NDR - Black powder ?

Tom Scholberg

Tom Scholberg

Well-known member
I am the proud owner of a new replica 1858 New Army cap & ball revolver. One question. I am not new to either black powder or percusion guns BUT how do you get the caps on and keep them on ???? I got a straight line capper with the terrible POS starter kit from Cabelas and the caps either fall off the nipple or the capper comes apart. I have a Ted Cash capper that is supposed to be a pistol capper but that must mean for a single shot. Otherwise it is a blast to shoot but a bit on the frustrating side loading. Also any hints and clues from you BP guys wouold be appreciated. Listening Parks???
Shiny side up,
Wicker T & Walker
 
My first BP gun was a New Model Army. An old gunsmith in town taught me how to load it..take a 45 acp empty case and use it for your powder measure..1 case full of 3F..then use a .451 round ball..crush it into the cylinder and put vaseline over the ball....cap the nipples..pushing them on tightly..and pack around them with vaseline. This was 30+ years ago and there are a lot better things instead of vaseline to use that aren't so dirty. I shot myself in the forhead..between the eyes with mine...knocked me to my knees and unconcious for a second or two...remember those old cannonball smudgepots they used for road work? I had one set about 15 yards away and shot it dead center..the ball flattened out on it and came back and decked me..be carefull what you shoot at! That gun was a lot of fun and kills rabbits stone dead with no meat damage other that a 45cal hole in it. You may have to try different caps to find some that fit snug enough. My Ruger Old Army and Colt Walker would take bigger(different brand) caps than the New Army.
 
Lee, Thanks for the input & story. I may use that one anonomously in a firearms safety class. The 45 ACP powder measure is a good one. I have been using Pyrodex pellets and can see how people get adicted to the ease of them. I am kinda ol' school, some may say pre-school so I will need to get used to loading loose powder. I have already "run balls" for it, about 200 yesterday. Am looking foreward to a bunch of fun with this one. I am not sure of the necessity of greasing over the balls once loaded tho. I know it is suposed to prevent them from firing all at once which could ruin a perfectly good day but what do you think? The idea of greasing in the cap is for weatherproofing?? or to keep them on?? Thanks again.
Shiny side up,
Wicker T ,Walker & Charlie Brown
 
Tom, I think the greasing on the ball was more for weatherproofing and keeping the fouling soft..on the nipples, I think it was for keeping them on and preventing a gang fire. I didn't do it very much cause the crap would spray out and sometimes the cap fragments would hang the cylinder up since they were all stuck to the tar of vaseline/burnt powder. Didn't they come out with a lubed overpowder wad for revolvers? Mine was really accurate and I had a lot of fun shooting it.
 
Tom, I don't have pistola but my friends do. Every thing I heard about the lubing over the ball to prevent gang fireing is nessary. Instead of vasiline try Natural Lube 1000+ Bore Butter by Thompson/Center It's a thicker consistancey than vasiline. I also use it for lubing the barrels on muzzle loaders after there cleaned. It's what I use on patches for round balls. Good stuff. What Lee said about caps of the right size might be the problem there. Most of modern Muzzle loaders the cap size is pretty well standardized but if you have a replica it might not be. A staight line capper might help also. If Mountain Man Parks gets on this thread he proubly will give some insight. You know he was around when these thing were built. Hee hee
 
Pete, Thanks for the input. I will start covering the balls now. I use Bore Butter in my Hawkin also and it really is good stuff. The cap size is a #10 not an 11 like the rifle. A different brand could be the answer, I have Rem caps now.I have an in-line capper but it REALLY DOESN'T WORK WELL, the caps tip on there side and fall out if I am not really carefull. I can't imagine carrying one around and having it work when I need it. I did get a spare cylinder but you still have to cap it after you put it in unless you are Clint Eastwood. Does anyone remember what movie that was where he reloaded a cap and ball revolver with a spare cylinder during a gunfight?? Thanks again.
Shiny side up,
Wicker T, Walker & Charlie Brown
 
Tom,

I also had a time with the caps jumping off when the gun was fired. Different brand caps do help but cant remember offhand which seemed to be the tightest. I even considered replacing the nipples if I could find some that miked slightly bigger. I never tried greasing around the nipples but ALWAYS buttered up the the open ends of each cylinder. I've got a TC capper that the caps slide along a brass "U" channel onto a spring steel finger. At that point they can be pressed onto the nipple, works real well.

The only reason (and its a damm good reason) for NOT capping the loaded spare cylinder before installing it in the gun is, if you drop it there is a very good chance that you will ignite one of the caps and discharge that cylinder.
 
I think the ones I found that stayed on the best were RWS...they came in a blue plastic round box. I could never understand the reason for greasing over the ball to stop multiple ignition..unless the really old originals had poor borings on the chambers that would allow a flash past a shaved ball. It seems to me, with all the fire from the cap and nipple flame, that a uncapped nipple would be where the concern would be.
 
Thanks guys, You've all given me plenty to try and think about. This board is much like I feel about teaching in a vocational college. There is sooo much experience and good advice here that I can hardly stand it.
Shiny side up,
Wicker T, Walker & Charlie Brown
 
OOOH yeah, having a loaded spare go off in your pocket would be yet one more way to ruin a perfectly good day.
Shiny side up,
Wicker T, Walker & Charlie Brown
 
Pale Rider and The Outlaw Josey Wales...changed cylinders in both movies. " Nothing like a good piece of hickory"..." We love you preacher"
 
bullets with grease back then was because they weren't just loading and shooting....

