Shooting 41 Colt - Black Powder

[missionary5155]

Good afternoon
First THANK YOU to Harry O for his excellent 41 Colt Page. It was a BIG help.
I have owned my 41 Colt Double Action (193,xxx) about 7 years (Picture). Previously I used reduced length 38 special brass wrapped in masking tape to increase case diameter to 41 chambers. Boolits were .358 170 grain Lyman 358429 (Pure Lead) squezzed up in my vise to fit cylinders. These were loaded nose first. 5 grains Unique resulted in good accuracy BUT they had to be loaded one at a time.
Last time up NORTH I purchased a 41 Colt mold Ideal #386176 (Heel type about 170 grains - Picyure) and brought it back down here. I have had dismal results with it using Unique and pretty much decided to quit until I get e Lee Crimper down here.
Several days ago I re-read Harry O and decided to give Black Powder a try.
I first "Bumped up" my boolits in my vice. The boolit noses AS CAST do not touch the lands. The HEEL as cast is to loose in the case. With just a few minutes "trial & error" I found the proper vice handle position and swaged 20 boolits. Boolits were previously LEE LA lubed. Mix is Pure Lead.
CCI SP were seated. Trial and error again showed 18.5 grains Black to give the compression in the case I was looking for. The local Black looks to me like FFF (Picture).
Boolits were seated using my 44-40 expander adjusted to proper distance. This method is not the best but it was either this or use the vice. With care boolit seating was finished. Next the exposed boolits were lubed with 50/50 Beeswax + olive oil ( Picture ). This is a good lube for black but will go liquid if exposed to 80+ temp. For higher temp increase to 60/40 or so. It does keep fouling soft.
This morning I road (200 KDX Kaw) out to my mountain sdie range. I had no idea where impact would be But figured as Black is LOW pressure impacts should be high. Yep they were. First shot aiming center bull from 50 feet was lost. 2nd shot ( High Left ) took off my plastic clothes pin holding target to steel frame. Adjust fire... aiming low right got the bullets on paper. Targets appear in next post. I dug up a few boolits from the dirt to see what was happening in the barrel. These are the first boolits I have recovered that show heel fill out and rifling on any nose part. (Refer bullet picture)
Go to Part B ....

[missionary5155]

The photos are of the two targets I fired on this morning sitting forearms resting on my knees.
The targets began the day as one sheet the RIGHT photo being the top part. My origonal Bull was the lower bull. The left target is from 50 feet at first. The holes marked with GREEN pencil were the last 3 shots of 5.
It appeared one shot had Keyholed. With the boolit spread I decided to move up to 30 feet. The GREEN X was my aiming point. The unmarked holes again are fired at 30 feet. Again at the far right side of target is what appears to be another Keyhole. :groner:
The right target was also fired from 30 feet. Two bullets appear to have keyholed.
Bullet analysis says a fat boolit works best. But a Fat mold would be better I am sure. Beagleing will be tried when I can locate some Aluminum duct tape here.
Velocity must be anemic. These are the first pure lead boolits I have recovered from my berm that did NOT expand.
I have a 200 grain Heel type mold waiting up NORTH. It may give better accuracy. I also have HB molds waiting that shooters report work much better.
So there is what I know from today. I will try some "231" type powder from Winchester shotshells. Unique also. Both loaded with the fatter boolits.
Black Powder (18.5 grains) ... I would not trust it to stop a dog. 5 grains Unique will smack with authority. [smilie=f: In the days of BLack Powder only I can imagine the 41 was looked upon as a better option than 38 Colt or S&W. Me I would have looked for a 44-40 or 45 Colt real fast.
The Double Action 41 is a nice frame size. To bad Colt did not listen to shooters and turn it into a 5 shot 41 Special or 44 Special. :Fire:
God Bless you Mike

[Harry O]

Congratulations. Your targets look similar to mine when I first started. I was very happy the first time I could keep all 6 shots on an 8-1/2" x 11" target. Don't give up. They should get better when you find what your gun likes.

I have tried a few additional smokeless powder loads since I wrote that webpage. None of them have worked anywhere near as well as black powder. Some I have tried were Unique, Bullseye, Red Dot, Trail Boss, WW540 and Unique. Maybe I gave up too soon, but after trying each, I quickly went back to BP.

The 386176 was primarily for the 41 (short) Colt cartridge. It may be a little light to get it fully swaged into the rifling. I know that I have two identical bullets (except for the heel length) and the heavier one shoots a little better than the lighter one (these are the Old West moulds).

I am a little unclear about one thing you did. You mention .38 Special bullets, the 386176 bullet, and "bumping" them up in a vise. Was it the .38 Specials that were bumped up? You should not have had to do that with the 386176. I don't have one to try, however. I do have the 386177, though, and no bumping is required.

Make sure you cast them with lead that is as soft as you can cast it. I use about 1% tin with heel-base bullets. With hollow-base bullets, I need more (about 3%).

