C&B revolver accuracy

[bigted]

Shortlegs, i also would like to know why you would not modify a cylinder. These revolvers are extremely inexpensive (kinda like buying an assembled KIT) also looking at Uberti for instance, have a historical short arbor and sending them back will do no good as they know about this problem and STILL will not simply modify their manufacturing process just a small bit to fix this small but effective problem.

Nope for me the tinkering with them gives me intense pleasure and satisfaction when i solve a problem with them.

Now reaming my 36 cal cylinder to provide an accurate shooter of previously unobtainable results. No reason i know of to not expect sub 1 inch groups at 15 to 20 yards.

[Good Cheer]

bigted,
For me, the thinner the walls get the more it bugs me.
After checking out my Pietta 1858 I decided against enlarging the chambers. I don't know if making them bigger would be OK or not. I just haven't had any justification for acceptance, no data.
My .40 cailber 1851 and the .41 caliber 1858 are based upon the walls being thicker than revolvers of larger bore which gives me warm fuzzies (the only criteria I've had to go by).
But I'd certainly much prefer to have larger chambers in the .44's.

[Gtek]

Let's see, we take a couple thousandths out of .357 and 44 cylinders to correct a makers poor math skills with cylinder pressures running >35K PSI. How many ruptured CORRECTLY LOADED black powder revolver cylinder stories are there or has there been on social media? I will admit the gray hair may keep me from completely grasping the new math and the latest, greatest communication tools. I do find myself taking .003" wall out to square cylinder to bore dimension an acceptable risk with 30 grains of BP , even without the NASA testing.

[country gent]

The manufacturers wouldn't need to modify the manufacturing process any. Just buy / make the correct dia reamers for the barrels they are using. The .003-.004 on a side difference wont affect cutting speeds or feeds. That small amount probably wouldn't even require a change in the chamfer depth.

[RPRNY]

Why is obturation and the elastic quality of pure lead so hard to grasp? Which part of it isn’t readily understandable? Why would removing material from the walls of cylinders made of unknown steel quality in which near explosions of black powder take place seem like a good idea? Enquiring minds want to know.

[Outpost75]

Original Colt cap & ball cylinders were plain carbon steel, perhaps 30 points of carbon, annealed for machining, then quenched and tempered, perhaps 80-90 Rockwell B scale at very best, exactly the same as blackpowder frame Colts and pre-1918 S&W Hand Ejectors, Webleys of the Boer War period and Colt Army Specials prior to 1929, which were fine with standard- pressure blackpowder and mild smokeless loads of tbe period, not to exceed about 13-14,000 psi.

I haven't tested any Pietta or Uberti cylinders, but from the way they machine, they act no differently than a black powder era Colt made prior to 1900. The few I worked on I did a carbon restore, quench and temper after alteration and was able to get 20Rc, which improves strength and durability, but I am no longer "in the business"...

[Jniedbalski]

All the Italian companies that make reproduction bp pistols all have undersized cylinders. Usually .005 to .007 thousand. Why I don’t know must be a reason. The only bp revolvers I have seen with cylinders the same size as grove diameter are the high dollar target compition ones. I seen them a few years ago in Dixie gun works catalogue. They where advertised as winning the bp world compition in Germany, Spain I thank and the USA and gave the years they won. I thank there were 1858 Remington’s and they where 800 to 900$ if I rember correctly. There the only bp guns made that have the correct cylinder size and a tight cylinder to barrel gap. Reaming a cylinder to correct this shouldn’t be a big deal. You are not taking out .030 or .040 thousands. Most guns only need .005 or .006 thousands taken out of each cylinder. That is only taking out .003 thousands on each side of the wall for a .006 over ream and .004 on each side of the cylinder for a .008 ream so not a lot .i do know that with these pistoles that the forcing cone shape was different than the standard Italian imports if I remember correctly . That also might have to be changed. For some reason I have found my 36 cal revolvers always shot tighter groups than my 44s. Also my 36’s have a closer cylinder to grove size than the 44’s I have. The 44’s I have all have a few thousands bigger differences between cylinder and groves. It seams all the bp revolvers from Italy are like this. Dixey gun catalogue has the cilinder size and the grove size in all there pistoles they sell and I can tell you that each company has sompthing differnt

[Good Cheer]

Why is obturation and the elastic quality of pure lead so hard to grasp? Which part of it isn’t readily understandable? Why would removing material from the walls of cylinders made of unknown steel quality in which near explosions of black powder take place seem like a good idea? Enquiring minds want to know.

Some of my boolits in .36 and .44 revolvers are made to slip into the chambers and then shear on the front end the same as a round ball.

