I wouldn't know, but Fitch has several single-sixes and I didn't notice any gritty feel to them. He might have tuned them up a bit.
I've followed this thread with interest. I have read that using fillers is not a good idea, particularly with longer cases, but it does appear here that folks are doing it routinely without mishap. 5 bux worth of kapok is certainly less than $18 for a jar of a different powder. I'd buy the powder rather than risk having problems.
You probably know that "downloading" is a bad idea with some powders, a specific case being Winchester W296. Light loads with these powders can result in a rare but dangerous detonation called Secondary Explosion Effect. I think this is also more true of longer cases, but .32 H&R at 1.075" might qualify as a "longer case". I routinely make light popper .357 mag loads with W231.
A light .32 H&R load found on a website,
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2.2 gn of Hodgdon Clays behind a Hornady 90 gn SWC. That's about a
46% fill of the case. 880 fps, peak pressure looks to be about
14,500 (about 61% of SAAMI max), and it was among the most accurate of loads listed. Recoil energy in a 35 oz gun is 1.0 ft lb at bullet exit, 1.2 ft lb at end of gas aftereffect. Geez, you'd hardly know it went off! Muzzle energy is about 164 ft-lb. 880 fps is subsonic, so the muzzle blast with this light load might be quite mild.
For comparison, Federal factory ammo in that caliber w/ 95 gn bullet is 1020 fps, 220 ft lb.
Or he may have removed the hammer blockers. Real fans of the Single Six don't like the hammer blockers.
Using small doses of a fast-burning granular powder like Red Dot (probably the most popular for the job) and kapok filler is a time-honored way to make safe, consistent light range loads. I'm sure there are much better solutions today but, as I say, I have the stuff and I used it all the time when I was shooting a lot -- particularly when I was introducing new shooters, which seems to be most of what I've done at the range, over the past 10 or 15 years. I was a certified rifle instructor and I still feel obligated to teach safety and proper handling to people who express an interest in shooting. That includes my former boss: a 61-year-old woman with a PhD in psychology who is a bioethithist and a vegan. d8-)
I'd like to get back into it and get more sophisticated in handloading but finding time is really hard. When I have that much time today I usually go fishing instead, even in cold weather. I no longer belong to an R&P club and the commercial ranges in NJ are either crowded or too far away to make it much fun.
Yes, I studied it quite a bit when I was active. The slower-burning powders are bad news for light loads. I think the .32 H&R Mag is indeed a "longer" case, so I'm careful and follow expert recommendations.
That sounds similar to my Red Dot load. If I understand correctly, Hodgdon Clays is a similar powder but cleaner-burning and it's used as a replacement for the traditional Red Dot skeet loads. The dynamics are probably similar for the two powders in a pistol cartridge. I think the volume may be a little higher with the Hodgden powder; the density apparently is lower.
Yeah, and that's nowhere near what you can get out of it with really good loads. For a straight-case pistol cartridge, the sucker really can zip.
I carried it with me on my two javelina hunts, hoping to get a shot within pistol range, but my only kill was over 100 yards, which is stretching it for me with a revolver. The gun can hold a tight-enough group but I can't. d8-)
Finding some old life vests at yard sales is starting to look good. Uncle read about using flax or hemp fibers wrapped around a tow hook as the way the old timers cleaned their muzzleloaders. So I bought a kilo of the stuff (hemp) and gave him half. Well, it didn't work all that great for cleaning but now I have an idea what to do with my half.
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This is a picture of what the degummed product looks like:
Well, I don't know about those other fibers. The degummed hemp in the photo looks promising but...'dunno. Kapok compresses well and it doesn't soak up moisture. I'd see if there's any info on using other fibers as fillers.
FWIW, spun polyester (Dacron Fiberfill -- pillow stuffing) probably is the most commonly used stuff for this application today. I've had problems with it leaving a coating near the case mouth and also some glop on the front of a revolver cylinder. It comes off the gun with a bronze bristle brush but I've had to use steel wool on the inside of the case mouths, so I don't use it anymore.
Also, watch out for that secondary-ignition effect that Don mentioned. I'd forgotten about that, but it means you want to use a powder that's been well-tried for this application. People tend to think that light loads are automatically safe, but it's not true. A lot of empty space in a cartridge case, with some powders (it seems to be slower-burning types that are the problem), can produce surprising effects.
I take it you don't have a vibratory case cleaner? I had two until my uncle noticed I bought a much bigger one. Somehow I got convinced that my favorite uncle should have that cast off.
