cap and ball revolvers

[doc25]

Do you guys put crisco in front of modern cap and ball revolver cylinders to prevent the other cylinders from going off or is this a thing of the past? I'm thinking about cowboy action shooting here.

[waksupi]

Do you guys put crisco in front of modern cap and ball revolver cylinders to prevent the other cylinders from going off or is this a thing of the past? I'm thinking about cowboy action shooting here.

Doc, you still need something to avaoid chain fires. I used to use a pinch of cornmeal between the powder and ball, making an inert filler. it seemed I could shoot more cylinders, before needing to clean. The grease tends to build up with the powder fouling fairly quickly, when putting it on the front of the cylinder.

[shooter575]

I think most chain fires come from ill fitting caps on the nipples.I just dont think the fire can get past a properly fitted ball into the powder charge. Some nipples take a #11 others like the #10,they must fit snugly.
Some of revolver team guys I know do not any over the ball lube.They use a wonder wad under the ball.They all seat the ball out as far as they can and use reduced loads so a filler is needed.COW or gritts.
I use a bit of musket lube on the chambers BW and olive oil mix. Crisco works but will make a mess on a warm day.

[Old Ironsights]

I can't speak for other guns, but if you are using a proper .457 ball in the .452 cylinder of the Ruger Old Army it is physically impossible to get a chain fire from the cylinder face.

OTOH, it is NOT impossible to get a chain fire from the cap side - assuming an ill-fitting (loose) cap.

If you are using a proper sized, well cast ball (no wrinkles) you won't chain fire.

With proper ball/bullet sizing (using a 200gr .45 REAL works really well too) the farina is only a filler to take up space so the ball doesn't have to jump as far to the forcing cone.

[Bucks Owin]

Do you guys put crisco in front of modern cap and ball revolver cylinders to prevent the other cylinders from going off or is this a thing of the past? I'm thinking about cowboy action shooting here.

I've used Crisco but not with very good results. In hot weather it's too soft and melts too easily and is generally messy to use. There are better options like "goop' made expressly for this purpose or even felt wads to be used under the ball....

But you DO need something!

Dennis

[RayinNH]

I agree Crisco is a poor choice. The first time you pull the trigger the cylinders shed the Crisco to the forward parts of the revolver. The felt wads however are clean to handle, do the job well and are not heat affected...Ray

[Wayne Smith]

I make my own wads with window felt (FrostKing) - make sure it's real felt - dipped in liquid BP lube. I squeeze out the excess while it's still liquid (and hot!) and then punch out the wads with a wad punch.

[mparks]

I tried some cut rate felt over powder wads in my Dixie .44 1858 clone once. Chain fired on me and now I just use Crisco. Probably the real thick pre-lubed Wonder Wads would work but for what little I shoot C&B I just use Crisco now.

[StarMetal]

I have a Ruger Old Army. I originally was shooting a hollow base conical out of it from an old Lyman mould. I lube these with Javelina in my lubersizer and load them as is. I've had this revolver many years and use to shoot is alot and I've never had a chainfire with it. Then I started using SWC's meant for 45acp's and even some 255 SWC's for the 45Colt , same lube, still no chain fires. I quit the Criso many years ago because of the mess.

Joe

[doc25]

I figured it would be messy. In cowboy action shooting they mention loading 6 chambers but only capping 5 so ... the 6th chamber would be left uncapped and from what I have read here there could be a large chance of a chainfire.

[Four Fingers of Death]

I don't shoot bp, but find it interesting, so always check out what the guys use,etc. Over the years I have seen that all but a couple seem to use Vaseline. One used axle grease, one used a special BP lube, one used a secret home made formula and wouldn't tell me. I have only noticed two guys with unsealed cylinder mouths. One used an under boolit wad (this guy had shorter barrels on his ROAs, never seen them before or since). and the other used Lee TL on the ball and nothing else I queried the last guy and he said he tried everything over the years and read about TL not needing sealing according to Robert Lee (I'm sure I have read this in Modern Reloading) and left it at that. He has been using the TL alone in his Old Army for about 10-15 years and now has a pair of fixed sighted ones for cowboy action. I made a point of asking him as he seemed to handle the gun with his hand around the cylinder on the loading table and I couldn't see, so I asked him. He said he keeps quiet about it because he gats nagged about it and has given up trying to convince anybody else. I seem to remember someone on this board saying that Lee TL caused hard fouling though. Mick.

[Four Fingers of Death]

PS I have never seen anyone use Crisco. That sort of fat is not that popular here, aussies seem to use liquid oils for cooking. I have seen it but it is generally not very obvious on the shelves. MIck.

