1860 new army

[hatcreek]

125072I got this CVA 1860 for a gift been a long time since I had one of these, my question is .451 or .454 round ball, 25gr or 30gr, ffg or fffg, I have lots of ffg would it work? Any help would be helpful. Merry Christmas! HC

[rodwha]

I'm not familiar with the CVA model, but from what I've seen many state is that a larger diameter ball tends to do better to a point so I'd opt for a .454" ball over the smaller.

The powder charge is up the gun and the powder you use. What are your intentions, and are you using filler? My Pietta Remington '58 does better with ~30 grns and my ROA does better with 35 grns (170 and 195 grn bullet with 3F Olde E or T7).

2F will certainly work, but 3F is better as these are shorter barrels. But with that said some find 2F works better than 3 in theirs. It'll likely hold close to 40 grns without a wad and with a ball.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

[Beagle333]

It'll be happier and seal better with a .454 ball. It likes fffg best. You can get ffg to fire, but sometimes not reliably if all conditions are not perfect.
The load just depends on you. Just make sure you got enough powder under it to seat the ball firmly on the powder. Some folks try to start out too light and the loading plunger won't reach deep enough to pack the ball in there firmly on the charge. I would put 30 grains of fffg in there and experiment with using enough corn meal on top of that powder charge to raise the ball up to be seated perfectly flush with the face of the cylinder. It won't take many cylinders of trial and error to get that figured out just perfectly. Some guys use cream of wheat, but I don't happen to keep that stuff around here.
Have fun with it. Great gun!!!! :mrgreen:

[hatcreek]

Thanks for the advise and information, if I remember correctly I used the .454 in the revolver I used to own Never used filler or wads to bring up the ball to be flush with the cylinder, sure do love this forum, thanks again and Merry Christmas. HC