I could hardly wait to try the pistol at my local range but first I had to decide on a suitable load. Measuring the cylinder depth I noticed the first problem - not much room for powder, wad and ball. The .44in Remington has a cylinder depth of 1.3 inches and will comfortably hold my pet load of 28gn of ffg powder, a felt wad and a 138gn .451in pure-lead ball cast from Lee’s 90440 mould. The .44in Uberti cylinder measures only 1.08 inches, so I calculated a reduced charge of 25gn of ffg powder, a felt Wonder Wad and a .451 ball, which fits perfectly - just shaving a fine circle of lead as it entered the chamber. As luck would have it, this load fits nicely with just enough room left to smear a coating of black-powder lube over the ball to help keep the fouling soft.
I wanted to see if the pistol would shoot a group and where the group would be in respect to the point of aim, so I decided to test shoot at a distance of ten metres. I charged only five cylinders as is customary with British Western Shooting Society type shooting. The results were promising, even with my dodgy eyesight and a stiff breeze I managed to keep the shots in the black - although the group printed four inches low.
The gun fitted my hand perfectly, pointed naturally and was a joy to shoot. The trigger had no creep and the release was crisp. I favour a two-handed Weaver- style stance and control was very good giving a fast recovery if rapid shooting is required. My next job is to experiment with a few more powder and ball permutations and even try a conical bullet but, my experience with bullets in my Remington is that they take up more space in the cylinder thereby reducing the powder and tend to be less accurate. When it came to cleaning, I found it very much the same as a standard black powder pistol, although I would prefer two-piece grips to the one-piece fitted so that it would be easier to remove. I would not hesitate to recommend this pistol to anyone suffering from the nostalgia syndrome, or indeed for competition use.
QUIGLEY SHOOTING ASSOCIATION NEWS
101
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