Getting the rear end to expand and fill the rifling grooves isn't always easy, doesn't just happen first time every time. You have to develop the tech to suit the individual revolver when the boolit comes out of the cylinder too small for the barrel. The low power of the powder charge and the relatively short bullet length work against obtaining that expansion. Plus there's the taper on the chambers that so many have.

If the engineering of the revolvers wasn't being done by lawyers I figger by now we'd a'seen some marketed to shoot .358 and .430 diameter molds.
If I'd been sitting in Middlefield, Connecticut about twenty or thirty years ago and wanted to sell more product that's darn sure what I woulda done.

[Good Cheer]

These are what's mostly used in the .41 caliber 1858.

Got an old round nose made by NEI too.

[indian joe]

All the ranting in the world on facebook and you still wont have a gun that shoots.

I bought my pair for $75 total. It was a good learning tool for me to learn a bit about revolver work...and I had little to lose.

My revolvers, as they were made, had less than 1/1000 of rifling engagement. There's simply no way to fix that without making the cylinder bigger, or a replacement barrel. A barrel, of course, would cost more than I paid for the pair.

I shoot cylinders full of 3f with the cylinders reamed to .4531.

I reamed two before christmas - my sons guns - a walker and a 1860 army - both had groove of .462 and cylinder throat at .452 .... the walker was easy, plenty of meat in that cylinder, but I did will I wont I several times on the 1860 army and eventually went ahead reamed those chambers out to .462 - I measured carefully and only reamed deep enough to seat the new ball on a reasonably full powder charge .. I would strongly advise against reaming full depth on any of these guns - dont need to do it and taking ten thou out ..... yeah the army colt is thin up front. We changed to FF powder to quieten the loads down a bit - both those guns will shoot groups around two to two and a half inches at 25 yards now and I need a new pair of eyes before I can tell if they are any better than that. It was work worth doing - BUT - I did it myself - made the reamer - did the work - so the only cash cost we have in this is for the new .464 pedersoli round ball mold - boughten ball at thirty odd bucks per 100 wont take long to recoup that. How a factory could get specs so wrong on a gun is a mystery to me - it would be a minor thing to fix - and once fixed - manufacturing cost is no different than before and the product is vastly improved - sounds a no brainer - but guys say Ruger still doesnt have it sorted properly.

[Harter66]

If you want one brought up to apex action slick and closed up tolerances talk to the guy at Goons Gun Works . He roams through here occasionally as 45 Dragoon I believe . It's $180 I think and he sets them glass trigger under 4# , fanable timing , no drag bolts , and does mods like coil springs for just a little more . Cylinder gaps are closed to .004 and cylinders matched . He'll even set up a dovetail front sight for those that shoot too high and right .
He's also a pretty nice guy to talk to .

[bigted]

Why is obturation and the elastic quality of pure lead so hard to grasp? Which part of it isn’t readily understandable? Why would removing material from the walls of cylinders made of unknown steel quality in which near explosions of black powder take place seem like a good idea? Enquiring minds want to know.

Goodness!! Understand obturation very well and have plenty experience taking advantage of the science involved IN RIFLES where 50 grains is the least amount of black powder used and mostly from 70 to 135 grains of 2Fg and 3Fg. Obturation works very well when you have such a kick in the hiney to immediately swell the projectile of near pure lead to fill the grooves in the barrel.

Now for what i do not know is whether this works with the smaller charges such as 21 grains in 44 cal AND dealing with a cylinder gap that will bleed off much of the needed pressure that performs this obturation magic. Let alone the 17 grain charges in my 36, both shooting conicals that limit the room for a larger charge.

4 and 5 + inch groups at 25 yds are not going to cut it for me past simply shooting large steel targets as fast as you can. This kinda accuracy has no place when wanting to take a squirrel in the noggin which is around 1 inch if lucky, grouse heads even smaller but rabbits being a bit larger in the noodle.

Hard to grasp ... i think not!

[Texas by God]

I guess I've been lucky. I've only owned two C&B revolvers. A Colt reissue 3rd model dragoon and a no name brass frame "Confederate Navy" - both .44s.
Both were very accurate. The Colt was too nice (and big) for me so I traded it for a Luger.
The mutt- I dovetailed in fixed sights on the barrel to get poa/poi jiving and it COULD head shoot squirrels. I used .454 rb, FFFG, and Wonder Wads exclusively.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[KCSO]

The best answer is to reline the barrel then the gun will shoot better than you can.

