Advice on loading my ROA

[lasbrisas]

Need some views/opinions on loading my Ruger Old Army, 2 other guys at my club do it differently. One uses the wads between powder and ball and the other covers the loaded chamber with grease. Just wondered what is the best way to go really, also just bought some Hornady .457 cal ball, are there any good or bad makes.

[DedIdick]

Need some views/opinions on loading my Ruger Old Army, 2 other guys at my club do it differently. One uses the wads between powder and ball and the other covers the loaded chamber with grease. Just wondered what is the best way to go really, also just bought some Hornady .457 cal ball, are there any good or bad makes.

I'm a grease on top of the ball guy. Also too tight to buy or make greased wads.
I cast my balls these days rather than buy. Don't know if there are good & bad makes of balls, anybody in our club who blames their shooting on their balls is duly ridiculed.

[harricook]

Hiya

I have finally managed to get this new fangled search facility working !!

Heres links to a couple of threads on wads

http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....ighlight=ruger

http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....ighlight=ruger

Regarding ball - cast are cheaper than swaged - but I can't bring myself to pay shop prices even then - think Andy charges £7 or £7.50/100 for his cast ball & the last Hornady swaged I saw were about £11 Edit: - just seen the Hornady ball on MidwayUK .....£14.47/100 [ eeeeeeeeeeek !]

I am casting my own soft lead ball in .457 & also making my own wads - my Dad is using filler - it's all down to preference

I use wads to bring the ball flush & put a tiny squirt of grease on two cylinders to keep any fouling soft when I am shooting BP
With Nitro - I Alox the ball/bullet whatever I am playing with & shoot on

Roy
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[tim56]

As per above i cast my own .457 balls using lead flashing or old lead water pipes. Iv also been playing with the conical bullets in my ROA cast from the same soft lead but prefer to use round ball. Much less fiddly to load for one thing. I use 16 grns of swiss fffg and semolina as a filler to bring the ball to the top of the cylinder, this is topped of with a dollop of water pump grease on every chamber to keep fouling soft applied with a lolly stick. A no11 remington cap and away we go.
Some shooters prefer wads, some fillers. Some shooters prefer B/P and some 777 or pyrodex. Some use a lube, some dont. It all comes down to personal choice and finding what works for you.
Let us all know how you get on, especially with the swaged balls. I got a couple of boxs with my last Ruger purchase and iv never tried them. Tim

[lasbrisas]

Thanks guys for all the replies, we have an evening of ROA shooting tomorrow, myself and 2 other guys from my club so will see how we get on.

[cmnicholls]

Grease or wad, both are there to do the same thing, keep the fouling soft,
Which is best from a shooting point of view, which ever one works best in your gun, the difference is marginal at best.

Pro and cons
Wads are more expensive to use but are much cleaner as far as your hands are concerned.some of the lubricants used in the wads are better at keeping the fouling down for more shots than lard or Vaseline

Grease is cheap to use but your gun and your hands soon get a good coat of sooty grease.You can buy the same lubricants that they put in the wads but this pushes the price per shot up or you can make your own mixture.

Personally i use wonder lube 1000 in wads when shooting BP revolvers and the same lube on the bullet when shooting BP rifle, i have found it keeps the fouling in check for the mornings shoot and makes it easy to clean up afterwards.

No doubt someone will have a different opinion

Regards
Clinton

[tim56]

Yep. I use wonder lube for 45/70 b/p bullets and 577 mini bullets plus soak my patches in it. Brilliant stuff which works well in the revolvers if a bit runny in summer. Smells good too. Iv got a big tub of water pump grease which cost me nowt and works well so will stick with that till it runs out (if ever). Must admit it is a bit messy though, but who cares, its free

[lasbrisas]

Well I had a good shooting session with the ROA last night. We were outside til about 8pm, one question I have for everyone is how do you put your caps on, do you push them on harder after as I had a couple that didn't go off first time. Also I got the odd used cap fall down into the mechanism and jam up the cylinder.

[harricook]

Well I had a good shooting session with the ROA last night. We were outside til about 8pm, one question I have for everyone is how do you put your caps on, do you push them on harder after as I had a couple that didn't go off first time. Also I got the odd used cap fall down into the mechanism and jam up the cylinder.

I use No 10s & use an inline capper - then push them on again with a small wood dowel

Done it this was for years with my Remington NMA & then the ROA

Roy
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[davederrick]

I find the inline capper a pain to use on NMA, just stuff them on by hand & if they dont go 1st time then hammer the same cap again.
My NMA is stainless, so fouling is pretty easy to shift, grease is too sticky IMHO.

[harricook]

I find the inline capper a pain to use on NMA, just stuff them on by hand & if they dont go 1st time then hammer the same cap again.
My NMA is stainless, so fouling is pretty easy to shift, grease is too sticky IMHO.

I have two types of capper - one works on the ROA & one doesn't

Roy

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[Rollo]

If you want the best way to cap a ROA by MILES get yourself Thompson u-view capper,

http://www.midwayuk.com/apps/eproduc...eItemID=564558

Holds 100 caps and works everytime. I can't remember the last time I dropped a cap using one of these.

[lasbrisas]

I use No 10s & use an inline capper - then push them on again with a small wood dowel

Done it this was for years with my Remington NMA & then the ROA

Roy
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Roy, interesting that you use no 10s as I think we were using no 11s, also are there good and bad makes. What's the difference between the 2, I would assume it's the diameter of the cap.

[lilguy43uk]

Roy, interesting that you use no 10s as I think we were using no 11s, also are there good and bad makes. What's the difference between the 2, I would assume it's the diameter of the cap.

My ROA eats 10s and cappers designed to work with 11s are bad feeders of 10s.

[harricook]

Roy, interesting that you use no 10s as I think we were using no 11s, also are there good and bad makes. What's the difference between the 2, I would assume it's the diameter of the cap.

I'm using CCi No 10s purchased in bulk from Peter Starley at the last Trafalgar (stocked up on BP too !!)

My ROA eats 10s and cappers designed to work with 11s are bad feeders of 10s.

My cappers both are for No 11 caps & both work fine with No 10s - just that one works with the ROA due to the shape of the 'delivery system' and the other one doesnt ?

Once on - I then use a small wooden dowel to push on firmly

Never seem to get any cap or debris jams with the ROA as I always did with the Rem NMA

I load off the gun for both BP & Nitro - on a 6gun4fun loading stand

I seem to get about three times as much shooting in using the stand - as I did when I was using the gun on its own

Roy
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