Ye Olde Ruger Olde Army at the range

[rugerlovah]

picked up this 5 1/2" barrel old army on the classifieds page here several months back. I had forgotten how much fun it was to blast away with a BP revolver. And this one is light years ahead of the brass framed pietta i used to have.

i was curious as to whether the fixed sights would shoot to POA. this is offhand and rather careless shooting at 15 yds ... i will venture to say that the sights are regulated good enough! im not loading it for target shooting. a little over 30 g. of goex 3f powder, a hornady .457 roundball, and a wonder wad is all i use. using some rws #11 caps for ignition right now.

anyway, i guess the one downside is that i felt almost bad about shooting goex BP through this nice revolver. i spent some time cleaning it and slathered it in break free when i was done. might try T7 powder next time.

btw ... i noticed, and i have noticed that some other people have noticed ... this revolver seems to have excessive cylinder tolerances and endshake compared to other ruger revolvers i own. well, i thought that this is probably to keep it from seizing up when the BP fouling starts to accumulate. after shooting it, i'm pretty convinced this is the reason. the endshake seemed to magically disappear after a cylinder of goex powder had been shot through the gun.

 

[contender]

Nice shooting and it looks like you had a blast! Yep,, those BP guns sure can make us smile.

 

[VAdoublegunner]

Nice revolver and good to see that it shoots POA.

I find the Old Army is far more accurate than you might expect. This is a photo of one of mine and it's first range outing. I didn't measure the powder charge, just filled the cylinder with as much GOEX 3F as I could and still seat the ball. I was pretty impressed for 3 cylinders worth at 25 yards. I was going to develop a "target" load for this one, but just never got around to doing it. Too much fun shooting full loads with real BP and I can live with that level of accuracy. The other one shoots about the same.

 

[Wyandot Jim]

If I remember correctly Ruger says to use a .457 ball and 20 GRS. 3F for accuracy
I use 20GRS. 3F of Goex and both a ba;; and a .454 bullet, but for speed in CAS
Jim

 

[Dantforth]

If you can find it "Swiss" black powder is quite a bit cleaner than Goex. Cleanup is always a bit of a chore with BP but most of the substitutes also require comprehensive cleaning as they are corrosive. I completely disassemble my BP revolver...not a Ruger I'm sorry to say... and then use boiling hot water with dish soap in it for the initial go 'round. I then revert to a protectant called "Sheath" for final all round swabbing. Does anyone here use a single based smokeless like SR4759 for their BP revolver? I am not suggesting it but just wonder because I use it with great success in my antique BP rifles.