I posted this on the SASS site, and got some good responses. Thought I'd put it here too.
Was out trying various size swaged ball in my Ruger and my Walker, trying to tighten up those groups and see just how high my Walker shoots.
It seems .457" Hornady works best in both revolvers out to 25 yards.
In the Ruger, either 30 or 35 grs. Goex FFFg prints exactly to point of aim, 2" to 2 1/2" groups the norm. A 40 gr charge prints a fraction smaller, but impacts about 2" low. (I'm not going to do anything about it, I just found it interesting.)
I tried 30 & 35 gr charges in the Walker, but 40 definitely improved things. A solid 2" group in spite of fading light, 7 degrees above zero, and a 15 mph wind. (The muzzle flash looked cool.) Point of impact needs work, 7 inches high and 3" right. Time to try out my dovetailing skills.
If you've bothered reading this far, time for my questions:
I fired 40 gr. charges out of both revolvers with identical components, the Walker made significantly more racket when fired. Am I just hearing more of the 'Boom' effect with the Colt-style because there's no top strap? I have not measured the cylinder gap, just eyeballed it, but it certainly did not appear sloppy or excessive.
When capping the Walker, there is no way I can get my in-line capper remotely close to the nipples. I have to putz around one cap at a time with bare fingers. (This was a tough chore in the cold today.) Has anyone out there removed metal from the right side of the frame to make room for their capper? There's all kinds of room around the nipple itself on the cylinder, I just can't get close to it because of the frame.