Lube for cap & ball revolvers?

[Jugband]

Current thinking is chain fires are caused by loose fitting caps or improper size balls. That being said, I don't know that lube serves a purpose at all in a CB revolver. That being said I usually put a small dab of SPG lube under the ball and over the powder, no felt. My lead balls shave off as they go into the cylinder, and I pinch the caps before placing them on the nipples.

Think about this... round nipples, round caps = pretty good seal against sparks.

Round nipples, oblong caps from being pinched = ???

If the caps are the right size, you shouldn't need to pinch them and if they are the wrong size, you've created an even larger gap between the cap wall and the nipple, though they are less likely to fall off, which is the absolute worst.

Caps, (at least Remingtons), are all the same diameter. What's different is the height of the caps (length of the walls). Nipples are tapered, and you want your cap to start making good contact very slightly before it bottoms out against the top (back?) of the nipple, becoming fully seated.

If it makes this contact too soon, you will think the cap is seated all the way when it's not quite, like having a primer not fully seated, only impossible to see.

And like a primer that's not fully seated, a hard enough strike may seat it the rest of the way and set it off. The hammer can hit it a lot harder than you'd dare to while loading, even with a wooden dowel to help (unless you love trouble).

Most likely, though the first strike will seat it, and the second strike will fire it (or it may never fire), depending on how well the first blow actually seated it. That's what happens when you use #10 caps on nipples that were designed for #11.

A #10 cap has longer walls than a #11, so it expects the skirt to start making good contact closer to the chamber.

If you put a #11 cap on a nipple with a taper designed for #10, the cap will bottom out at the top before the skirt has made a good seal with the tapered area of the nipple, and you'll have trouble keeping it on, in addition to a slightly higher chance of a chainfire.

Chainfires that happen despite properly-sized caps and balls are so seldom as to almost be an urban legend, but they do happen, due to defective chambers. If a chamber was bored oversize or out of round, you CAN have a risk of chainfires, despite using all the correct sized loading supplies.

THAT is when a lubed wad over the powder can do you more good than simply reducing fouling.

I think that Italian revolvers of more recent manufacture are a lot less likely to have chambers that are out of round, though. QA seems to have come a long, long way in the 21st Century all the way around with Pietta & Uberti both.

[44man]

BPCR lube over the ball. It takes heat and does not blow all out.
You need a softening of fouling in the bore to shoot out with each shot. Use a stiffer lube.
Chain fires are almost 100% from the rear. How can a spark get past a tight seated ball?

[dondiego]

Chain fires have been proven to be 100% from the front due to dragging of a powder trail in with the ball creating a fuse of sorts. I have fired many times with no cap on an adjacent loaded cylinder and no chain fire.

[swathdiver]

Dondiego, there are fellas who have video taped their guns going off from the rear, proving your 100% statement false.

Reality is, a chain fire can happen from the front or the rear.

As for me and my house, all chambers on all of our cap and ball revolvers are round, there's no rust holes between the chambers, and we use balls or boolits that are larger than the chamber diameter. All of those same guns have properly fitted cones in good condition and use caps that fit firmly. We've never had a chain fire; indeed it's rather impossible with those conditions.

[Omnivore]

there are fellas who have video taped their guns going off from the rear

I believe there are videos (how about showing them to us?). They would of course show fire coming out both ends of the chamber. That doesn't conclusively prove the source and location of ignition, nor do I believe it possibly could unless one were equipped with state-of-the-art, extremely expensive, high resolution, extremely high speed camera equipment, and even then it would be questionable.

The best report on this phenomenon I've seen yet are the writings of John L. Fuhring, who claims to be able to create a chain fire at will, but was unable to get a chain fire by simply leaving a nipple un-capped. I've fired many times with adjacent, charged chamber left un-capped, and never had one, but Fhuring says he's tried and tried and tried, and couldn't make it happen.

[Maven]

dondiego, swathdiver is correct: Most chain fires start at the rear of the cylinder and are attributable to a poor cap to nipple fit. The Bevel Brothers demonstrated this in an article in Muzzle Blasts several years ago. However, a poorly fitted, i.e., undersized RB (no shaved lead ring) + very sloppy powder management could feasibly result in chain firing as well.

[Tar Heel]

Everything above is absolutely wrong. Use a 2:1 Lamb Tallow to Beeswax mixture with pure felt. That is the perfect mixture and absolutely guaranteed to improve accuracy, reliability, smooth operation, reduce fouling, and much more - or DOUBLE your money back. I get the tallow from Dixie Gun Works, the wax from RandyRat on here, and felt from Durofelt.

Using Crisco gums up the works.

https://youtu.be/YgNVPC2wmWI

Attachment 182158

[Tar Heel]

Chain fires have been proven to be 100% from the front due to dragging of a powder trail in with the ball creating a fuse of sorts. I have fired many times with no cap on an adjacent loaded cylinder and no chain fire.

Who proved this? When was this testing done? Who documented this proof?

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/B4MfmTk_-wE

You may rethink your position.

