Ultramax ammo in a Merwin & Hulbert revolver

[nativeshootist]

Now i know i could've looked this up, but there's a interesting story to this. My uncle owns a Merwin & Hulbert revolver, which he traded a polish made AKM. Now the story when is my grandpa Guy Dulllknife was visited by some guy around my age or 5 years older and while talking to him, the guy gave my grandpa his great great grandpa's revolver to him, the M&H. So my grandpa likes it, but talks to my uncle (who just married my aunt but easier to call him uncle) and he wants to trade the revolver to my uncle for his AK, which he gladly does. Now fast forward a few days, I go over and shoot my navies with him, he asks if i wanted to shoot the M&H and i gladly say yes. So its chambered in 44wcf and he has a box of Ultramax ammo, I became cautious at the moment, but it shot which should calm every nerve in me. But i'm worried that he'll go shoot it and it blows up on him because we both don't know if it was made for smokeless or not. So what do you guys think?

[St. George]

Definitely NOT made for smokeless...

Scouts Out!

[Will Ketchum]

Probably won't blow it up but It will stretch the frame. They are too precious to abuse like that.

Will Ketchum

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[nativeshootist]

Thank you for the quick responses! I'll go tell him, it's his safe queen but don't want him ruining it too much.

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

Undoubtedly that revolver has probably been fired with modern Smokeless ammunition over the years.

However the steel used in those revolvers is very old, and I do not recommend firing modern Smokeless ammunition in one.

I only fire Black Powder ammunition in my 44-40 Merwin Hulbert.

[Coffinmaker]

Piling on here.  Plus One to the guys who council BLACK POWDER ONLY.  There aren't going to be any "new" Merwins.  Ruin one or blow it up and it's gone forever.

Coffinmaker

[Major E A Sterner]

I just want to add an experience that I had with ultramax ammo,I was going to go to a PAL pistol match and wanted to use my Colt Diamondback.I bought some ultramax ammo to try in it to see if it was any better than the other types of ammo I was using.I loaded 6 rounds into it and all went well until the last round.It felt like I was shooting a .44mag in a light weight gun.When I looked at the pistol I saw that the top strap was bent up and the cylinder was cracked.I called ultramax the next day and they told me to ship the gun and box of ammo to them.About 10 or 12 days later I got the gun back with a letter stating that it wasn't their ammo that blew the gun up and it also accused me of saying it was their ammo to get the gun replaced.I called them up and told them it was the only ammo I had open at the bench and that it was defiantly their ammo that caused it,I also asked them where the empty brass that caused the gun damage was(they kept it) and was told they couldn't find it and that it probably got thrown out. I was very upset at this because I was out a v ery nice gun and had no evidence of what caused it.I told them that they got away with this ,this time,but I would tell everyone that I could about their ammo and their poor customer service. I will never use their ammo again and suggest that no one else does either.

[Trailrider]

If you have any of the Ultramax ammo left, I would check to see if the crimp was too light or the bullet pull was too light (the amount of pull required to remove the bullet from the case. If either or both were the case with any of the remaining ammo, then you might possibly have been the victim of "premature shot start", which can cause the bullet to jump from the case into the forcing cone. If this occurs, and the bullet stops in the forcing cone, with a medium-burning powder, such as Unique or Universal, it is possible for the remaining partially-burned powder may have reignited when the pressures went high enough to sustain combustion. The force required to re-start the bullet into the rifling is greater than if it gets a normal running start. The higher the pressure, the faster the powder will burn, etc. Of course it is also possible you got a double charge of powder, which you will never know. Sorry about your gun and the lousy customer service.

[Montana Slim]

I know someone (not me) who toasted a 41 cal model 1877 Colt with Ultramax ammo.
Cylinder went ka-blewee! Likely had a pre-existing crack. it failed proof-testing.
This gent managed to buy a replacement cylinder ($$$)...and forever more only shot BP through it.

I only recommend BP or a sub in many old guns. It's possible to develop some light smokeless loads which will be "ok" for very limited use in some firearms, but folks do are at their own risk.

Slim