Remember that cowboys shot their guns rarely...even while soldiering the guns were loaded and then a good deal of time might pass between the time the gun was loaded and the round was actually expended....

That "time" could cause the ball to shift and pwder to migrate from behind the ball. What might have been a "clean" loading could become a dangerous one. To prevent that they covered the ball with grease.

In battle, if they reloaded their pistols at all, the grease over the ball was omitted. Hollywood has popularized the "cylinder swap". I'm not sure how often that actually happened. In some pretty extensive reading about the cavalry units in the Civil War I've found several references of "multiple pistols" but nothing at all about "multiple cylinders". This makes sense given the use of 'pistols" as anything other than a last resort was a Cavalry thing and changing out a cylinder while mounted, and in battle, would have been a pretty difficult.....

Cavalry battles were, by design, quick, violent and demoralizing, and were over pretty quickly...if it was still "in progress" after a very short time then it became ineffective.

Hollywood invented the "gunfights" like we all think about but from what I've read they were also quick, violent and over well before anyone thought about making their second cylinder shift in a 7 against 1 gunfight.....my guess is that the cylinder shift didn't happen much in the very few years between the popularization of the pistol and the conversion to cartridge.

Thats what I've read anyway...


Steve
 
I agree with that..especially with the filthier black powder of the day. Unless the pistol was really clean before firing, the cylinder wedge is kinda a bitch to get out anyway. The Colt Walker was the M-16 of it's day though and was probably more powerful than most of the rifles since it held 60 grains of powder. The unit that got those had one mounted on each side of the saddle....could you imagine being charged by them..12 shots each..like you said "demoralizing"! The one I had was awesome to shoot..and pretty damn filthy..after a couple shots it was very hard to cock it.
 
and the WALKER Colt was a big part of that legend...and I guess so when the only other pistol of any popularity at the time was the Colt Patterson, which was a real "ladies gun" in comparison....

Two per man in saddle holsters....makes sense given the size of the gun...hell can you imagine wearing a pair of those hand cannons around you waist....drawing one out of a holster must have been an event to see as well....

If memory serves the "dragoon" was a big improvement on the Walker almost matching its performance in a smaller, more manageable, package....Mattie Ross, you know from "near Darnell county" toted one, "BY GOD GIRL ..thats a Colt's Dragoon" and "well I wouldn't be afraind of no booger man if I was armed with a horse pistol either"...in True Grit as did Josey Wales.

Steve
 
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I think saying the Colt Walker was like the M16 of it's day is stretching it's importance. It is probably more like the Barrett .50 cal of today. A specialty weapon only used by a few since so few were manufactured. The Walker, and maybe even the Dragoon to some degree, might have been the high point of percussion revolvers, in terms of power, but few probably ever saw one in person.

Heck, as far as I can tell Josey did just as well killing with his pocket pistols.

Tim
 
was so limited that it was little seen...but it was still a fearsome weapon given the guys that they were up against were likely still toting a single shot rifle and if they had a pistol at all it was most likely a singleshot muzzle loader....

I'm not sure on the Dragoon...I didn't check numbers on it but I think it was much more widely used and seen and had a more significant impact as a result........

Ahh Hollywood....the little pocket stuff that Clint used to kill more people than the plague over his ears as a gunfigter were .36 caliber guns with little short barrels that produced such poor velocities that they were of little value except at across the card table ranges....I'd bet that few of the gunfighters of old carried them as anything but a pure backup gun and they sure didn't figure on them as one of their "primary" weapons like good old Josie did.....

And imagine the problems with carrying, and charging, pistols that wereof two different calibers.....two sets of molds for the balls, there being few Cabela's around in those days...two powder measures, (assuming they used them,and maybe they didn't given the poor quality of thepwder in those days), etc. etc....

I find it hard to imagine a guy not just going all one caliber as he stuffed his half a dozen pistols into various holsters, belts, pockets and crevices....seems much easier and certainly given the number of people old Clint killed there were plenty of weapons to choose from.....

Steve
 
I read somewhere that the firearm of choice for most TRUE gunfighters..was a rifle...with the 10ga Greener being second choice. I think Wild Bill Hickock carried twin 36 cal. Navy revolvers. He was effective because he was so cool..draw..aim..fire..while the other guy was just trying to be fast.. I agree that at BP velocities..heavier was better..but I sure wouldn't want to be smacked with a 75gr, 36 cal ball at any range that it had forward momentum. Hell, give me a Mod 86 Win. in 50/90 and anybody that picked a fight, or done me wrong would never hear the shot.
 
I'd always thought that 5,000 or 10,000 Dragoons were built but after a little looking that might be what the military bought. I see know that around 20,000 might have been made. At least that is the numbers I see. Probably enough to make it an often seen but not common gun in the civil war and early west. I think there were only about 1,000 Walker.
Armies and Navies might not have been better but they are what the vast majority had.

The Josey comment was tongue in check about the pocket pistols, although I like the movie.
Wild Bill used the Colt Navy and I believe at first he used the .36 and he is reported to have reloaded every day(I think that is more myth then fact). The pair he had when he was shot were converted .44's but I'm pretty sure he used a few different ones through his career. That may do more to prove you right that the .36 was best for shooting across a card table. :)

Tim
 
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