[JudgeBAC]

I shoot two Pietta 1858 Remington cap and ball revolvers in cowboy matches. Mind you, I dont shoot them every match because they are very labor intensive. With a properly fitted ball, wonder wad between the powder and ball, and properly fitted caps, you should not have any chain fires. I shoot 30 grains of black powder and use RWS caps with no problems. I have yet to have a misfire during a cowboy match. My secret is to use ballistol between stages to wipe off the face of the cylinders and inside of the frame and also clean off the cylinder pin and re lube with ballistol. This stuff is the best oil for black powder applications. If you mix it 50/50 with water it makes a great cleaning solution as it is water soluble. After shooting, I take the pistols completely apart and clean every nook and cranny. I have yet to have a problem using these methods.

[Howdy Doody]

I am of the good fitting ball crowd. If you canshave a decent sized ring of lead when you ram the ball, then you should have a pretty durn good seal.
I shoot a lot of C&B in cowboy action shooting. I have tried cookies and wads and all the other stuff, but these days I shoot a self lube making powder called Goex Pinnacle and I simply just ram a ball onto the powder. I use Treso nipples in my 58 Remmies and Colt navies and just the standard nipples in my ROAs. I use a good fitting cap, #10 Remingtons, and they stay put and lessen any chance of flash over from a cap falling off from recoil. Everything else seems like an awful lot of effort, so I like to KISS.
My experience on the subject, your mileage may vary. :Fire:

[StarMetal]

I don't think I could even get No 10 caps on my ROA, No 11 are tight on it as it is .

Joe

[DEVERS454]

I use ampco (sold locally as Treso) nipples on my 1860 Armys and 1858 NMA revolvers.

CCI #11 caps, pinched just a tad, work quite well on my guns.

I shoot 24gr of FFFg and use either a plain .454" round ball or Lee 200gr conicals. I smear on some rather soft BP lube over the bullets to keep things nice and soft down the barrel.

The Colts crush the powder a bit more than the Rems do. Which is why I tend NOT to shoot conicals in the Colts. They work, but, you can tell you are shooting some power behind them. 30gr with Lee conicals just about makes you want to drop the gun. (and if you have any lube on your hands when you are shooting, you will notice right away)

I have never had a chain fire from the front of the cylinder or from the nipples. I do not load the 6th chamber.

As other have mentioned, poorly fitting caps will cause chainfires more often than not. Good caps that fit tight on the nipples with a reduced flash hole will prevent chain fires.

Ampco nipples have a smaller hole, which reduces the chances of caps falling off at the wrong time and also reduced the likelyhood of chain fires.

[Old Ironsights]

I have a Ruger Old Army. I originally was shooting a hollow base conical out of it from an old Lyman mould. I lube these with Javelina in my lubersizer and load them as is. I've had this revolver many years and use to shoot is alot and I've never had a chainfire with it. Then I started using SWC's meant for 45acp's and even some 255 SWC's for the 45Colt , same lube, still no chain fires. I quit the Criso many years ago because of the mess.

Joe
IMO the only conical worth a durn in the ROA is the 200gr .45 REAL. It needs no lubes to seal either, though you may want to run one with a bore butter cap every now and again to help with fouling/leading.

[Howdy Doody]

I don't think I could even get No 10 caps on my ROA, No 11 are tight on it as it is .

Joe

Well, the #10s fit the 3 pair of mine really well. The #11s do also. I just use a straight capper and push with that. I do carry a push stick a pard made for me in my gun belt loops and if I see that the caps are not going fully on after about 3 or 4 stages, I'll seat them with that. There isn't much difference between the sizes in Remington. I like the #10s and use them for all and that helps keep things straight for me. There must be as many combos to shooting BP as there is BP shooters and if it works for you it becomes your set up.
I luckily have had only one chain fire. It was actually only that two went off at once. I had a cap fall off and as I fired the one chamber in battery, the one next to it went off too. The caps had stayed on the other nipples. I laid the 58 remmy down and took the misses and went on. After the stage was done, we went back to the pistol I laid down to assess what had happened. Fortunately, nothing much. The cause was obvious, right down to the cap laying on a sort of table I was shooting over. No damage, just some lead at the front of the frame. The remnants of the ball flew off to the left somewhere in front of the firing line. Not a good feeling to have that happen. I learned from that and make sure my caps fit tight, so tight in fact that I have to pick off the spent ones at the unloading table that aren't split and easy to pick off. ROAs don't tend to jam as much as other brands and models and my 51 Navies have been modified with what they call cap guards, filling the slot and narrowing the hammers. The Treso nipples, lessen the blowback from having a smaller hole and #10 Rem caps fit really well.
Back to the chainfire. Anything you can do to lessen the chance of that happening is well worth doing. Though scary, nothing too much happens, since we use pure lead and of course always watch our muzzle direction.
Now scary is to me is setting off a bunch of primers on a XL650 press and having a full measure of BP right next to the primer tube. Just the noise made me ruin some underwear. [smilie=1:

[StarMetal]

The #11 CCI caps are so tight on my ROA that I have to push them on with a tool much like you do.

