I bought a beautiful used Pietta 1858 Remington cap & ball
revolver from a HuntingNet member last year and was finally
able to give it whirl.
I didn't shoot it right away because I ordered one of the new
Triple P Loaders that was only recently designed and put into
productionbyits inventor who makes them by hand one at a
time. It's an ingenious new cap & ball loading device that really
makes loading any cap & baller much easier to accomplish with
the cylinder removed from the frame and almost as much fun to
do as shooting the gun itself.




I also orderedtheoptional wad cutting attachments with it
to be able to cut my own over powder wads which can help
toprevent a chain fire and to save money on buying factory
made wool wads.



I've been saving up wax board from dairy and juice cartons
for this very purpose and everything worked great.It only
took a few minutes to cutsomewax board wadsto getready
to load up my2 cylinders with powder and ball.




First each chamber was loadedwith 35 grains of APP fffg
and then a wax boardwad was placed on top of itand
compressed firmly with the ram.





Next a .451 round ballwas rammed down, and for good
measure I then rammed another wad over the ball.




At the range, thePietta and the loads fired off great.
The 1858Remington model makes it very easy to
simply swap pre-loaded cylinders in and out of the
frametocontinue shooting, similar to swapping out
magazineson a modern pistol.
It was easy to shootthepistolfairly accurately at
about17yards. My son alsotook a few shotswith
itandonlya sighter shot or twoeachwere needed
before we were hittingthe orange targetcenter.This
8 inch target modelalso has a fully adjustable rear sight.





I found APP fffgto be acleanand smoothshooting
revolver powder. When in stock at my local Cabela's
itsprice has beenunder $14 per lb.
The #10 Remington caps fit on the nipples like a
glovewhich is important so they don't fall off under
fireand jam up theaction of the cylinder turning,
orcause a chainfire through an open nipple.
Thiswas a short range session but the experience
was valuable because AFAIK, this was the firstreport
aboutusing wax board as a new wad material which
wascompletely successful.
I onlyrecovered 4 of the over ball wads but their
condition shows just how well all of the wadsworked
to seal the chambers.








Here's the Triple P Loader website:

http://www.sixgunforfun.com/