Might be my new OC piece

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I love an old SA revolver!
Picked up this Ruger Old Army. It feels good in my hand. Gotta go make some smoke with it.
I've given thought to making it an OC piece, but hate to leave a loaded cylinder around the house when it's not in use.
Might have to be a Saturday piece for on the way to the range.... :celebrate
A friend says he's back-bored his to accommodate 53gr charges. It now shoots the equivalent of 41 Mag power :what:


Anyone else carry an SA revolver?

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I also own a Ruger Old Army although I have yet to OC with it...yet.

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I used to OC with my Taurus .357 when I lived in NM. But now I have my XD

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The old SAs provided very adequate personal protection for a lot of years. 41 Mag is a good round even though it is not the most common. It was designed to fill the gap between the 357 magnum and the 44 magnum so it has plenty of umph. I usually shoot my double action revolvers as single action anyways becauseI like the triggers better that way. Some people just don't like single action revolvers but as I said they have worked just fine for many years.

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Hammer wrote:

Might have to be a Saturday piece for on the way to the range.... :celebrate
A friend says he's back-bored his to accommodate 53gr charges. It now shoots the equivalent of 41 Mag power :what:

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Back boring has nothing to do with the charge and how much powder you can put in the cartridge case. Also 53 grains of what powder? The highest powder charge I see for 45 Colt is 28 grains. Besides that the 45 Colt case isn't big enough to hold 53 grains of anything. A 45 Colt can be run up to the equivalent of41 Magnumloads inRugers andother modern handguns fairly easily. But for personal defense it is overkill and causes over penetration, which endangers by standers. For hunting it is fine, but most max loads have abysmal accuracy. Misinformation and claims like this can get people hurt or killed.

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The Ruger Old Army does not use a cartridge case.



Bruce

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bcp wrote:

The Ruger Old Army does not use a cartridge case.



Bruce

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If this is a black powder gun then he is insane to be shooting any load near that heavy. It will blow up one of this days.

Hell, my 45/70 cartridges only hold 70 grains of black powder (and that's compressed)and they are twice as big as each of those cylinders.

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DELETED PERSONAL ATTACK

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Hammer wrote:

SNIP A friend says he's back-bored his to accommodate 53gr charges. It now shoots the equivalent of 41 Mag power :what:

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There is some information on a gun forum somewhere to the effect that the Ruger Old Army has muzzle energy roughly equivalent to .38 Spl +P.

I wonder how adding a few grains of powder boosts it to .41 mag. levels.

Ruger stamped the barrels clearly "black powder only." I wonder if they can really takethe pressure levels of a.41 mag.

Also, now that I think about it, I've seen them fired with the factory chambers stuffed full of black powder. There was a fair amount of burning powder being ejected. I wonder how increasing the chamber depth would burn all the powder when a factory chamber can't seem to burn all the powder when stuffed full.

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Citizen wrote:

Hammer wrote:

SNIP  A friend says he's back-bored his to accommodate 53gr charges. It now shoots the equivalent of 41 Mag power :what:

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There is some information on a gun forum somewhere to the effect that the Ruger Old Army has muzzle energy roughly equivalent to .38 Spl +P.

I wonder how adding a few grains of powder boosts it to .41 mag. levels.

Ruger stamped the barrels clearly "black powder only."  I wonder if they can really take the pressure levels of a .41 mag. 

Also, now that I think about it, I've seen them fired with the factory chambers stuffed full of black powder.  There was a fair amount of burning powder being ejected.  I wonder how increasing the chamber depth would burn all the powder when a factory chamber can't seem to burn all the powder when stuffed full.

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Common charges are 25-30 gr of FFFg or equivalent. I expect that is somewhere in the neighborhood of 38+P
Now double it. Does it all burn? No, but that doesn't mean that there is no more gain, only that it is none too efficient.
Ruger's manual says you can stuff the chamber clear full of BP. They're OK with it.
The frame is the Blackhawk frame that also accommodates the .44 Mag. I reckon the frame is up to it.
Max loads are sometimes interesting, but not necessarily wise for constant use.
Try not to draw the conclusion that would be my constant load, or a defensive load.
Just a big load'o'BP

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Hammer wrote:

Bear 45/70

Back boring has nothing to do with the charge and how much powder you can put in the cartridge case. Also 53 grains of what powder? The highest powder charge I see for 45 Colt is 28 grains. Besides that the 45 Colt case isn't big enough to hold 53 grains of anything. A 45 Colt can be run up to the equivalent of41 Magnumloads inRugers andother modern handguns fairly easily. But for personal defense it is overkill and causes over penetration, which endangers by standers. For hunting it is fine, but most max loads have abysmal accuracy. Misinformation and claims like this can get people hurt or killed.

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Standard second guess bullsh!t from the world's foremost nay sayer.
Not worth a reply.



You are the liar here. Nothing I said was BS. But 53 grs of BP in a Old Army is a lie if there every was one.[/quote]

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DELETED PERSONAL ATTACK

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Hammer,:shock: If I might say so, you are out of line. Bear may not always post the exact truth to your or mine satisfaction, but the name calling you have just dumped shows more of your disposition than his. You owe Bear and the other members of this forum an appology.:shock:

Ballisticians and explosive engineers have proven that black powder, which is normally measures in volumn not weight, is almost impossible to generate more than 28000 PSI. fffg in that pistol with a compressed load would be a healthy recoil and leave one with a sore wrist, but it will not blow up the gun. fffg would be the proper granulation, and 53 gr by volumn, would be difficult to get into the chamber and still have room for a ball ontop. 53 gr, by volumn, might get the velocity of a 41 but the ball is not heavy enough to get the ft lbs. Compressing the charge enough to get that much in the chamber would result in the powder being apellet and burning like a rocket propellent, therefore the powder pellet would not finish burning before leaving the barrel.

Now before you go off on the pellet idea, the pyrodex and 777 pellets have a hole through the center to allow complete burnung with out the pellet moving up the bore.

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DELETED PERSONAL ATTACK

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DELETED PERSONAL ATTACK

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The gun WON'T blow up, contrary to what Boor45/70 contends. It is plenty strong enough for any charge that could be put in the cylinder, according to several sources.


REALLY? Any charge? try 44 grains of Bullseye, or 4227 or H110 and the list goes on. I certainly would not rely on those sources.

And now for your appology instead of more name calling........

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Trigger,

I'm pretty sure he means any charge of black powder or equivalent.

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kparker wrote:

Trigger,

I'm pretty sure he means any charge of black powder or equivalent.

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Duh

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Hammer wrote:

Last, Boor45/70 started the flame with his inimitable abrasive style.
How 'bout any apology from me follow the apology he makes to me right here?
Cause that happens all the time... [sarcasm]

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This is really too easy. I was wrong about what gun you were talking about. Your turn!

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Backboring the ROA would let you use heavier conical bullets with a slightly larger powder charge....... Assuming you can't blow up a gun is ignorant. SA BPs are not very strongly put together. Over charging a solid BP rifle is one thing, and that's only with the modern ones......The BP rifles of long ago would split the bbls if you treated them like that.......