ROA Advice

[lostcat]

Hi and thanks in advance for any advice,
Basically,looking to add a ROA with target sights before the year is out.

I've already got a Rem NMA target in .44 (& two .36's) so a .45 marked later model should be ok.
Anything known to avoid/walk away from would be much appreciated as the cost for a good one will be less than a lemon in the long term.
There seems to be a steady trickle of them for sale but no one at our BP club has one to find out the usefull things.

Another question would be,Does anyone use their own cast conicals ie Lee .456 or similar with good results,
Having persivered with Lee .450 with the Rem they work for me and go through linotex more reliably.

Cheers

[tacfoley]

I've had my ROA since March 1986, and have put hundreds of thousands of shots through it in that time - literally. Running a BP course with five or six shooters all getting around a hundred shots each, and I've run seventy such courses so far, means a lot of shooting. Plus, of course, guest days, gun-club noobs and my own shooting..

The ROA is THE definitive modern version of the Remington Model of 1858 with all the benefits of modern technology - coil spring and stainless steel and easy to dismantle and clean. Very accurate, and designed to take the heaviest loads practicable. Shoot ball or conical [ball is more accurate, trust me on that] and has been known, not in UK, to dust both sides of a 300 pound hog at around 25 yards.

I started out from the onset casting for it, using the Lee for ROA .457 mould - do NOT try and second-guess the diameter based on your present experience - .457 IS the size, and that's it. Nothing but lead, either - the best you can get. If the ball does NOT weigh 146-148gr, then it's NOT lead. Do a search on this forum - I've posted literaly dozens of posts about this fine pistol. I recommend that you read them. You mention Linotex, a material I am not familiar with. I'll just reiterate my advice - the ROA was designed to shoot a pure lead ball or conical bullet, not a metallic alloy material of any kind - s'up to you, though, if you have experience of doing better with it than lead.

Loads are entirely up to you, but for paper-punching a light load is good - around 25gr of FFFg suits most. Step it up a bit and shoot the same volume of Pyrodex P or Triple 7, and things get a bit more oomphtious, as you can see by watching my movies on Youtube - tac's guns Ruger Old Army. Top loads are around 40-45gr of a compressed charge, but only a masochist would enjoy shooting them at paper. Most like #11 caps, but some use #10 or even 10.5 - hard to find here, I'd guess. And HOT - the hotter the better, particularly if you shoot the subs. RWS HOT are the best I've ever used, on BP or subs.

All I can say is that with almost half a million of them made, it's a real surprise to find that Ruger has reneged on the supply of any spare parts. That is a fact - there are NO spares at all.

Replacement nipples of the correct hexagonal style are made not far from where we are in Oregon, by Butler Creek/Uncle Mikes, and are readily available at around a 1/3 of the price charged by a UK company, plus mailing charges. If you buy theirs, made in Italy, you'll also need to buy a new nipple wrench, too, adding to the already enthusiastic cost of around £32 plus shipping. I usually buy a spare set or two when I'm over there a couple of times a year for my fellow shooters in our club, where there are a goodly selection of them. For when anything serious goes bad, I have another couple of complete guns over in Oregon to use for bits - something that many shooters of my acquaintance have done, but as I noted in the beginning of my post, apart from nipples that eventually wear to large, little or nothing esle has ever gone amiss. I've replaced them ONCE in 26+ years, BTW. Over in the USA Treso make them out of a kind of bronze material, and they are around 35% of the UK price and look spiffy too. There is a short base pin unit that can be used if you have a bench loader, and load the cylinder out of the gun - some do, some don't. I don't. They are about $45 over there, and around £60 here - plus the bench loader, of course.

I hope that has convinced you to join the near half-million of us who enjoy our ROAs - for sure there will never be anything like it again, and Ruger need a solid kick up the a$se for ceasing production back in February 2008.

tac

[tim56]

I havent got Tac,s experience with the ROA but i have been shooting them for 12 years during which time iv owned three. Untill recently i had a stainless target model which
iv now sold to get something else. (wish id kept it, but too late now.) and a stainless short barrel one which iv still got and its a keeper. As said above .457" round ball or
conicals made from pure lead only and i use Remminton no11 caps. Im not aware of any ROA faults and iv never had a problem with any of mine that wasn't my fault.
I don't personally like conicals as iv found no advantage with them for target shooting and they are fiddly to load.
Ruger stopped making them some time ago and as Tac says theres no spares. Prices seem to be going up so if you can find a good one at sensible money grab it. Tim.

[lostcat]

Thanks so much for the replies
My NMA .44 SS target has .448 chambers so .450-200, an old Uberti NMA 6 1/2" target from '72 is RB .38 only with deep chambers minimum load with 777 and a 3 mm cork wad is 19grns by equiv vol.
The alleged new improved Uberti navy NMA is best with the .375 conical.
I have read and viewed a fair amount but first hand experience is priceless.
I cast my own from roofing lead,my brother is a builder so there is a plentifull supply,no mixing or alloys.
The Ruger handbook is clear about .457 RB,as a clockmaker I measure everything.
It was more "what gets messed up?"
A neighbouring constabulary were trying to sell theirs that have been through a gunsmith and are not good.

[tacfoley]

Hmmmm. Check out that roofing 'lead. As I noted, that ball SHOULD weigh 146-146gr to be lead. IME, modern so-called roofing lead has ALL kinds of strange stuff in it that you really don't want to be breathing, judging by the hallucinogenic colours that appear floating on the top of the furnace melt. I got lucky many years ago, when our house in Chester, converted from Victorian lead to modern copper plumbing, in the fifties, was being sold, and we found almost 600 kg of this beautiful stuff to shoot in stashed in an outhouse.

