double shots in a cap and ball 44

[farmbif]

ive been reading this series of books about mountain man preacher, by William Johnstone and quite often it talks about double loaded cylinders in a cap and ball gun. two lead balls loaded in each cylinder. is this just fiction or is it something that can be done safely and if so how?

[Winger Ed.]

I'm not a cap & ball guy, but I wouldn't do it any more than I would put two standard size boolits in a .38Spec.
or anything else. I'd heard of BP rifles loaded with 'buck & ball' but I'd be rather leary of that too
if the combined weight was much more than the standard bullet for one.

I'd think the pressure would go way up when it fired.
A Remington design might be OK and hold together,
but I sure wouldn't want to be holding a open top like a Walker Colt when it went off with 2 boolits.

[stubshaft]

I don't think that pressure would be a problem as there would be very limited space for the powder. I'm thinking of maybe 15-20 grains behind the two balls. Velocity would be dismal.

[Castaway]

Even in a rifle, two balls don’t do very well in accuracy at any distance. A ball has a BC just above a rock, and when the base of the front bullet meets the front of the lower bullet, the deformation is significant on both balls. If I were jump shooting rabbits I might consider it, but not practical even for that

[HWooldridge]

I don't think that pressure would be a problem as there would be very limited space for the powder. I'm thinking of maybe 15-20 grains behind the two balls. Velocity would be dismal.

^^^This. Two balls in anything except a Walker or muzzle loaded pistol wouldn’t have much powder capacity.

[Swineherd]

Could take some .38 cal round balls and squashthem until they're approximately .45 wide.

They'd be flattened to conserve room for a powder charge.

Might need to get creative with your squashing method, to conserve a profile which would accommodate loading the disks without having them turn all cattywompus.

[armoredman]

I've seen a double load fired from a barrel being tested, two .54 caliber balls and a honking big powder load - no worries. But in a revolver? MAYBE a Ruger Old Army...

[Swineherd]

How in the devil could this possibly be dangerous?

Just because it's something you've never imagined before doesn't automatically categorize it as dangerous.

[ascast]

I seem to vaguely recall a 45-70 Guard Duty load that was 3 balls over black powder. I'd have to check the books before I loaded any.

[HWooldridge]

I seem to vaguely recall a 45-70 Guard Duty load that was 3 balls over black powder. I'd have to check the books before I loaded any.

I tried this once with a 45-70 rolling block - and although nothing bad happened, accuracy was pretty horrible. I seem to recall one ball hit the target at 25 yds and the other two hit the outer frame. For any type of accuracy, stick to a single bullet, even if it's just a short collar button boolit. Nothing is gained by using more pills.

[Swineherd]

Pills are gained.

[stubshaft]

How in the devil could this possibly be dangerous?

Just because it's something you've never imagined before doesn't automatically categorize it as dangerous.

You want to imagine a dangerous spike in pressure? Load a ball with some airspace between the ball and powder!

[HWooldridge]

Pills are gained.

Es verdad.

[Swineherd]

You want to imagine a dangerous spike in pressure? Load a ball with some airspace between the ball and powder!

Oh, I thought we were talking about loading a powder charge under two appropriately sized projectiles, with no air space.

Generally, when someone asks a question about changing a single variable within a standard procedure, I don't answer the question under the assumption that every other variable will be changed in the most catastrophic way possible.

But, since that's the game we're playing now, has anyone warned the OP against loading a huge powder charge, with a large air space, under two oversized projectiles, into a revolver that has ten sticks of dynamite duct taped around the barrel?

While playing in traffic?

[armoredman]

What do you have against playing in traffic? I told my kid to do that every other day...:lol::kidding:

[farmbif]

well I wasn't thinking of trying this. just wondering if anyone has ever heard of this being done. or I guess we can chalk it up to pure fiction. Johnstone's books are fiction but a bunch of the stuff in them is based on facts from historical archives.

[Swineherd]

There are plenty of examples of multiple projectiles in single cartridges. I wouldn't doubt more than a handful have played with them in cap and ball revolvers.

[JSnover]

You can load two or even three balls over smokeless powder. It didn't shoot very well when I tried it in a .357 revolver (a long time ago) and the cases often split, but the gun held up ok. I can't remember the load data but whoever commented about the reduced powder capacity is correct.
We're talking about black powder here and I imagine that would be even safer when properly loaded, given the amount of compression I've applied to some BP cartridges loaded with Goex 3F. I just wouldn't expect it to shoot very well.

[William Yanda]

How in the devil could this possibly be dangerous?