Know a gun that had his Dillion auto press in the basement and it happen to be directly underneath the kitchen above. A full primer magazine let go and blew a one foot hole in the kitchen floor. Luckily nobody was injured, but sure made him a believe how powerful and dangerous those primers can be.

Joe

[DEVERS454]

For all you folks with guns that tight, I would suggest having a look at the nipples and maybe file off a bit, as they may have mushroomed.

[doc25]

Another quick question. How do the remingtons come apart? Are they easy to dissasemble?

[eldeguello]

Do you guys put crisco in front of modern cap and ball revolver cylinders to prevent the other cylinders from going off or is this a thing of the past? I'm thinking about cowboy action shooting here.

I do sometimes, but generally put a Wonder Wad on top of the powder then the ball w/o grease....

[floodgate]

Doc:

Depends how far you want to take them down. For shooting at the range, I usually drop the loading lever and pull the base-pin forward to release the cylinder, wipe things down with a damp cloth, grease the base-pin heavily, roll the cylinder back in, easing back a little on the hammer to lower the cylinder stop and rolling the cylinder clockwise (as seen from behind) to engage the hand, slide the base-pin back in and snap the loading lever closed. I do this about every third or fourth cylinder-full, otherwise things get pretty "caked up" with BP fouling.

For complete takedown for cleaning, disassemble as before and put the cylinder to soak; remove the frame screw that holds the loading lever and slide it and the base-pin out of the frame. Remove the grips and loosen the mainspring retaining screw at the toe of the grip frame. Use a screwdriver blade and tap on it to ease the base of the spring out of its slot. Remove the screw that holds the trigger guard in the frame, then the screw that holds the trigger and bolt spring and remove these. Remove the trigger screw and trigger. Unscrew the hammer screw, slide the hammer down in the frame enough to remove the little screw that holds the hand to the hammer and pull the hand down out of the frame, and the hammer up and out to the top. Wash down the bore, cylinder (you can remove the nipples if you've got a good nipple wrench) and get them good, clean and dry. (An old-timer, who shot gallery BP loads as a recruit in the Marines in the early 1900's told me to do the fiirst cleaning with COLD water; it cuts the BP fouling better. Then warm, soapy water or BP solvent, and finish with boiling water to warm up the metal and speed drying.) After everything is clean, dry and lightly oiled, re-assemble the lockwork in reverse order. Reinstalling the mainspring can be eased by hooking its tip under the heel of the hammer, and laying a pencil or small dowel between it and the frame near the center of the spring; bow it enough to get it started into its slot and tap it home. Pull the hammer back a tad to free the dowel. Re-install the cylinder, cylinder pin and loading lever; wipe down with a bit of RIG or other gun grease, also the bore and the chambers in the cylinder (but don't forget to wipe them out with solvent before shooting again).

The whole thing takes almost as long to write up as it does to do it! Also, BP cleanup seems to go faster if you're doing it along with a couple of other BP shooters.

floodgate

[doc25]

Or with a couple of beers! So the cylinders of the remmys come out easily enough. I was wondering if they were more difficult than the colts to clean is why I asked.

[Gunsmith4570]

I have only ever seen 1 chain fire unfortunately it was in a gun that I fired. That one fired 1 down the barrel 2 down either side of the barrel and 1 into the rammer. When I started investigating, I found some results. First the gun was a brass frame .36 navy colt marked Eig, the maker was probably Pietta it was bought at a gun show used, but was clean and tight. it was loaded with 22 grains of pyrodex p with .375 round balls, Ox-yoke wonder wads between powder and ball. Caps were remington #10's. and the gun was inspected inside and out by me. All parts were found to be in good working order. After I got the gun back to the shop and took it apart,I finally discovered the problem, at least in this instance, after cleaning and inspecting again the cylinder was found to have a small amount of space to move backand forth on the base pin, that added to 3 over long nipples, only a few thousandths to long. This is what I beleived to be the culprit. After the inspection I found no permanent damage, so I replaced all the nipples with new Treso's and fixed the rammer with a new one and retested the gun, with the same load and lo and behold no chain fire. I sold the gun not to long after that, as it did not have the same accuracy as my Lyman navy colt and it was just to be a spare for CAS. I have shot BP revolvers for 34 years and this is the only Chain Fire I have ever seen. Do I still use wonder wads, yes. I have since found sources for .380 balls for the .36's as the .375 never shaved any lead on loading, and use .454 in most all .44's. To this day I still wonder if most chain fires are brought about in this manner?

