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TimSr · August 30, 2016, 08:08 AM

It's been a little while since I posted this, but I finally got to shoot this old beast!

Thanks McShooty for the offer. just saw your post today when I looked it up.

I used .32 acp cases, and just seated a little deeper since the cases were longer than 32 S&W. I used 77gr LRN bullets with a minimum load of Bullseye from old Lyman's data. These chronied out at about 410fps.

I moved into 20' and still couldn't land them on the paper, until I noticed they were hitting the post about 12" above the black dot. I put a reference dot below the target, and was able to shoot some recognizable groups of 4-5". This gun was made with no rear sight, and I figure the original rounds probably had near twice the velocity, so I'm sure those were factors. After a few rounds the cylinder "got sloppy" and I thought I wrecked it until I discovered that the cylinder pin likes to work itself out when shooting, so I just had to watch it.

The gun itself is probably the biggest piece of crap I ever shot, but man was it fun! What a feeling to fire a 100+ year old piece of history! Makes you wonder how many did more damage to themselves with some of the guns in those days. I fired 24 rounds. Saved some for Dad to shoot. He said he would fire it AFTER I did.

August 30, 2016, 08:08 AM	#13
TimSr Senior Member Join Date: March 8, 2013 Location: Rittman, Ohio Posts: 2,074	It's been a little while since I posted this, but I finally got to shoot this old beast! Thanks McShooty for the offer. just saw your post today when I looked it up. I used .32 acp cases, and just seated a little deeper since the cases were longer than 32 S&W. I used 77gr LRN bullets with a minimum load of Bullseye from old Lyman's data. These chronied out at about 410fps. I moved into 20' and still couldn't land them on the paper, until I noticed they were hitting the post about 12" above the black dot. I put a reference dot below the target, and was able to shoot some recognizable groups of 4-5". This gun was made with no rear sight, and I figure the original rounds probably had near twice the velocity, so I'm sure those were factors. After a few rounds the cylinder "got sloppy" and I thought I wrecked it until I discovered that the cylinder pin likes to work itself out when shooting, so I just had to watch it. The gun itself is probably the biggest piece of crap I ever shot, but man was it fun! What a feeling to fire a 100+ year old piece of history! Makes you wonder how many did more damage to themselves with some of the guns in those days. I fired 24 rounds. Saved some for Dad to shoot. He said he would fire it AFTER I did.