So I got to the range this afternoon and tried out my new-to-me Uberti 1858 Remington New Army. I had loads worked up from 14 grains to 28 grains, 6 shots each of .457 round ball and Lee 90382 Conical.
I intended to shoot wads for the first time, but clearly I don't know what I'm doing. The gun came with a TON of wads. These are lubricated. Evidently, they are really lubricated. I started off with 14 grains and put in 5 wads to fill the gap under the bullet, then seated the bullet. But the lube in the wads was pressed out of them and saturated the powder, ruining them. I had to remove the nipple on a couple of chambers and knock the ball out from the back end. I guess if you are going to use wads you cannot compress them.
Anyway, I reverted back to Cream of Wheat filler for the remainder of the test.
I adjusted the windage after the 14 grain test, and after shooting the 16 grain round ball test. After that windage was dead on.
As expected, 18 grains is a good load, and groups got progressively worse as the load increased from there. However, the graph indicates that I should revisit 14 and 16 grain loads. Generally speaking round ball performed better than the Lee 90382 Conical bullet, but I sure like loading the conicals better than round ball. The bottom of the Lee bullet is not quite heeled, but it does fit into the chamber so it sits nicely for loading, shaving lead on the rest of the bullet. The round balls you have to roll around looking for the sprue to point upwards.
You can see the results here:
http://imgur.com/a/vrrIy
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