Bullet Composition

[AlBur]

Ruger Old Army with a modified cylinder to use nitro powder.
Have been shooting 0.457 soft lead cast balls. Lee have a 220 grain RN bullet, 0.456, specifically for the ROA.
Would the harder lead normally recovered from lead wheel weights be okay to cast & use the bullets in the ROA.
Would welcome your opinion.

Al

[tacfoley]

Ruger Old Army with a modified cylinder to use nitro powder.
Have been shooting 0.457 soft lead cast balls. Lee have a 220 grain RN bullet, 0.456, specifically for the ROA.
Would the harder lead normally recovered from lead wheel weights be okay to cast & use the bullets in the ROA.
Would welcome your opinion.

Al

Nossir - the benefit of shooting a conversion is not in the higher velocity obtained from shooting a nitro propellant, but in the lack of cleaning necessary to keep it shooting and much cheaper shooting got from the teeny amounts needed to equal BP velocities. Remember that there was nothing at all wrong with BP velocities - my 26gr of Pyrodex/777 gets me around the 880-900 fps figure. How much more do you want?

And another more important thing, wheel-weights in UK have not been made of lead for a number of years due to EU regulations - they are an odd mixture of pot-metals like Mazak and Zamak and all kinds of other cr- stuff.

On the other hand, go ahead and ignore the maker's instructions to use only soft lead - it's your gun after all [shrug].

I shoot the conical when I feel like getting more ooomph out of the ROA - I usually let noobs have a cylinder-load of each to feel the difference. And there is a LOT of difference, as you might imagine - the ball only weighs about 146gr and the conical, well, you said it.

tac

[AlBur]

Thanks for the reply.
Not looking for more umphhhhhhhh. Just looking to use up some questionable lead which has been lying around in the garage for several years.
Al.

[tacfoley]

Thanks for the reply.
Not looking for more umphhhhhhhh. Just looking to use up some questionable lead which has been lying around in the garage for several years.
Al.

If it is NOT PSL then you risk wrecking the loading lever trying to load it as you attempt to force a hard lead bullet into the chamber. C&B revolvers only work as well as they do because they are easy to load the soft ball into the chamber by shaving - a hard lead ball will be difficult, if not impossible, to force into the chamber.

I'd just like to point out, for the nth time in a the last few months, that there are positively NO replacement parts from Ruger now - they have ALL gone.

However, if you think that the stuff you have is soft enough, go ahead. 'snot my gun.

tac

[harricook]

Hi Albur

As TAC says - soft lead !!

I load both BP & Nitro in my second cylinder & I do shoot conicals using nitro. Still cast from the softest of soft

If you can mark your 'questionable' lead easily with your nail - I would (personally) use it.

If you cant - then you then have to decide if you want to spread it into 'other' lead that is hard enough for other nitro shooting - or if you are REALLY unsure about it - either sell it to the scrap man, make fishing weights, make diving weights .. I do one or the other with 'questionable' lead

I load my ROA cylinder off the gun - one, I can load it faster & therefore get more shootin' time & two, my loading lever, screw & anything associated will never wear out

What TAC says about these splendid guns is sadly true - no spares !

If you break a piece - look for a kindly machine shop owner


All the best & enjoy that gun

Roy
.

[tacfoley]

That's 'finger nail', BTW, NOT 'penny nail'.

If you can do that, then make up, say twenty, and try them out. I have a little lead tester [I bite my nails, y'see] that I try out on any suspect piece of lead. It's quite useful when you are at the top of a ladder on a roof at night, but it saves wasting time......

Ignore that.

tac

[AlBur]

Thanks guys. Much appreciate your input. Very much aware that there are no spares for this revolver & it is a nice piece of kit. The iffy lead can stay where it is & I will only use "soft" lead. I also load the cylinder off the frame so the usual to be bent centre pin/loading ram is not used for loading so is not stressed in any way.
A very very thin shaving comes off the 0.457 balls when loaded & the 0.456 RN bullets just enter the cylinder before being seated by the ram on the loading machine.
The Modified cylinder enabling me to use nitro/s'gun primers is very good.
(note I have a blank plate which fits on the back of the primed cylinder to enable me safely load the cylinder on a machine, out of the frame).
Sometime ago, before I bought a ROA, someone on BBS was trying to get together people who would buy a new centre pin/loading ram if available. He intended to have them made by a local engineering firm. Unfortunately there were not enough takers to make it viable. I would certainly go for such an offer as
that appears to be the weak part of the loading system.

Cheers
Al.

[tacfoley]

That was me.

Still haven't got enough to make it an economical go-er.

BTW, it's NOT weak, unless you try and load the gun with the locking screw undone - the effort to push the ball into the chamber is more than it takes to push the base pin out of the frame, and, given that it is usually done with the application of some 'oomph', the pin bends at the weakest point as it is now unsupported by the frame. In its normal location it is completely surrounded by tightly-fitting steel.

tac