When slugging with round balls or any kind of lead plug beside LBT push through slugs, the impact of tapping them with a hammer and rod can upset the ball to a tight fit to the bore at the position in the bore where the impact hits. To minimize this problem, use a very large hammer ans light blows to deliver just a push. (LBT push through slugs have a vry narrow band, guided by two underrsize bands, so they can be pushed through by hand using s cleaning rod, TD GIVE A FEEL OF THE BALL AS IT SLIDES ALONG. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT in learning what the barrels potential is for handling lead bullets.
The imortant issues when slugging a revolver are to be sure that the barrel doesn't have a constriction at the barrel to frame threads greater than a half thousandth inch (.0005) If it does, and constrictions of up to .004 are common, and few have less than .002 constriction, accuracy will not be optimum, and the constriction will have to be lapped out to make a precision shooter.
So, using your lead balls, put one into the muzzle a short distance, pull it out, and see if it will fall through the cylinder throats. If it falls through, fit bullets to the cylinder throats. If it hangs up, groove diameter is larger than throats, so throats must be enlarged to let a larger bullet through. To do a good job of lapping, one must start at this point in the measuring/fitting process, so the bullets will be large enough to lap all the way to the bottom of the grooves.
To measure constriction, put another slug all the way through the barrel and measure it as precision as you can, comparing its diameter with that of the first slug which only contacted the muzzle portion of the barrel.
The problem of your 280 gr bullet shooting high with the rear sight all the way down is due to not enough recoil before the bullet leaves the muzzle. (A combinatin of recoil thrust and recoil time in fact.) You didn't mention where the bullets print with heavy loads, but it will definately hit lower and may even need to have the rear sight raised, for proper sightin. I recently made a post about building two loads for a revolver, but it is probably not available, currently, due to the temporary problem GBO is having with the former server. It should be available soon.
My suggestion for your light weight mountain gun is to see what power you can get and have sight adjustment, then choose a lighter bullet for a light load, and playing with the fast powder like Universal for your light load with lighter bullets, till it prints to the sights. The plinky load bullet should look different enough that you won't pick them up for serious business.
For personal answers to any questions I've raised, please email me at LBTisAccuracy@localnet.com Also please visit our newest January 2014 website at LBTMolds.com (Spelled one letter different than the old site.)
