ROA loads

Can a ROA be loaded hot enough to take a black bear in a pinch/emergency? If so what load? .457 ball and 45grs of fff?

Published data from Lyman's Black Powder Handbook (2nd Edition - page 287) shows 7-1/2" bbl ROA shooting a .457 round ball over 40 gr. FFFg to 1076 fps and 370 ft/lbs at the muzzle.

Stoutest load shown is a .457 190 gr. Buffalo Bullet conical over 40 gr. FFFg to 1035 fps and 452 ft/lbs at the muzzle.

Based on my history with ROA's, 40 gr. FFFg is almost the maximum amount that can be loaded into a ROA cylinder chamber, with a lubed Wonder Wad on top of the BP. None of my CAS FFFg BP loads ever reached much over 900 fps on my chrono back in 2005.

Suggest you compare the Lyman published data against .357 Mag or .44 Mag factory loads.

ROA's make a lot of noise and smoke when shooting with BP, but "bear repellant", borderline.

Thanks.
Just another thought if you can load 40grs of FFF with a wonder was under the ball I would think you could go to 45grs without. The ROA can handle it I think.

Hornady .457 round ball ~144 grn.
40 grns (by volume) A full cylinder chamber.
Goex fffg BP ~ 900 fps,
Pyrodex P ~ 1000 fps,
Triple 7 ~1100+ fps.

Clements has Built/ builds, a 5 shot 50cal OA conversion that will hold 50 grns Triple 7 that went over 1100 fps and just over 500 ME.

I have also heard of getting the existing chamber deepened where it will hold 5 grns more, but have never seen this personally.

I went to Clements sight and saw the same. Thanks

Interesting article from Dixie slugs about ROA.
http://www.dixieslugs.com/images/ROA_complete_.pdf
Better than nothing for a bear, but it wouldn't be my first choice.

Take a minute to stop and think: The "old" 45 Colt load was 29 or 30 gr of Holy Black. The 44-40 was 40 gr of BP.

Would you use a 44-40 as defense against black bear? How about 30-30 (a 30 cal with the equivalent of 30 gr of BP)? A 32-40? That's about 60% (57%+) of a 45-70 load.

I don't have bears to worry about but I wonder if the best thing you could do to improve the terminal performance of an Old Army wouldn't be to improve on the bullet. I have purchased a Lee 200 gr. SWC mold with that in mind to try in my Old Army, but haven't gotten around to actually trying it yet. One of my old shooting buddies back in the 70s (a very knowledgable gun-guy, now deceased) used to shoot a similar bullet in his, and claimed good results. I'll let you know how it goes when I get around to trying it. I'm interested in this because we can legally deer hunt with a .45 black powder revolver. I might carry my OA at least as a back-up to my .54 Hawken and might even try it on a deer at close range under ideal conditions. If I can get a 200 grain .45 SWC moving 850 fps or so, I think it could do the job.

I run 42 grains of lightly settled FFFG triple 7 behind a 255 grain Hornady .454" bullet #12458 using a classicballistx cylinder and it runs out the barrel 1230 +/- fps. That is 857 ft/lbs and is well into the range of pedestrian 44 magnum energy and is more than enough for bear deterrent.