This video from Paul Harrell provides a good comparison between round balls and conicals in percussion revolvers (in this case fired from a Ruger Old Army).
A few comments:
The conicals he used appear to have been cast from a Lee mold. They are similar in form to modern round nosed bullets that have been loaded in cartridges since the late 19th Century.
Conical bullets used in cap and ball revolvers in the 1850s and 1860s were generally more pointed. This would increase penetration but reduce terminal effectiveness because the bullet would be more prone to slip through tissue rather than punching a larger diameter hole.
Nowadays, more effective conical designs are available, intended for hunting, e.g. Kaido Ojaama's design, which has a wide, flat meplat.
In his book Sixguns, Elmer Keith recounted that Civil War veterans that he knew as a boy stated that round balls were more effective for antipersonnel use than the pointed conicals of the period.
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3 comments:
You brought up Keith's writing on the issue, which is where I was headed in this comment before finishing reading your article. :-) I'm trying to remember what conical I used in my first Ruger Old Army... it was cast from a Lee mold and if I recall correctly it was marketed as being designed specifically for the Ruger Old Army. They worked great and my experiments with that pistol showed them to be quite effective and accurate. In my youthful enthusiasm I ran that sixgun past common sense limits using unauthorized propellent for some impressive results. My biggest regret is having not understood that non-black powder didn't require blackpowder lubricant. I don't encourage or condone repetitions of my experiments, but know that I was getting better than Colt 1873 45 Colt power out of that blaster. But I digress. The more modern styles definitely give better "smack 'em" results than the old "picket fence" style, as well as better accuracy. It wasn't that easy to get the old conicals to line up straight in the cylinder, plus they had too little bearing surface to give good accuracy at top velocity.
OK. Did a bit more digging. This is NO "historical reproduction" bullet, but I've found the Lee Precision Mold Double Cavity 456-220-1R produced bullet to be a great fit to the Ruger Old Army. They also have produced similar molds for more traditional cap and ball resolvers, but I've never played with them so don't know how they do. Now I've got a hankering for another of these molds for use in my current Old Army, limiting it to FFFg only and using a lubricated felt wad under the bullet. I'm really itching to get the old blaster out and shoot it some more, it's been way too long.
And, now I've actually had the chance to watch the video. :-) Paul Harrel, as always, does a thorough job and gives a good presentation. Fooling around with a Ruger Old Army brings up a lot of different scenearios one can try - they are as close to indestructible as a cap and ball revolver can be.
Highly entertaining options include a double ball load, as much powder as you can cram under the projectile and still turn the cylinder, oversize round balls... and I'll just leave alternative propellants out of the equation as good ol' FFFg works fine. OK. Now that I'm thinking on it, here's some that I ran "back in the day" - Pyrodex Pistol, Pyrodex Rifle and Pyrodex Cartridge. Pyrodex was THE alternative to black powder at that time, I've zero experience with the current crop of alternatives.
Getting back to projectiles, a double ball load is similar to the same type of loading in a cartridge gun. Slower than a single ball, twice as many holes in the target. When all you've got is .490 swaged rifle balls? They can be loaded just fine in the ROA, and will leave a substantial ring of lead as they are pushed into the chamber. You end up with a slightly heavier projectile with a bit more engagement with the rifling due to the elongated nature of the oversized ball shaved to chamber diameter.
Now I REALLY want to dig out the ROA and burn some black, it will probably make the "carry along" list this summer. One really nice thing about them is that they make you slow down and make your shots count.
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