I was shooting my 1860 with homemade soft lead balls and a wad from O'Riellys gasket cork material. it was doing ok, but nothing to get excited about.(the balls for the .44(actually .45 LC) where .454 or close. I also tried some of the balls I pour for my friend who has a Ruger old army, (which takes a .457-8 ball.) with the soft lead balls it wasn't much trouble to use the .457 balls. the next 6 shots where like a was shooting an almost .44 magium!!. I was using FFFg powder and the results where awesome! and my 1860 was shooting to point of aim. very accurate!. I put a cork wad over the powder and then a dab. of grease on top of the wad. then the ball goes in. the over size ball, holds the powder just enough to really get a bang out of the powder and one shot make so much smoke that you have to wait a bit for the smoke to clean to see where you shot went. 27.5gr.s of FFFg goex powder is my load. I can shoot this load all day long without fouling the barrel.