Historical Shooting of the Nineteenth Century: Range Report: 16 July 2022. 1860 Colt Army Conversion and Remington New Model Army

Conditions: Wind moderate from 3:00. 87 degrees. 23% humidity.
Shooting Position: Seated supported.
Sight Picture: Full Sight with 6:00 hold. I did not attempt to aim off, I always aimed the bottom of the black circle.
Range: 15 yards.
Revolver 1: Pietta 1860 Colt Army with Kirst conversion cylinder firing hand-loaded .45 Colt cartridges. The cartridges were made using Starline brass and were primed with CCI large pistol primers. I cast the bullets from pure lead with a Lee mold, and they came out of the mold at .452 inch. I am new to the fine art of loading revolver metallic cartridges, and I believe I can make them significantly better; in particular, I have not been crimping them enough and have been informed by those who know far more than I that doing so is important with black-powder cartridges and will result in tighter groups.
Revolver 2: Pietta Remington New Model Army. All rounds were made into combustible paper cartridges; for more information about how I make combustible cartridges go here.

I only fired three tables of fire with the Colt Conversion even though I went to the range fully intending to fire at least five tables of fire with this revolver. Unfortunately, I seem to have acquired one of Pietta's rare lemons, and the revolver got worse and worse as I shot until I could no longer get it to function--not because of fouling, but because the revolver is simply mechanically flawed. It will have to go back to the gunsmith for more work to see if it can be saved. At the same time, I am quite pleased with the results I did get, with an average score between the three tables of fire of 2.9 in./rd. This is not a fantastic result, but the groups were fairly good and I used the same sight picture every time. Now that I know where the groups print I can aim off to bring the Mean Point of Impact closer to the Intended Mean Point of Impact (the bullseye), which will reduce the String Test measurement considerably.

Colt 1860 Army Conversion Revolver

Remington New Model Army

Replica Frankford Arsenal .45 Colt cartridge pack.

Replica .44 combustible cartridge cartridge pack. Note that the label is incorrect and these were Kerr bullets, not Johnston and Dow. I need a better label but have not yet found what the Kerr package labels looked like.

For those interested in learning more about the String Test, it is a method actually used during the Civil War and is vastly superior to simply measuring the group size since it takes both the group size and the distance from the mean center of the group to the bullseye into account in the same number, so it is a much more meaningful way to gauge your accuracy despite being incredibly easy to do. All shooters, and certainly all historical shooters, should be using this test. You can learn more about the String Test here.

Table 1: Colt Conversion
Load: .45 Colt 250 gr. Lee bullet with 35 gr. Schuetzen 3F
String Test: 12.5”/5 rds. = 2.5 in./rd.
Muzzle Energy: Average velocity of 798.8 f.p.s. = 354 ft. lbs.

Table 2: Colt Conversion
Load: .45 Colt 250 gr. Lee bullet with 35 gr. Schuetzen 3F
String Test: 16.25”/5 rds. = 3.25 in.rd.
Muzzle Energy: Average velocity of 769.5 f.p.s. = 329 ft.-lbs.

Table 3: Colt Conversion
Load: .45 Colt 250 gr. Lee bullet with 35 gr. Schuetzen 3F
String Test: 14.25”/5 rds. = 2.85 in./rd.

Table 4: Remington NMA
Load: 20 grs. Swiss 3F with 225 gr. Kerr bullet
String Test: 15.0”/5 rds. (1 misfire) = 3.0 in./rd.

Table 5: Remington NMA
Load: 25 gr Schuetzen 3F with 225 gr. Kerr bullet
String Test: 17”/6 rds.=2.83 in/rd.

Table 6: Remington NMA
Load: 25 gr Schuetzen 3F 225 gr. Kerr bullet
String Test: 17.25”/6 rds. = 2.875 in./rd.
Muzzle Energy: Average velocity of 850.7 f.p.s. = 362 ft.-lbs.
This table of fire was extremely interesting. If you look at the picture below showing a closeup of the group, there was one round in the black and four rounds literally through the same hole, then there was one flyer. I remember experiencing a muscle tremor as I fired, so I clearly pulled the shot. Thus, although the String Test is fairly good, without that flyer the results would have been a result of 2.6 in./rd., a much better result.

Table 6 closeup.

Table 7: Remington NMA
Load: 20 gr. Pyrodex (Old!) with 225 gr. Kerr bullet
String Test: 22.5”/rd. = 3.67 in./rd.
NB: These cartridges were quite old, more than two years old (before I started noting the date on my cartridge packs). I have not used Pyrodex in quite some time and this cartridge pack was stuck in the back of the box where I store my ammunition, so I wanted to shoot them off. These results are quite poor, and I strongly suspect the age of the cartridges may have been part of the cause. This is quite interesting because we often see discussions about how long ammunition lasts. Note that in the past I have achieved much better String Test results with Pyrodex, so it is not that Pyrodex is inherently less accurate. Note, too, that the rounds discharged flawlessly, with no hang time or any other ignition problems despite being more than two years old.