Well, I'm not exactly what one might call "Mr. Revolver." However, after practicing with the serious guns (for me, musket and smoothbore) I sometimes drag out the Rogers and Spencer for the fun of it. I've always been spectacularly bad with cap and ball revolvers, though not so bad with a modern revolver. Always hot and cold from one shot to the next. Also, unlike with musket/carbine/smoothbore, my performance with revolver is always worse in competition vs. fooling around at the range.

I think I've identified an important and perhaps overlooked point in making these godforsaken revolvers shoot well. I shoot 15g 3F plus cornmeal, compressed by a .457 round ball. Here's the thing: normally, I keep a bottle of corn meal and a 1/4 tsp scoop handy and dump it in til it looks just about full. Sometimes the ball barely squeezes down into the cylinder, sometimes the ball squashes halfway to China. Cabin fever led me to order a set of Lee scoops and a bag of little 5ml tubes. It turns out that 15g 3F powder plus a MEASURED 1.3cc cornmeal compresses just right--and uniformly-- in my R&S revolver; tightly compressed so the ball just clears the barrel when it rotates. Probably those who are serious about revolver already know to measure your filler as carefully as your powder. I dunno. Those fellars are in a different league! For those of us who are mere dilettantes, it's an eye-opener and an easy variable to eliminate.

Since I started measuring my filler, over the past few weeks, I've shot better than 50% in the black. A shocking, thunderous improvement. My misses are all my own, not the gun's. If you find yourself in Revolver Hell, try measuring your filler.

BTW, thanks for the R & S, Mr. Herlinger!

My $.015

Cheers!

Jim B.
Grove City, OH