Today's revolver lesson

[Nobade]

Now that it is getting warmer out, I have discovered something. The wads I have been using all winter with the soft lube on them (DD's Pearl Lube) will contaminate the powder charge when rammed home. I was wondering why I started getting weak shots, and it finally dawned on me. The lube was getting squeezed out of the wads and into the powder when the ball was seated. Duuh! Gatofeo #1 lube doesn't do that, I am going back to using it. Had a couple shots barely make it to the 25 yard berm. Funny but not terribly effective. I sure like my little '62 pocket police though. When all the powder burns it's a powerful and accurate little revolver.

-Nobade

[missionary5155]

Greetings
I can see that happening.
Been usisng olive oil and beeswax for numerous years. Cold weather less wax (50 /50%) works good. Up the temp to 80 and more wax is better (55/45%). Have seen olive oil leaching on exposed lube rings.
I use wads off and on to fill space.. gonna have to start squeezing a few and see what they do under pressure.
Mike in Peru

[ofitg]

Do you guys make your own wads?

What if you epoxied some aluminum foil to one side of the felt before you added the lube and punched out the wads?

You could load the wads with the "aluminum" side against the powder.... just an idea....

[Beagle333]

I keep a ziplock of oven-dried corn meal with my powder to use as filler, and then put a little lube over the ball after loaded. I sometimes will leave mine loaded for a couple of weeks and the powder only touches the equally dry corn meal during that time.
'Not as handy as a wad if you carry your stuff around with you and load on foot though.

[Rio Grande]

For loads to be kept ready in the revolver for long times I just used the ball without wad or lube.
Sometimes, I confess, the ball was coated with Lee Liquid Alox and dried thoroughly. That was good as I did not need to wax the top of the ball.
Lots of powder, a little wax over the top of (unlubed) ball, good fitting cap....good to go.
Either way I never had any extra trouble cleaning the Pietta Remington, and accuracy was excellent. Never any trouble getting off 5 shots.
Now I intend to try unlubed wads to see how that works.

[Flinchrock]

Do you guys make your own wads?

What if you epoxied some aluminum foil to one side of the felt before you added the lube and punched out the wads?

You could load the wads with the "aluminum" side against the powder.... just an idea....

You have waaay to much time on your hands...

[ofitg]

You have waaay to much time on your hands...

You may be right, I love to tinker with stuff like this. After playing with the idea, I decided that I like "egg carton" cardboard better than felt - the "egg carton" cardboard is easier to punch out into clean round discs.

Step 1 - epoxy the "egg shell" cardboard onto a sheet of aluminum foil -

http://i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad336/crawdads/alwads001er_zps9fb0f5cb.jpg (http://s949.photobucket.com/user/crawdads/media/alwads001er_zps9fb0f5cb.jpg.html)

Step 2 - fold the edges of the foil up to form a shallow pan -

http://i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad336/crawdads/alwads002r_zps8b7c89ee.jpg (http://s949.photobucket.com/user/crawdads/media/alwads002r_zps8b7c89ee.jpg.html)

Step 3 - drop some chunks of lube (I used equal parts of beeswax, parafin and mutton tallow) into the pan, heat in the oven at 200F for 30 minutes to melt the lube.

Step 4 - after cooling, punch out the wads -

http://i949.photobucket.com/albums/ad336/crawdads/alwads003er_zpscd0ab7a4.jpg (http://s949.photobucket.com/user/crawdads/media/alwads003er_zpscd0ab7a4.jpg.html)

I used a LOT of lube, more than necessary - the lube is probably 1/8" thick, sitting on top of the cardboard.
I guess the next step will be to load up a spare cylinder and see if the chambers still go "bang" after sitting around for a year or so....

[I'll Make Mine]

If those are reasonably tight, they should...