Gunsmith4570

[Rangefinder]

As stated, I'm in the "tight ball tight cap" club. The way to prevent a chain fire is to close the gaps that any spark or hot gas could reach the charge in non-fire cylinders. If your caps fit tight over a clean nipple, most of the spark goes where it's supposed to and can't get under the others because they're clean and tight too. If the ball fits tight in a smooth cylinder, there's no way hot gas from a fired cylinder can push back through adjacent cylinders passed the ball, wad, and into powder. Chain fires occur when things are loose, dirty, or scratched enough to give gas passage. Clean, tight, polished BP Revolvers aren't going to have that problem---save the crisco for cooking and spend your time cleaning and polishing, then make sure everything fits tight and smooth.

[missionary5155]

Good morning
I tried the crisco route years ago..
I went back to beeswax & a bit of olive oil about a 80-20 mix. The olive oil just make the wax a bit softer I forget what dad used instead of olive oil.. But it is for Lubing the boolit. A tight fitting boolit that leaves a ring on the cylinder face will not permit a chain fire.

[Bull Schmitt]

Anyone interested in Remington type revolvers should visit www.scorrs.org !

[StarMetal]

I too have shot them for more years then I care to admit. In my earlier years I used the balls and Crisco and other lubes. I never seen the difference between balls that shaved a ring of lead and those that didn't. Never ever had a mishap. Fast forwarding I shoot my ROA solely now. I have the Lyman Remington conical hollow base bullet I shoot from it along with assorted 45acp target SWC's and 45 Colt bullets. On all them I use what ever current lube for center fire that I'm using at the time. So that means back years it was 50/50 Alox/Beeswax. All the conicals slip fit in the cylinder. I have had no chain fires and no problem with fouling. I have also used BP, Pyrodex, and 777 for propellants.

This has been my experience.

[Pistolero]

I found a product from New Zealand called Beaver Grease (I'm not kidding - you should have seen the look on the wifes' face when the package arrived!)

Works brilliant. Leaves no dribbly mess. I tried a Crisco equivalent - here in Aus most people cook with liquid oil - just left a horrible slippery mess all over my revolver. And it seems to me that in hot weather (alot of that here) crisco is useless as it becomes liquid. Dunno what beaver grease is made of but it dont melt. :cbpour:

[Four Fingers of Death]

I found a product from New Zealand called Beaver Grease (I'm not kidding - you should have seen the look on the wifes' face when the package arrived!)

Works brilliant. Leaves no dribbly mess. I tried a Crisco equivalent - here in Aus most people cook with liquid oil - just left a horrible slippery mess all over my revolver. And it seems to me that in hot weather (alot of that here) crisco is useless as it becomes liquid. Dunno what beaver grease is made of but it dont melt. :cbpour:

They ain't got no beavers (well the four legged buck toothed kind anyway) in NZ. I wonder where they get the grease from? :D

[Baron von Trollwhack]

It just isn't very hard for a pistol shooter to turn the nipples down in a drill or other to fit the # 10s or #11s as appropriate. Likewise,, once fitted and seated snugly on the cone (without a tool), with nipple threads lubed and nipples seated just snug, cap clearance is checked, so none stand proud. This is a good time to check wedge fit (Colts) and cylinder end shake. The last check is hammer strike. A nipple cone may need shortened too. Every hammer on every gun falls + or - the requirement.

Always buy or look at a dozen nipples of what size you really need. Then with tiny drills or wires select out the best 6 and a spare, concerning flashhole uniformity. Return the nipples with misfit holes. Or examine closely in situ. That's what happens when the shop lets serious shooters pick their own nipples out of the bin (flints too !). Some shooters don't need to do this of course, but serious ones do.

Make your own simple lube of beeswax and tallow to the consistency of lip balm for over the ball. It won't run on hot days and works on cold fingers' days. Reduce the BP load and use a filler for target loads. For full power loads, lightly compress the powder and lube over the ball. If woods walking, carry on an empty cylinder. Soft lead is best but Remingtons tolerate a little harder alloy if it is necessary for a better cylinder or barrel fit. Good Shooting.

BvT

[stubshaft]

I use Crisco with a little Ivory soap cooked into it to stiffen it up a bit. I put it on not to stop chainfires but to soften the fouling a bit out of my ROA.

[Multigunner]

Whatever you do don't use axle grease.
I've seen two brass frame .36 1851 pistols, one of them my own, crack their frames and pull out their arbor pins when axle grease was used instead of Crisco.
Both pistols had flawed frames but both had digested the same loads without any problems when crisco was used over the chamber mouths.

It may have been the specific type of grease used, Valvoline I think it was. Been awhile but I think this stuff had Lithium in it.
Anyway some greases act just fine under normal load conditions but loose all lube properties once the pressure level reaches a certain point.
Also I've read that some axle greases contain a superfine polishing compound that micro polishes the ball bearings when driving, and some sort of filler that fills in pits and scars on the bearings and races.

[Four Fingers of Death]

A lot of BP guys recommend Mobil One fully synthetic grease, maybe they are on the wrong track.