[shortlegs]

Once you make any modifications you void any warranty/manufacture responsibility. Also, if you modify a product and then sell it, and the buyer misuses it, blows it up and gets hurt, then you are technically responsible for it since you modified it - even if the buyer overloaded it. It can still come back on you in this sue happy society we live in today.
Give the manufacturer a chance to make it right before doing the work yourself. Yes reaming the cylinder is what is needed, but you bought a product that should have been manufactured correctly. If manufacturer has to correct problems, they make changes in manufacturing process to maintain quality. If they don't, their reputation suffers and they loose sales. Doing work yourself is sometimes easier than sending a product back, but sends message to manufacturer that poor quality is acceptable.
Just my opinion. Shortlegs

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Original Colt cap & ball cylinders were plain carbon steel, perhaps 30 points of carbon, annealed for machining, then quenched and tempered, perhaps 80-90 Rockwell B scale at very best, exactly the same as blackpowder frame Colts and pre-1918 S&W Hand Ejectors, Webleys of the Boer War period and Colt Army Specials prior to 1929, which were fine with standard- pressure blackpowder and mild smokeless loads of tbe period, not to exceed about 13-14,000 psi.

I haven't tested any Pietta or Uberti cylinders, but from the way they machine, they act no differently than a black powder era Colt made prior to 1900. The few I worked on I did a carbon restore, quench and temper after alteration and was able to get 20Rc, which improves strength and durability, but I am no longer "in the business"...

It depends what you mean by original. The straight-cylinder Colts used iron frames and cylinders of a plain steel which was very likely less than 0.3% carbon. This wouldn't be hardenable unless perhaps if some other metals were present, which seems unlikely. In the 1860 Army Colt turned to imported silver steel, I believe from either of these two firms, which were already long-established and still make it:

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Peter_Stubs
http://huk1.wkfinetools.com/05-Steel...ons-hist-2.asp

That was what permitted putting a .44 calibre in the rebated-cylinder 1860 Army and .35 in the formerly .31 pocket revolvers. I've seen it said that he used Swedish steel, and he might have done so as well, but I believe the most likely origin of that belief is that Stubs imported Swedish steel for reprocessing. I bought a piece of Stubs 21/32in. round a couple of days ago.

It is a 0.95% carbon steel, with some chromium and manganese, but with no silver and not at all stainless, the name coming from its precision ground finish when most steel was supplied in black bar. It is about as good a steel as you can get, even nowadays, for straight razors, a very demanding experience except that they don't reach annealing temperature in use. It isn't difficult to work, and in a different heat treatment from the very brittle straight razor, can be extremely resilient. I don't know how the Italians heat-treat their cylinders, if at all, but it would be disappointing if the quality of the steel is any less. It isn't even much of a cash saving nowadays.

Long ago I was impressed by the Lee cap and ball mould which I used in an original Colt Navy. I wasn't so impressed by the revolver having two enlarged chambers. The principle was that the rear of the bullet entered the cylinder and the following bands were reduced by the rammer. This isn't mentioned in current Lee catalogues, and I can't make out from the illustration if it is still the case. But it seems good.

I think it is even more important than with round ball, that the elongated bullet is rammed straight and concentrically with the cylinder. It might be useful to do a bit of work with stamp-pad ink and the Dremel tool, to make the cavity in the rammer line up, or modify the rammer with epoxy, moulding the cavity to the inserted but not rammed bullet.

Much has been said about chamber and groove diameters. Fortunately I haven't heard of people finding the chambers spaced otherwise than at sity degrees (for a six-shooter), or of chambers and cylinders at a different radius from the axis of rotation. But rotational misalignment is a distinct possibility. I believe this is best corrected by reducing one side of the locking bolt and silver soldering a thin high speed steel shim to the other side. It would then have to be re=heat treated.

[rodwha]

Goodness!! Understand obturation very well and have plenty experience taking advantage of the science involved IN RIFLES where 50 grains is the least amount of black powder used and mostly from 70 to 135 grains of 2Fg and 3Fg. Obturation works very well when you have such a kick in the hiney to immediately swell the projectile of near pure lead to fill the grooves in the barrel.

Now for what i do not know is whether this works with the smaller charges such as 21 grains in 44 cal AND dealing with a cylinder gap that will bleed off much of the needed pressure that performs this obturation magic. Let alone the 17 grain charges in my 36, both shooting conicals that limit the room for a larger charge.

4 and 5 + inch groups at 25 yds are not going to cut it for me past simply shooting large steel targets as fast as you can. This kinda accuracy has no place when wanting to take a squirrel in the noggin which is around 1 inch if lucky, grouse heads even smaller but rabbits being a bit larger in the noodle.

Hard to grasp ... i think not!