Just because it's something you've never imagined before doesn't automatically categorize it as dangerous.

Let me observe that if it was practiced, it was not widely copied.

[Doughty]

farmbif, just because something was not done often or not efficiently, doesn't mean that somebody didn't do it and might have thought it was a great thing. At one time .22 shorts were thought to be suitable self-defense rounds.

[Doughty]

farmbif, just because something was not done often or not efficiently, doesn't mean that somebody didn't do it and might have thought it was a great thing. At one time .22 shorts were thought to be suitable self-defense rounds. So maybe Johnstone's character thought he was a tacticool dude and just didn't know any better.

[Chill Wills]

You can say that again.

[Swineherd]

I'm sure most of you have heard of snake shot loads for cap and ball. How different is this, really?

[armoredman]

Buck and ball writ small?

[Swineherd]

Buck and ball writ small?

Right. Except, in this case, the rifling is still beneficial.

[indian joe]

I'm sure most of you have heard of snake shot loads for cap and ball. How different is this, really?

??????not even close to similar...............................

[Swineherd]

??????not even close to similar...............................

Certainly similar. Also, not the same.

[Larry Gibson]

We should remember the RB weighs less than the typical bullet used in percussion revolvers. In a 35 caliber the RB weighs about 80 gr where the bullet [37583] weighs in about 150 gr. Two RBs are going to weigh 160 gr and they will, as mentioned, eat up a lot of powder space. As per Lyman's Black Powder Handbook a 12 gr charge of 4fg under that bullet gave a measured pressure [LUP] of 9,200. Thus, if one could get the same 12 gr under the double RBs I doubt the pressure would be much higher than that 9,200. Considering Lyman list a max load of 15 gr 4Fg for the bullet at a LUP of 10,600 I doubt the double RB load will prove excessive let alone catastrophic.

[Texas by God]

I once had more than one ball come out of my C&B .44 when I pulled the trigger.
It got my attention!
I’ve used ox yoke or similar wads since and happily no more chain fires occurred…..
Is that the same thing????[emoji16]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Grapeshot]

The Army played around the multiple ball loads since the 1850's. J.S. & Pat Wolf's Book on loading the .45-70 with three .457 RBs over a charge of 40 grains of 2Fg for the military guard load is listed. you might get away with using a reduced charge of 3Fg in the Reminton 1858 the Walker Colt, or the Dragoons. I wouldn't try it in a Colt '51, '61, or the 1860 Army.

[Hellgate]

UHHHhhhh....... I did the two ball loading multiple times back when I was in high school using my Uberti '61 .36cal Navy. As has been repeated there isn't a lot of room for powder under two balls. My rationale at the time was based on the weight of a typical 38 SPL bullet of 158 grs vs 140 grs for two .375 balls being propelled by ~12grs powder and the old adage I read somewhere that said "you can't blow up a cap & ball revolver because you can't get too much black powder in the chamber". I survived it and went on to other activities of a similar nature. The gun is still as tight as the day I got it back in 1968 after a thousand rounds or so through it.

[indian joe]

The Army played around the multiple ball loads since the 1850's. J.S. & Pat Wolf's Book on loading the .45-70 with three .457 RBs over a charge of 40 grains of 2Fg for the military guard load is listed. you might get away with using a reduced charge of 3Fg in the Reminton 1858 the Walker Colt, or the Dragoons. I wouldn't try it in a Colt '51, '61, or the 1860 Army.

hmmmm then we get the bloke that tells us an 1860 army colt is stronger than the remington ? I think it was Mike (45 Dragoon) which got my attention brecause I thought he proly knew what he was talkin about.......................

[john.k]

Id say you can blow them up....Sam'l Colt wrote a number of times to his detailers about returning guns with blown cylinders as discreetly as possible.......and we all know Colts first revolver business went bust due to blown cylinders .

[Chill Wills]

Id say you can blow them up....Sam'l Colt wrote a number of times to his detailers about returning guns with blown cylinders as discreetly as possible.......and we all know Colts first revolver business went bust due to blown cylinders .

Yes. The steel in those early days could barely be called steel. In fact, we read various batches weren't even close to being the same and full of inclusions. I was a little boy at the time so I only know what I read. To address the very weak cylinders, Colt and his foreman outsourced better steel from across the pond. The Colt Walkers had the problem in spades and in response, the Dragoons had better steel and smaller powder capacity.

[alfadan]

The question is...what do you do with a chamber with three balls?



You walk it and pitch to the rifle!

