Missionary wrote:Greetings Mr.S
I cannot stress enough how important it is to look this roller over. If it had been shot for years from a known reloader there would be little need but there just is no shooting trail to follow. Maybe there is a reason it has sat idle for 60 years ?
Rollers are very easy to take apart. If you do a search "disassemble Remington Rolling Block 1870 there will be numerous step by step plans. Really roller take down is so easy South American Armies felt safe equipping farmers with them.
Ammo.. for smokeless it is very important to have at least a groove size bullet. Smokeless will not generally bump up undersize cast. Even Unique can not be relied upon to bump up a very soft bullet. So you must check that groove diameter just in front of the chamber. Do not be surprised if it is as fat as .517 or even .520. Maybe your 1870 is smaller but you must do these steps or your going to get a leaded mess in the grooves. Do not use hard cast bullets. They are not for this low pressure application.
Unique, 2400, and 5477 are my substitute smokeless powders of choice for BP cartridge rifles. I have never used Trail Boss. 2400 will near duplicate 3F peak pressure going down the bore. But BP explodes which gets to low peak pressure very fast then holds it. That is why it will bump up a slightly smaller than groove soft cast bullet. A hard cast bullet will do nothing. If you do decide to use smokeless do not get power happy. You can damage a 140 year old strong action. Rollers are strong but not indestructible. Whichever powder you choose to use get the data from the manufacturer. Start at their suggested minimum and work up. Do not pass their max loads.
BP is the only powder that will never harm a BP rifle. Do not use 4F ! 3F is ok. 2F is the standard.
An example. I shoot a 50-95 Chapparel 1876. This rifle is possibly 50% stronger than an original. I did all my testing with 3F BP. Found my most accurate load. Then shot that over a chrony. 1465 FPS with a 350 grain soft cast bullet. A 285 grainer would probably equal the old factory load of 1500 fps. But I want the 350 for better 100 yard penetration. I then called Accurate Powder and gave them the details so they could give me some 5477 guidelines. Their suggested minimum was tried and I slowly worked up to 1465 fps. My "stop here" load was almost 4 grains under their suggested max. Accurate max load probablywould have pushed my 350grainer to about1525 fps. My "stop here" load was called back in to Accurate with my Crony data. They were very happy to have it and said they would revise their suggested data with a 350 grain bullet for a 26 inch 1876 model.
Now that example is just to let you know we are dealing with an old design that was never designed for the pressure smokeless can develop. My modern 1876 could probably take the extra pressure with no damage.. but for how long ? That is why I highly recommend using 3F BP. It takes me 5 minutes to clean a Roller fired with BP. When I shoot I drop the fired brass into a gallon jug of water with 10 drops of Dawn dish soap.By the time I get home my fired brass is ready for brush to run in and out of the case. Then it gets de primed and set on a old rag mouth down at an angle and forgot till next day. It is ready to reload. Really it is a fast job.
I have never found a smokeless load that could equall a BP load in a BP cartridge rifle. Even in new made rifles. Smokeless will come close but never exceeds the accuracy. I have tried and tried. Maybe there is a magic powder I have not tried but even the Chappy 1876 likes 3F far better to the tune of .5 inch smaller groups at 100 yards.
Mike in Peru
I kinda knew that to be the answer all along .... I guess I'll be getting into BP this year no matter how hard I've been fighting it.
I still really want a good smith to look it over and try to replace the ejector/extractor (if he/she .... gotta be politically correct .... thinks it's worth the trouble. And either repair or replace the "aftermarket" ladder sight.
I did take the time to remove the butt stock and give it a quick look and all was extremely clean and pristing looking. The hammer face is nearly perfect with the exception of having a perfectly sized stain where it rested on the firing pin for who knows how many years. The firing pin is perfectly rounded and protrudes through the block well over that 1/16 inch. Actually still signs of deep blue on the sides of the hammer, otherwise most of the finish has the typical brown patina. There are only a couple of blemishes in the wood, but I'm guessing (due to the finish) they might have been original equipment blems.
A vintage firearm qualified smith within 300-400 miles would be on my "to see" list in the next few weeks/months. My wife would jump at the opportunity to have me make a road trip no matter what the reason. The last few years, I consider just leaving the county to be an adventure.
jd