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Old March 29, 2011, 05:32 PM   #19
Rachen
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 10, 2006
Location: Weekend cowboy
Posts: 542
Very interesting thread. I am surprised I didn't come upon this earlier.

I think someone here said that if you use muzzleloaders, then you are a reloader.

With that said, the cap and ball revolver is one of the most versatile weapons out there for the hunter or cowboy. Take the 1858 New Army for example. Loaded to full power with 35 grains of FFFg and a roundball or 190-grain conical, it can take elk and moose at reasonable ranges and will likely stop a bear if such an emergency arises. Load it down to about 25 grains of propellant and you have a load that would reliably dispatch the odd urban criminal or home invader. Now for paper punching at the local range, I wouldn't really need that much power at all.

I heard that many of Nathan B. Forrest's troopers loaded their Colt's Navy and Army revolvers with only a minute pinch of powder because they almost always engaged enemy fighters at arm's reach.

During the Battle of Fredericksburg, Confederate defenders often tore apart the paper cartridges of their Enfields and loaded only half the powder into their rifles because the advancing Yanks were so many and so close.
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