What Lee conical bullet mold

[parabellum]

I have a Euroarms Rogers and Spencer BP revolver in .44 and would like to try conical bullets. What Lee mold would you recommend.

I also have the following powders:

Triple 7
Swiss no. 2
Henry Krank Fine

Can you also recommend a starting load please.

Thanks for your help.

[tim56]

Firstly good luck with the conicals. Tried em once in mine and found them awkward to load and shot too high compared to round ball.
Swiss 2 is a great powder for the Rogers, around 16 grns as a mild starting point with a semolina filler and over ball lube. Up the load
till you find your sweet spot. Kranks powder goes bang and some swear by it but personally iv found it dirty and you will need to up
the charge to get the same level of UMPH compared to Swiss. Tried 777 once and yes it works but too be honest i don't know anyone
with a b/p licence that uses anything but b/p.
I would try 16 grns of Swiss with a filler and work up till you find a sweet spot. Mine likes 20 grns of TS2 with 2 x .7cc scoops of semolina
and a covering of Wonderlube over the balls. I also use Remington no11 caps. Tac swears by E45 as a lube which also seems to work well
but iv got several pots of Wonderlube so thats what I'm using at the moment.
Have fun and let us know how you get on. Tim

[parabellum]

Thanks for your help Tim, what mold did you use to cast your conicals?

Was it 16 grains volume of Swiss?

[tacfoley]

Firstly good luck with the conicals. Tried em once in mine and found them awkward to load and shot too high compared to round ball.
Swiss 2 is a great powder for the Rogers, around 16 grns as a mild starting point with a semolina filler and over ball lube. Up the load
till you find your sweet spot. Kranks powder goes bang and some swear by it but personally iv found it dirty and you will need to up
the charge to get the same level of UMPH compared to Swiss. Tried 777 once and yes it works but too be honest i don't know anyone
with a b/p licence that uses anything but b/p.
I would try 16 grns of Swiss with a filler and work up till you find a sweet spot. Mine likes 20 grns of TS2 with 2 x .7cc scoops of semolina
and a covering of Wonderlube over the balls. I also use Remington no11 caps. Tac swears by E45 as a lube which also seems to work well
but iv got several pots of Wonderlube so thats what I'm using at the moment.
Have fun and let us know how you get on. Tim

The reason that tac likes E45 is due to two things -

1. It is entirley soluble, and takes all the carp away with it as it washes off, and most importantly,

2. With guests often shooting north of a couple of hundred shots on a day, E45 is MUCH cheaper than anything else. I get Bore butter for my rifle when I'm over in Oregon - and it's less than half the price it is here, but FSR, my ROA is not keen on the embrocation-smell...

tac

[DesG]

I had no luck at all with conicals in my R & S (Italian) I've settled on a Lee 454 ball with 25gn of Henry's finestkind fine black with a dollop of E45 on top. It goes BANG very nicely. The accuracy is enough to keep in the black at twenty five but I'm sure I can pull them in a bit yet. I haven't tried Swiss as Keens want £65 a kilo down here in Wales which is a bit pricey for plinking with. Tac misses one vital bonus of using e45 (apart from the half price tubs I got from the local chemist). It makes your hands soft as a baby's bottom by the end of the shooting day!

[tim56]

I think it was a Lee 450-200-1R mould but i no longer have it so can't confirm this for certain. A Lee mould only costs about £20 so
not too expensive but i found them VERY fiddly to load and they shot high if i remember right. A start load of 16 grns of Swiss
would be a good starting point and work up till you find a load that works in your gun. Mine seems to like 20 grns of TS2 which
would probably equate to 18 grns of Swiss in power terms. Each gun is different and you will have to experiment with what ever
powder/bullet combination you have to find your own sweet spot. Its all part of the fun of shooting B/P.
Unlike shooting a .22 rimfire for arguments sake where you buy a gun and bullets shooting a B/P handgun takes a bit more input.
Yes you buy your choice of gun but you've then got to figure out how to be accurate with it. What works in one persons Rogers won't
necessarily work in another Rogers but it won't be far off so its a case of experimenting with lots of practise. Thats the fun bit.
Keep us informed how you get on. Tim

[tacfoley]

I had no luck at all with conicals in my R & S (Italian) I've settled on a Lee 454 ball with 25gn of Henry's finestkind fine black with a dollop of E45 on top. It goes BANG very nicely. The accuracy is enough to keep in the black at twenty five but I'm sure I can pull them in a bit yet. I haven't tried Swiss as Keens want £65 a kilo down here in Wales which is a bit pricey for plinking with. Tac misses one vital bonus of using e45 (apart from the half price tubs I got from the local chemist). It makes your hands soft as a baby's bottom by the end of the shooting day!

Well, after over thirty years of using the stuff, I didn't think it was necessary to highlight yet another benefit of E45........

...and the bigger the tub, the cheaper by far it works out.

tac

[Hares Ear]

I'm sorry I can't help you with a choice of mold. I've usually ended up with custom molds after slugging and measuring my bores. But as for choice of the powders you have got. I've shot various types of Swiss and Krank's course, medium and fine. Through several different rifles/calibres.

Swiss is three times the price of Krank's.

Krank's isn't three times dirtier.

Krank's doesn't make three times as much smoke.

You don't need three times as much Krank's to make your gun go bang.

You don't need to clean your gun or cases three times more often with Krank's

Your slug still makes it to the target at 400 yards with Krank's

Your groups are no bigger with Kranks.

Guess what powder I use.

[airgunnut]

I've shot various types of Swiss and Krank's course, medium and fine. Through several different rifles/calibres.

Swiss is three times the price of Krank's.

Krank's isn't three times dirtier.

Krank's doesn't make three times as much smoke.

You don't need three times as much Krank's to make your gun go bang.

You don't need to clean your gun or cases three times more often with Krank's

Your slug still makes it to the target at 400 yards with Krank's

Your groups are no bigger with Kranks.

Guess what powder I use.

Couldn't have said it better myself!!