I'm well aware of that effect. I have a bottle of H-110 that is pretty emphatic about it. Reduced loads using slow powders in big cases is a well known issue. The other one is using things like cream of wheat in bottleneck cases.
Good work teaching the beginners. Got to keep the tradition alive.
Uncle and I were talking about problems he was having uploading photos to his photobucket account this morning. I mentioned I uploaded a picture of the first thing I ever shot at with a firearm.
Uncle remarked that he picked his M1911 .45 acp because he wanted to impress on me 40+ years ago that guns are fun and guns are serious.
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It left an effect on me. Uncle claims my eyeglasses were askew after touching it off but my first shot was good. I think it was the shotgun I fired that day that did the deed on my glasses. That target wasn't recoverable.
The secondary ignition effect is probably why it is said that a loose charge of black powder can detonate. I t goes like this: A pressure spike built up from burning the loose stuff appears as a heavy shock to the solid portion of the unburned powder. It is a fact, contrary to popular knowledge, nitrocellulose and black powder can detonate under extreme shock conditions.
Bob (don't pack me loose) Swinne
Well, I don't know about those other fibers. The degummed hemp in the photo looks promising but...'dunno. Kapok compresses well and it doesn't soak up moisture. I'd see if there's any info on using other fibers as fillers.
FWIW, spun polyester (Dacron Fiberfill -- pillow stuffing) probably is the most commonly used stuff for this application today. I've had problems with it leaving a coating near the case mouth and also some glop on the front of a revolver cylinder. It comes off the gun with a bronze bristle brush but I've had to use steel wool on the inside of the case mouths, so I don't use it anymore.
Also, watch out for that secondary-ignition effect that Don mentioned. I'd forgotten about that, but it means you want to use a powder that's been well-tried for this application. People tend to think that light loads are automatically safe, but it's not true. A lot of empty space in a cartridge case, with some powders (it seems to be slower-burning types that are the problem), can produce surprising effects.
I have a small rock tumbler that does double-duty as a case cleaner. But I don't think any case cleaner would get that residue out of the *inside* of the cases. It sticks on pretty good -- probably half melted solid and half condensed vapor. You literally have to cut it out. In fact, I made a D-bit reamer for the job but the cases are not that uniformly cylindrical, so it would cut into the brass in some spots. I wound up slotting a dowel, putting steel wool in the slot, and running it in my drill press while manually sliding the cases over the dowel.
Ha-ha! So you saved your first target? I shot my first target with a Remington pump-action .22, at age 7; my second, on the same day, with the Hi-Standard Supermatic pistol that I still shoot today. That was within the city limits of Vineland, NJ, in 1955. I think that doing that today would get somebody 30 days in the slammer.
Cocking action or trigger action? I've got a New Model .22 in stainless, and the action seems fine. Only thing I don't like about it is that the trigger pull is extremely short - probably only 1/16" or so. Pretty smooth, though. Just about the same as my stainless Old Army, which of course doesn't have the transfer bar.
The initial trigger pull. Ruger offers some kind of fix for the Blackhawk, but I don't know if it's available for the Single Six.
BTW, I should point out that the Ruger "hammer blocker" really isn't a hammer blocker. It's a transfer bar. It doesn't block the hammer. The hammer just doesn't reach the firing pin if the transfer bar isn't raised.
That isn't the case with mine. If anything the trigger pull is longer than it was on my Old Model Single Six.
How much does the transfer bar move when you pull the trigger?
On mine, while the transfer bar is way down when the hammer is down and trigger not pulled, when the hammer is cocked the transfer bar raises until it covers half of the firing pin. Pulling the trigger raises it only a very slight bit. For all I know, though, the action may have been re-worked.
There was an article in Precision Shooting magazine a while back (a year or two?) about using fillers. Polyester is a no-no. It can damage your barrel under some circumstances. I think cotton was OK, but you should track down the article. It was quite thorough.
Mine works like yours. The slight grittiness occurs at the beginning of the trigger pull, as it's moving the transfer bar up.
The effect is only slight. I'm very fussy about trigger pulls, and it wouldn't even be noticable except that the Old Model Single Six was known for its excellent trigger pull, and most of my other handguns have been tuned for bullseye shooting by an expert.
I don't give out my address to a known list-seller unless I'm buying something and I can opt out. That means there are a lot of things I try to buy online and wind up turning down.
That reminds me...since Gunner has me plonked , would somebody ask him if he ever tried the method I told him for swaging an aluminum mold for casting round balls? That was around five years ago, I think, and he seemed enthusiastic about trying it at the time. I'm curious if anyone else has had success with it.
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