The very first 41LC revolver I owned had a name, a date, and the words "Cripple Creek" scratched inside the grips. It also had two small notches filed into the bottom rear corner of the metal part of the handgrip. I eventually found that the date was 3 or 4 months after the gun was manufacturered. I was able to find from the historical society in Cripple Creek that the name was from a foreman at one of the major mines there -- and they had a record of him both before and after the date. There were several bad strikes in the mines both before and after the date in the grips. A number of people were shot, blown up, and bayonneted during the strikes (the Governor of Colorado at the time called out the State Militia the last time). I have often wondered about the two notches. They were not symmetrical. There was room on the grip for one more notch.

[missionary5155]

Greetings Harry O
Thanks for the load development you have done and sharing it here.
My origonal loads 7 years ago were made using shortened 38 brass with the vice swaged 358429 boolit using Unique. These squeezed boolit were sized through the removed cylinder and shot on par with my 38 special.. 3.5 inches at 20 yards.
My 386176 with pure drops a skinny boolit. The nose does not touch rifling and the band is a loose fit in the cylinder. I would beagle the mold But there is no aluminum tape here. I previously tried the boolit as is with Unique and Black and it was just terrible.
So I thought to try squezzing it just a bit to fatten it up. I do not have reloading dies here either so I yet do not have a means to neck size my cases. So the squeezing got the boolit on paper. My Unsqeezed boolits showed little rifling marks. These squeezed boolits have even cuts completely around the boolit. I agree I probably will do much better with a heavier boolit. I have a 386177 sitting in Illinois that I will bring back down here with me next time.
I also have plans on bring a Lee Factory Crimper plus a set of dies. That should improve on the neck tension.
My idea for a boolit would be a full groove blunt round head all the way to the long heel. I bet something around 210 grains would be a winner. I am still on the entry learning curve. I reread your info about once a month. It always reveals something else I can do.
My Colt was the property of a Police officer here in Arequipa. His son (also a Police officer) decided to sell it as there has not been ammo here since about 1930. It has all the look it was carried some and fired very little. I origonally bought it just because I like old Colts. But I just could not resist the urge to "somehow shoot it some". Nice bore with some roughness in 3 small spots. There is one notch cut into the right grip bottom.
So again THANKS for the como and all the info.
Mike God Bless you and your family.

[Harry O]

Good dies and a Lee neck crimper will make a difference. I am impressed with your results given what you have to work with.

I know that 41LC cases (even the new Starline ones) are pretty expensive. I still use modified .38 Special cases for plinking. The first ones I made were fire-formed. Later, I had my bro-in-law machine a "full-length neck-expander" so I can form them pretty easily. The rear 1/8" to 3/16" of the case necks down to the .38 Special diameter, which looks strange, but it works. If you need some, I can send some to whoever is holding the other stuff for you. You can PM me with details if you are interested.

[missionary5155]

Good morning Harry O
THANK YOU ! That is a right kind offer !
I bet I can make a neck-expander here with a chunck of brass rod and then drill and tap the end for a threaded rod and use it in my 44-40 die. I have bunches of 38 special.
On the expanded 38 cases... do you wrap anything around the web area to center it in the chamber ?
I have 20 pieces of Starline here.... been serving me well... But of course they do not get resized so there is little strain on them.
Mike

[Harry O]

When I was first fireforming .38 Special cases, I used a normal neck expander on the nose of the case and loaded powder and a bullet into it. There was enough of a straight section that it kept straight when firing. The trouble and cost of a bullet was what got me thinking about a longer (full length) inside neck expanding die. My bro-in-law had a lathe and he made a steel one for me. You don't even need to machine a thread on it. I took a Lee 44-40 sizer/decapper die (any die larger than the 41LC will work) that uses a straight rod with a collet to hold it. That is a lot easier than machining threads.

Just make sure to taper the bottom of the expander. If you have a straight inside neck expander, where the bottom of the case starts thickening will become too large for a 41LC die. Of course, I was using a set of Lyman 310 dies and handles at the time so I had no leverage to try to size them back down. With my newer, stronger dies, it probably would not be a problem, but why strain the case any more than necessary. So what I ended up with was a rod that was 0.386" OD for the inside length of the .38 Special case and tapered on the free end. The rest was a smaller diameter part (I forget the size, but I think it was 3/16") that was almost as long that fitted inside the Lee collet. Very simple to make.

I did find out that annealing the .38 Special cases made it easier and there were no losses that way. Any small flaw in one that was not annealed would split. Also, non-annealed ones cracked fairly quickly even if they did not split on forming. I took a steel rod about the inside diameter of the .38 Special case, had a bucket of cold water, and a propane torch. I held the mouth of the case in the flame (rotating it) until it started to turn dull red and then turned the steel rod down which dropped the case into the water. That kept the bases strong. Do not over heat them (to bright red or even orange) or the cases will be too soft -- they will bulge or buckle when you try to crimp them.

[missionary5155]

Roger that commo THANKS !!!
Mike