Grease Grooves

[rodwha]

I see how many bullets meant for black powder use have large grease grooves. When using a bullet through a cap n ball pistol is this really necessary? It seems like a waste in a shorter barrel. Regardless, it seems as though the lube near the interior of the bullet would never even come into contact with the bore even through a rifle.

When shooting RB's through my Ruger Old Army I don't usually even bother with lubed wads any more.

[fouronesix]

Maybe, maybe not. A C&B is limited to a restricted loadable volume and grease grooves take up a bunch of volume so roundballs and short conicals without much if any in the way of grease grooves are the primary projectiles for C&Bs. The lube in any BP firearm does a couple of things- it helps prevent leading and it keeps the fouling soft so that subsequent shots aren't affected so much by having to "run over" existing hard fouling. In C&Bs, lube can help in a couple more ways by helping keep the working parts and clearance surfaces (like the cylinder face to forcing cone gap) of the revolver lubed and operating. Each shot sprays both fouling and lube onto those parts so the lube helps keep the fouling soft. Lubing can also help prevent chain fires.

[rodwha]

I thought leading wasn't really a concern until after about 1300 fps or so?

Out of curiosity does quenching pure lead harden it enough that it would keep it from leading at such speeds (the point at which barrels lead)?

The Lee conicals and Kaido's bullets modified by Lee for cap n ball pistols have shallow grooves, which seem to me likely adequate for the short ride down a pistol's barrel. But others such as Big Lube and Accurate are wide and/or deep. And deep just seems useless in theory. By my sense of logic has certainly let me down!

[fouronesix]

Lead particles get splattered all over the place and/or are carried in the combustion gasses down the bore no matter if the velocity is 750 fps or whatever. Very soft lead is the best to use otherwise, as excess650 pointed out, swage seating the balls/conicals will put unnecessary strain on the loading lever. Adding lube either with a lubed felt wad or smearing lube over the top of the seated balls/conicals has multiple benefits. Certain C&B revolvers shot during dry conditions without lube will seize up before firing a single cylinder's worth. Some will continue to function OK through several cylinders. No one absolute right or wrong way to do it- just experiment and find what works best for your loading technique and revolver.

[dondiego]

rodwha - water quenching PURE lead does not change the hardness at all. Alloys of lead containing antimony or arsenic can be water hardened but is not desired for C&B boolits.

[7of7]

Here I thought someone had them for sale...

[Mike 56]

Those aren't lube groves on Lee conicals the bullet is designed to have a double gas seal to prevent flash overs negating the need for wads or over the bullet lube. Lee recommends tumble lubeing all of his black powder bullets with Lee alox lube. I mostly tumble lube them but i have ranched dipped them with bees wax.