Still, you have good experience already, so I'll shut up now and let you get on with it. Don't pay more than £400, BTW, and if you can get another one, do so.

[EDIT. Silly ol' me. This is UK, where such shenanigins are made desperately difficult, on account of the threat to public safety imposed by somebody having what may be TWO identical guns - WMDs like BP handguns......]

A word of caution - the stainless rear frame screws have a nylon thread insert, somewhat in the style of a Nyloc screw or bolt. They WILL wear out quickly unless you keep an eyetrumpet on making sure that they are always good and tight. I bought the very last four in existence a couple of years back, and passed two on the a fellow-shooter here. The screws for the Ruger Blackhawk MAY be the same, but Ruger are not saying, and anyhow, they are mostly black.

tac

[lostcat]

I'll try and get a measure of sheet lead melting point,havn't got a .457 mold to try.
Not keen on making SS parts but always up for a bit of a challenge.
I had read Ruger where not following the line with parts,bit off considering how many there are out there.

[lasbrisas]

One thing to look for is pitting/black stains where the gun hasn't been cleaned and the residue powder has eaten into the metal, Black Powder is hydroscopic (hope I got it right). My ROA has some of this but then I only paid £300 for it, it's all I could afford at the time. I would like to change it at some point for a perfect one but at the end of the day it's for shooting and doesn't affect it in anyway.

[tacfoley]

One thing to look for is pitting/black stains where the gun hasn't been cleaned and the residue powder has eaten into the metal, Black Powder is hydroscopic (hope I got it right). My ROA has some of this but then I only paid £300 for it, it's all I could afford at the time. I would like to change it at some point for a perfect one but at the end of the day it's for shooting and doesn't affect it in anyway.

You make a good point about BP residue being hygrosopic - even so-called stainless steel is only a steel alloy with a very high level of chromium in it - it WILL rust given time, time that is helped along by the BP residue
witch becomes acid-y the longer it is left around - remember that SULPHUR-y smell when you fired?

The residue of the subs is equally as bad, although we are saved somewhat by the fact that even cold water will clean off Triple 7 or Cleanshot.

The lesson is a simple one - clean the gun as soon as ever you can after shooting - minutes is a whole lot better than hours. Being stainless, runing the whole gun under a cold tap is plenty good until you get home and can tear it down for a proper cleaning.

Looking at the videos of mine on tac's guns, it's hard to imagine thagt it not only almost thirty years old, but had had more rounds down it than it is possible to count for definite - as I noted before, at least a couple of hundred thousand. Some weekends it's been shot all day for both days, almost as fast as it could be reloaded, and I usually start the saturday with between 500 and 750 ball.

I've certainly had weekends where I used six or seven tins of caps...

tac

[lostcat]

Hoping to get a well maintained,full working order example that wasn't part of someones BP learning curve or a club gun,I can hope,Must make a note to remember my glasses and look over in a good light,also I've noticed in the past that on occasions some people omitt details.

[tacfoley]

Hoping to get a well maintained,full working order example that wasn't part of someones BP learning curve or a club gun,I can hope,Must make a note to remember my glasses and look over in a good light,also I've noticed in the past that on occasions some people omitt details.

Mine certainly wasn't any part of anybody's learning curve. I had been shooting BP, rifle and handgun, competitively since 1968 when I bought my ROA in 1986. Also, I've never heard of any club having an ROA as a noobs intro gun.

What details do you imagine that I've tried to 'ommit' [sic]?

tac

[lostcat]

Mine certainly wasn't any part of anybody's learning curve. I had been shooting BP, rifle and handgun, competitively since 1968 when I bought my ROA in 1986. Also, I've never heard of any club having an ROA as a noobs intro gun.

What details do you imagine that I've tried to 'ommit' [sic]?

tac

Sorry for the missunderstanding,I had not realised that what I had written could be taken as a personal attack.
Last year I bought a Rem from an RFD that I've had dealings with since the '70's.
It had been owned by someone who is no longer with us who was apparently very particular.
It's a rare piece,small frame police 6 1/2"
It's previous history caused expense and many hours of fettling to sort.
I'm reassured to learn that a well maintained ROA is going to outlive my needs.
Also finding that I go to post and I've been timed out so I may rush my 2 finger typing and fail to re read.

[tacfoley]

TBH, there isn't much that can go wrong with a ROA, bearing in mind that it was based on the million+ selling Blackhawk revolver, and almost half a million were made before the company called quits. All you have to do when you find one is check that the nipples are in good condition - there are no genuine spares now - and that there is no corrosion from over-enthusiastic use of subs with under-enthusiastic cleaning.

I have a source of replacement nipples in Oregon - exactly like the originals in every way, and using the same hex wrench, too. For everything else, you are, as they say, on your own. Unlike every other BP revolver ever made, the ROA hammer does not actually make contact with the nipple, but with the frame. This is why you can dry-fire it for ever. The thickness of the percussion cap makes up the gap.

tac

[camel]

I am a relatively new BP shooter - and may soon suffer from lack of ROA parts...

: /

[tacfoley]

I am a relatively new BP shooter - and may soon suffer from lack of ROA parts...

: /

The original nipples on MY ROA lasted a couple of hundred thousand shots+ over almost thirty years. I replaced them from a source in Oregon for less than a third of the UK price. Apart from that, I can't actually see you needing anything.

tac

[DJS]

Unlike every other BP revolver ever made, the ROA hammer does not actually make contact with the nipple, but with the frame. This is why you can dry-fire it for ever. The thickness of the percussion cap makes up the gap.

tac

The hammer on the open top colts shouldn't make contact with the nipples either. These should be ok to dry fire aswell although I put a small square of cork in the hammer cutout. I've also modified the hammer of my Remington copy so that it doesn't contact the nipples.
Daz