[W. C. Quantrill]

Your bullet diameter has a distinct bearing on your accuracy. Also the bullet alloy. For most black powder guns, your bullet alloy should be 1:20 or 1:40 alloy. Wheel weights are ok for cartridge pistols, but not for Black powder guns.

Another thing, on your revolvers, if the .452 normal bullets dont give you accuracy, try the .454's. It could be that your cylinder mouths are not consistent with your barrel. Venturino mentioned in his article that the pistol he was testing wasnt accurate, and he went up to the .454 bullets and cured the problem because of the leaking at the cylinder mouth. If your bullets are too hard to obiturate into the rifling, you will get excessive leading in your barrels also. Black powder is a whole different game than smokeless.

In my .45 Colt, I use 275 gr Keith SWC's. I normally run them with 10.5 gr of Unique for about 1150fps out of the 7-1/2" Ruger. It is not bad to shoot, and I use it to hunt deer, it has proven effective out to 50-75 yards, and they still fall out of the cylinder after being shot.

40 gr of FFFg is just brutal. 40 gr of FFg is still too much by my way of thinking. 35 gr of FFg with the 275 g bullet is still a performer. 30 gr of FFFg seems to be similar to the 35g FFg load. These loads are serious loads. They will still provide accurate, high energy loads at 50 yards.

Shoot Magazine had an article a year or so back and they mentioned that the average size of a cavalry fellow about the Civil War and shortly afterwards was about 5'7" and about 130 pounds. Yes the Trapdoor Carbine was a rough shoot with the rifle cartridges. Those guys were tougher by far than we are these days, but, there were still some things they didnt do. 5'10 and 145 would be a big man in those days!!

I still die laughing about the fellows that slipped the black powder loaded .45 ACP into the fellows 1911 magazine. I guess smoke and fire went everywhere when he shot it and he totally freaked out. So did all the other guys on the line that were waiting for it to happen.