So I bought a like-new 2019-manufacture Pietta Smith off of Gunbroker a few weeks ago.
I ordered up some of the Yore Supply tubes, and some black plastic tubes from S&S firearms. I also purchased some brass grommets from North East Trade Company to install in the black tubes. The Yore tubes come with brass grommets already installed.
I am shooting the Eras Gone Smith bullet. It drops at .518 in pure lead, and I am sizing it to .515 with a Lee custom sizing die, which took about 2 weeks to get.
I made up 5 shots each of 25, 27, 29, 31, and 33 grains of 3F Goex. In the Yore tubes, I put a paper disk on top of the powder, and then put cream of wheat filler on top of that and under the bullet.
With the black tubes, there was not much of an air gap it seemed between the powder and the bullet even at 25 grains, so I did not bother with filler in the black tubes.
I started off with the Yore tube loads, and nothing made a good group. I brushed between every 5 shot group. I did not wipe, until towards the end I noticed when looking down the barrel from the breech end that there was a dark deposit at the muzzle 1/3rd of of the bore. So, I wiped for the last group.
So it's a bit of an apples and oranges workup and comparison. The Yore tubes had filler, the black ones did not. And the best group, the last one, I cleaned before it.
The whole day was depressing until I got to the last group! The gun has a terrible trigger - it has two distinct "creeps" before it goes bang.
The Yore tubes are much more "rubbery" than the hard plastic black tubes. I feel like the black tubes will hold the bullet more rigidly in axial alignment. With the Yore tubes, you can easily get the bullet to sit crooked in the case mouth and you have to be careful to seat it square. The black tubes force this automatically.
In the pictures where there are less than 5 shots on the paper the missing shots went off the paper. I did not bother taking a picture of the cardboard with the Yore tubes since the groups were so terrible.
Yore tubes (only posting links since the forum only allows 4 images per post).
https://i.imgur.com/zZ4wVhL.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/BxcHuh7.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ZMxy0yi.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/skgPSha.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/XqZXZNW.jpg
Black tubes:
33 grains 3F Goex gave the best group. The shot on the right is actually a flier from the 27 grain target. 33 grains is the max capacity of the black tube with this bullet, which works out great as there is no need for filler or anything. Just dump in the powder and go. I'll have to have another session now to verify the result.
Full-size pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/F4BTlhU
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