004" larger and use soft, pure lead to avoid breaking or bending the loading lever. A .454 ball is correct for chambers which pin-out .450-.451, which most of the Italian repops are. Occasionally you will find a repro cap & ball cylinder in which the chambers are smaller than barrel groove diameter. A .451 or .452 chucking reamer from McMaster-Carr for about $25 can clean these up easily by hand, using a little Brownell's Do-Drill and it will pay GREAT dividends in accuracy, getting the chambers up to correct size, smooth and uniform.
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I believe Pietta states a .451”, Uberti a .454”, and Ruger and some others (Uberti Walker?) the .457”. But there are some, including myself, that use larger diameter balls in any of them, and it’s been shown that with the same powder charge the larger ball tends to produce higher velocities and better accuracy. With the longer driving band it grips tighter and also seems to give more lead to obturate if the chambers are grossly under sized.
My Pietta has .449” chambers that have been chamfered and I use the .457” ball if I use a ball, and my custom bullets that drop at .456” (I’ll be modifying my design and dropping that to .454” as they don’t need to cut a big ring having driving bands). I was using these prior to teaming the chambers and it’s said the Pietta chambers run about .446”.
Check out how ball diameter effected performances, especially in the .31 cal:
http://poconoshooting.com/blackpowderballistics.html
I finally got off my dead duff!, and miked the cylinders of my two .44's the taylors miked .446 and the pietta miked .442-3. so the .451 mold is for the pietta and the .454 mold works for the 1860.(I pour for a friends Ruger and yes, it takes the .457 ball. OMG, now I need a mold for each of my guns.
I camfered the inside of all my cylinders on all my black powder pistols so when I put the ball into the holes they swedge into the cyliinder there's no ring of lead, every thing is in the cylinder.
with a drop of grease on the over powder wad, I've shot one of my .44's over 70 times without having to clean the barrel.
Last edited by pakmc; 12-17-2019 at 10:25 AM.
What Outpost said.
Groove diameter vs chamber
The Piettas 44's; not unusual to have .446-.447 chambers (the diameter half way between bore and groove).
And it's not unusual to have them shoot pretty darn good that way whether I like it or not.
On their .36 caliber revolvers they pulled the same nonsense. My solution for the .36's was to design a .375 round ball with an adjustable length cylindrical hollow based tail end of diameter to slip in the chambers. Another is to make it shoot .41 round ball (thank you John Taylor!). On the .44's the solution isn't so easy. The 1851's don't have sufficient clearance for loading a slip in design bullet. After all, the 1860's were designed for elongated .44 bullets but not so the 1851's which were designed to be .36's. So if you have a 1851 based .44 that doesn't want to shoot accurately the thing to do may be reaming the chambers.
Opinion Alert
Unfortunately there's not a lot of metal on those 1851 framed revolvers to be reaming away.
Making thin walls even thinner just bugs the boogers out of me so I don't do it.
Last edited by Good Cheer; 12-19-2019 at 08:10 AM.
We reamed an 1860 army and a Walker - both were deep groove rifling that measured 462 groove - yeah the army cylinder ended up skinny!!! (they were both 452 before the reaming job) - only reamed enough depth to seat the ball on both guns -Originally Posted by Good Cheer
Both cylinders were reamed to .462 - we got a pedersoli ball mold that throws .464 -----now they both shoot nice with a full chamber powder charge - prior to the changes accuracy with full chamber was lousy - target loads were ok (light powder charge and semolina filler)
Or ream the smaller chambers to match the larger, or ream them all to match the groove diameter (mine is .452”).
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