It was two, Jeff. I counted.
Hm. Here, and to Jeff's face yesterday, I declared my intention of staying WELL within safe parameters with my New Vaquero, a Winchester 1892 if I buy one, and any other firearm for that matter. I have literally never gambled. But here is food for thought. Jeff says Brian Pearce's data is the definitive word on modern .45 Colt loading. Brian says 23,000 psi is safe. Again: Hm. My busing card said "Statistician" and indeed, truly, odds are in fact never zero. Decisions like using these hot loads in a New Vaquero are unavoidably based on how much risk one is willing to accept. Odds such as a popular confidence 95%? That sounds confident, but it also means failures are 1:20. Not nearly good enough. 1:100? 1:1000? I'm not even sure how a confidence interval could be calculated from ballistic "data." As I mentioned to Jeff yesterday, data I would consider reliable would need to go beyond "We tried it 150 times and there were no failures" or even "We tried it 1500 times and there were no failures." The more reliable "data," in my view, would come from a competent engineer's calculations of the firearm itself, and cylinder wall thicknesses and pressures and vibrations and whatever needs to be included in those calculations. And even then, the calculations would in fact also involve a confidence interval. One more time: The chances of a failure are technically never zero. But sometimes they are close enough. Me? I'd want those chances to be lower than the likelihood I will need to defend a stage coack from Indian attack.
I also mentioned to Jeff that the lst thiing I need right now is another complex hobby obsession rabbit-hole. Do I really want to wade into ballistic data sets?
Hm.
I read the article, and have questions.