Uberti 1858 New Army tear down and clean - some discoveries

[Sharpie]

Convenience and easy to clean. I am pretty sure the invention of bp wasn't a walk in the park either. At my local there's almost next to none who still use bp as many have converted to either Pyrodex or Triple7 and still shooting great scores. I tried bp a couple of times and the mess it creates and the time it takes to clean up was better spent with Tiple7. Everyone has their preference and at least the ones I shoot with, black powder is much lower on the list compared to Pyrodex or Triple7. I have never felt either of these powders unsafe to handle and use much less volume of Triple7 to achieve what I want compared to my trial of bp.

Yes you use less 777 by weight, than black. The conversion factor is 77.7% Pyrodex is something similar.

So a 454g tub of 777 (£52.60 from Kranks) is equivalent to 584g of black. I.e. £90/kilo equivalent.

Whereas Kranks sell their own brand black for £51.60/kilo
Or Zloty Stok for £65.10/kilo
Or the very best Swiss stuff for £82/kilo.

I must admit that I've only ever used Swiss.

https://www.henrykrank.com/muzzle-loading/black-powder-caps/black-powder.html

I agree that the substitutes are safe to handle, and store without the need for a wooden box. But that's where it ends as far as I'm concerned. Hmm, a more expensive substitute vs. the real stuff ?

BTW Swiss powder is IME much cleaner burning than Pyrodex. Shooting a 30" barelled .45 calibre rifle, sidelock, no. 11 cap, even when the Pyrodex didn't hangfire or worse, the barrel needed swabbing after no more than three shots before the tight patched (.451 swaged lead) round ball couldn't be fully seated. Even pounding on a steel ramrod. Nightmare. End of shooting. Unscrew the breech time, than bash it back out again. Had to swab after every shot. Whereas with Swiss I could keep on going for at least five shots before thinking about swabbing.

Something different about the residue. That from black seems to soften up with traditional bullet or patch lubes. Pyrodex doesn't.

 

[zambezi]

All fettling has paid dividends: 18 back-to-back successful shots on the range today.

And that testing was using the same consumables as previously delivered misfires: powder, ball and primers. So time invested well.

So after today's session I did another strip down and clean. BP takes more work per shot, but that increased effort is worth it to deliver reliability.

 

[zambezi]

Just a quick update to this thread: the strict cleaning and servicing regime on my Uberti .44 is paying dividends in performance.

This week I had just one out of eighteen percussion caps fail to ignite the charge in its associated cylinder.

And accuracy is pretty darn good. The target below was shot at 15 yards from a standing position.

[load is what works in my revolver and is not a recommendation to other shooters. Hodgdon 777 powder datasheet included for completeness]

 

[Smellydog]

Excellent. I always wanted to hunt rabbits with one.
Great group there

 

[Overlay]

My newish Uberti 1858 New Army .44 is pretty accurate with round ball as compared to some other similar models used at my shooting club.

But my revolver has suffered more misfires than any other similar model on the range. Switching percussion caps between BP revolvers proved problem was with my Uberti, not the consummables. I then compared how the action felt as compared to another better performing example and discovered that the mainspring tension was much lower on mine. Also, the hammer pivot on mine seemed stiffer and perceptibly "notchy" if released by thumb control.

So I did a full tear down View attachment 240599 and clean today and discovered that quite a few of the internals had friction-inducing light rust View attachment 240600 View attachment 240601 These were easy to buff off and lubricate. Next I discovered that the hammer's leading edge was striking the side of the channel into which it passes as the trigger releases it forward View attachment 240602 . The culprit was a rather obvious machining burr on the hammer's leading face that was snagging the frame as it fell. Lastly, I discovered that the mainspring tension was fully adjustable via the grub screw in the front of the pistol grip View attachment 240604 which allowed for an appropriate improvement in hammer positivity. Need to get back to range to test...

job well done Zambezi