In some cases it most certainly does not. The Pietta .31 pocket is so terribly undersized that the sheared ball doesn’t have enough to seal the bore and gives dismal velocities and accuracy. Use a well oversized ball, which stresses the puny loading lever assembly and has been known to break, and a much greater velocity is noted. Can’t say for sure if the bore is completely filled as there is more lead to work with where it contacts the rifling but it certainly improves it enough to notice.

I find it funny that with modern guns where the dimensions are correct we still see the lead bullets sized .001” over groove diameter not working with obturation (non hard cast) if obturation is such a great thing. I assume the act of obturation steals some of the performance from the load, but have nothing to base that off of. However we do see far too many people who have fixed the under sized chamber issues reporting much better accuracy, and those using a larger ball improving it as well as the velocity, but again adding additional stress to the loading assembly.

My 2013 Pietta NMA had 0.446” chambers with a .452” groove diameter. Fly reamed them to 0.449” and chamfered them. Still considering going further to .452-3” but the thin looking walls gives me pause, especially as I use energetic powders and bullets with strong charges of about 33 grns of 3F (weighed) Olde E which my pistol loves despite the projectile being a ball or bullet.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

In some cases it most certainly does not. The Pietta .31 pocket is so terribly undersized that the sheared ball doesn’t have enough to seal the bore and gives dismal velocities and accuracy. Use a well oversized ball, which stresses the puny loading lever assembly and has been known to break, and a much greater velocity is noted. Can’t say for sure if the bore is completely filled as there is more lead to work with where it contacts the rifling but it certainly improves it enough to notice.

I find it funny that with modern guns where the dimensions are correct we still see the lead bullets sized .001” over groove diameter not working with obturation (non hard cast) if obturation is such a great thing. I assume the act of obturation steals some of the performance from the load, but have nothing to base that off of. However we do see far too many people who have fixed the under sized chamber issues reporting much better accuracy, and those using a larger ball improving it as well as the velocity, but again adding additional stress to the loading assembly.

My 2013 Pietta NMA had 0.446” chambers with a .452” groove diameter. Fly reamed them to 0.449” and chamfered them. Still considering going further to .452-3” but the thin looking walls gives me pause, especially as I use energetic powders and bullets with strong charges of about 33 grns of 3F (weighed) Olde E which my pistol loves despite the projectile being a ball or bullet.

Before doing that fly-reamer job I would be inclined to check the alignment of chambers and bore carefully. If it isn't perfect, that gives you a chance to improve it. I would fit a solid plug, or one with a very small central hole, and drill it with an extra long drill guided by bore bushings. It should be small enough to avoid straining the locking bolt (or you could temporariy hold everything in place with a hard wax or car body filler), and large enough not to follow that central hole if you have one. Then use those holes to guide a piloted counterbore.

I suppose if a cartridge bullet .001in. over groove diameter needs and doesn't get obturation, it is because it is sized down by the chamber throat. Besides the lower charge than a rifle, the reduced inertia of the front end of the lighter bullet is against it. So, I think, is the use of a felt wad. In any case I don't like the sound of these with a round ball, because if they go cup-shaped, they may go narrower, and the gas will pass them by. They would be better with a flat-based bullet, but not as good, I think, as an incompressible wax cookie between discs of card.

[Harter66]

I can't get a picture to post . Probably my location .
What we need is a ball of nominal dia . .375 , 451 , 454 , 458 etc .
It needs to have a generous lube groove .
It needs to have a flat or hollow base of nominal or a tapered base . IE a .375 might have a .365-.370 or a .368 square base and about 20% of ball dia thick . I suspect that plain base would be enough but a hollow base of 60% dia about 25% of dia deep tapering to 40-50% if we think that would help the slug up .

The ball remains a round ball gaining maybe 10% , a .454 would go from 141 gr to 154 as a PB or 145ish HB .

The radius of the ball would still seal the chamber and have plenty of room for lube and the weakened base should more readily fill the grooves and increase the drive length and add just a little to the contact area . If you shoot a wad there won't be any charge volume loss and maybe a gr without .
The trouble is that I can't seem to herd enough buyers up to make it happen for a 44 @ .451 or .454 .

[Good Cheer]

For .44's you can generally size down .45 revolver molds to slightly over chamber diameter (a .450 sizer usually works for me) and then size the rear 2/3's or even 3/4's of the bearing surface to just below chamber diameter. The boolit selection and the charge selection have to be figgered out because you're trying to get it to expand into the rifling but if you are willing to do load development for caseless ammo then yep, it works.

Wanta try Lyman #450229 with a replacement plug, the hind side having a slight step on the tail to slip into the chambers on my Pietta 1858. Can just shoot them as cast without sizing.