[YippyKiYay]

David Crockett was known to prefer the 40 caliber flintlock rifle to hunt bears. He killed over 100 his last year on earth.
I have heard that many double balled their rifle for large game, especially if bayed or treed by hounds. As a handgun is mostly a defensive arm, long range isn't an issue with it either.
It sounded like bad news to get hit with 2 balls, which is the intent, IMHO.

[indian joe]

Even in a rifle, two balls don’t do very well in accuracy at any distance. A ball has a BC just above a rock, and when the base of the front bullet meets the front of the lower bullet, the deformation is significant on both balls. If I were jump shooting rabbits I might consider it, but not practical even for that

one of our best ML riflemen was accused (by a jealous competitor) of double loading because of several little pairs on his offhand target - he challenged the accuser to "show us how you do that" the guy shot off the bench and both balls almost missed - hit a good foot apart at 50 yards

[nanuk]

I remember reading a book about muzzleloading by Fadala, and there are pictures there with obviously 2 balls coming out of the barrel

as for airspace, as anyone actually tested that wive's tale? I have read many times where a cartridge rifle was shot with a lesser powder charge that left an airspace between the bullet/powder.... well, how could it really unless you were shooting straight up??

I had a 500BPE and fired it many times with a downloaded round, as recoil was.... er... impressive in that rifle.
never once did it ever feel like a full power load

in a muzzleloader, I don't know how an airspace would cause any concern, except for poor performance

[indian joe]

I remember reading a book about muzzleloading by Fadala, and there are pictures there with obviously 2 balls coming out of the barrel

as for airspace, as anyone actually tested that wive's tale? I have read many times where a cartridge rifle was shot with a lesser powder charge that left an airspace between the bullet/powder.... well, how could it really unless you were shooting straight up??

I had a 500BPE and fired it many times with a downloaded round, as recoil was.... er... impressive in that rifle.
never once did it ever feel like a full power load

in a muzzleloader, I don't know how an airspace would cause any concern, except for poor performance

seen a couple of muzzleloader barrels with a nice little bulge just right at the base of a short started ball

22/250 barrel with a ring bulge near the muzzle (I believe that one was left in an open machinery shed for a bit and proly fired with a mud wasp nest n it )
based on those I never felt the urge to test the "wives tale"

I started out on Fadalas books - cover to cover more than once - didnt see the pic of the two ball load - which book?

[scattershot]

In a handgun, I would imagine that loading two balls like that would severely limit the powder capacity in a revolver. Maybe the author meant a single shot pistol? I can see that being done.

[ebb]

A friend from high school used to hunt muzzle loader season here in south Florida with a double 12 gage. He told us that he never could get a very good group with buck shoot, so he took wire fishing leader and made a hoop then split the buckshot like split shot fishing weights and clamped them equally spaced around the circle of wire. He stuffed the whole mess down the barrel, he swore it always made a good group. How could it not? When he was shooting the 12 double I stayed far away.

[nanuk]

It was a Digest about ML information

Articles by Fadala. I may still have it somewhere

But I remembered that picture
Two balls just outside the muzzle in a high speed still frame
Obviously they were seated together
The article may have mentioned that the balls have to be loaded together touching
Pretty easy to do
I have done so with two and three balls in my inline
Sure ups the recoil

Bulges caused by ‘obstructions’ is certainly not the same thing
Caution is warranted but the practice is not dangerous as far as I can tell

[nanuk]

seen a couple of muzzleloader barrels with a nice little bulge just right at the base of a short started ball

22/250 barrel with a ring bulge near the muzzle (I believe that one was left in an open machinery shed for a bit and proly fired with a mud wasp nest n it )
based on those I never felt the urge to test the "wives tale"

I started out on Fadalas books - cover to cover more than once - didnt see the pic of the two ball load - which book?

The ML in question must have had a hard wad on the powder, or balled a second time where it was short started
And a nest could certainly stop up pressure and cause a bulge

Those two issues are unrelated to loading a double ball load
Just like a double/triple ball in a shotshell, when done right pose no risk

Ima check to see if I can find that book
I know I had it 35 or so years ago

[nanuk]

A friend from high school used to hunt muzzle loader season here in south Florida with a double 12 gage. He told us that he never could get a very good group with buck shoot, so he took wire fishing leader and made a hoop then split the buckshot like split shot fishing weights and clamped them equally spaced around the circle of wire. He stuffed the whole mess down the barrel, he swore it always made a good group. How could it not? When he was shooting the 12 double I stayed far away.

Nothing inherently unsafe about that practice but in my jurisdiction is quite illegal and could net you jail time