i have a real old winchester 38/55 im getting ready to load some ammo for it. i want to go black powder. one fella on here told me to fill the case to the point the powder will be slightly compacted. sounds easy, being a 38/55 dosent that mean they were a 38 dia cal and 55 grs of black powder or am i thinking wrong? is there any books on handloading with black powder? thanks

most of them do fine with a 380 diameter cast bullet.
the filling the case to have about 1/10th inch compression is how you do black,a card on top of the powder and below the boolits base helps sometimes also.
you do not want any airspace between the powder and the bullets base.

ok thanks, is some sort of wading so the powder dont hit the lead needed?

ended up loading some with h322 instead, got a problem though i bought the 376 dia bullets and had a couple hit the target side ways. i should have listened to your 380 suggestion. i will try that size next. sure is a fun shooting gun.

get someone to slug the bore for you then bump up your bullet size by .001. I have to shoot .379 bullets in my crazy horse. 376 bullets make it look like a shotgun bore.