[rfd]

Who proved this? When was this testing done? Who documented this proof?

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/B4MfmTk_-wE

You may rethink your position.

something seriously wrong with that gun.

[Tar Heel]

something seriously wrong with that gun.

Probably not....I have shot a lot of video on C&B revolvers and when you grab some frames, the sparks are flying. After seeing some of my clips, I vowed to NEVER shoot a C&B without eye protection on - ever again.

Attachment 182159

[Omnivore]

Using Crisco gums up the works.

Using too little, of whatever lube, gums up the works. If you get fouling accumulation, use more lube until it stops. It's that simple. But lube in front of the ball does almost nothing, so use more lube, behind the ball where it can mix with the fouling.

Watch this video: https://youtu.be/B4MfmTk_-wE


You may rethink your position.

i saw that video when I first came out, and no, I doesn't change my position. It offers a positive reinforcement of someone else's intuitive assessment, which is most likely wrong. Science is another matter altogether, and John Fuhring has done the science;
http://www.geojohn.org/BlackPowder/bps2Mobile.html
you can believe him, or do your own proof. Anecdotes, and guesses based on seeing sparks, do not make science.

Anyway, for the cap sparks to ignite the main charge through a nipple flash hole in an adjacent chamber, they'd have to switch direction; turn the corner, get past the larger bore at the back of the nipple, past the shoulder down inside, get through the long-ish pin hole, contact the powder and still carry enough heat to ignite it. Try it. Make sure your chamber mouths are free of burrs or distortions, and then load up and leave all but one nipple capped at a time. Follow Fuhring's practices of "clean loading" to ensure that you don't get a chain fire from the front. Repeat until you get a chain fire. My guess is you'll be shooting a long, long time before you give up.

If you want anecdotes, and you consider anecdotes and assertions to be scientific proof, then here's one for you; last week while hunting I took one shot. Fifty grains of Olde Eynsford 3F, a lube cookie, and a 200 grain bullet, using a Remington #10 cap. Walker revolver. The adjacent chamber was charged with powder, lube and bullet, but not capped, in deference to my state regs regarding multi-shot weapons during muzzleloader season. BANG! The bare naked nipple next to all that fire and all those sparks, confined between the back of the cylinder and the recoil shield, did not ignite. I've done this many times without a chain fire. I've never had a chain fire, and have had caps fall off inadvertently while shooting (that was before I figured out a nipple and cap combo that fits right). There. "Proof". I could provide a video, if that constitutes proof also.

[Omnivore]

Maybe we should discuss the "machinery" of percussion ignition.;

Ever heard of a "fire piston"? If not, please look it up and read about how it works, then come back to the conversation. In short, it's like a Diesel engine-- compression alone leads to the high temperature that initiates combustion.

A percussion cap works very much the same way. The cylinder is packed tight with powder, and the end is plugged with lead. It's a blind hole, so "fire" isn't just going to "blow" into the chamber like wind. The caps's "fire" may help, by mainly it is the intense spike of high pressure that lights up the atmosphere, inside the flash hole, and between the tiny air spaces between granules right at the back of the chamber. We tend to think of it as a "spark" lighting the powder, like the spark in a cigarette lighter as at actually touches the thin zone of vapor/air mix at the wick, lighting it directly. But it's not really quite like that. It's more like Diesel ignition.

Leaving a nipple open, beside a fired one, may let in a teeny bit of heat and light through the pin hole, but it doesn't provide for that intense compression.

A flintlock by contrast relies mostly on the direct radiant heat from the flash in the pan. There's a little bit of compression there, but not near enough. The idea of a "whoosh" of flame entering the flash hole doesn't make a lot of sense, because it's a blind hole. There's no accommodating volume of air inside to make room for such incursion. Getting the main charge closer to the flash, by counter-boring the flash channel, is a we-ll known way to improve ignition time. Still, it is common enough to get a flash in the pan and still not ignite the main charge.

You could try lighting a small charge of black powder using a fire piston. If you do, and once your wrist is healed up from the amputation of your blow-up hand, then report back here and tell us that "sparks" are not needed to set off black powder, that compression of a small air space does a great job of it.

[rodwha]

I must admit that I have a hard time believing that a grain of powder can overcome a lead projectile upon being forced into the chamber, that the lead gives way to it to form a trail. This just doesn't seem logical to me at all.

Poorly fitting caps caps or the lack of one seems slightly more plausible, but as you mentioned what it would take to get through and still ignite the charge sounds pretty hard to do as well I suppose.

An out of round chamber would cut the projectile to that shape, though I guess one doesn't know precisely what's going on with the ram while pressing as I see my Remington's ram doesn't go straight down throughout the stroke. But with an elongated projectile it seems there wouldn't be any real wiggle room.

Anyone have a chain fire from a conical?

My father had one next to me using a ball. He did not put any sort of lube on the chamber mouth, but I don't recall him using a wad either. I'll be talking to him tomorrow and will have to ask.

[AtomHeartMother]

Lube ? What lube ? Lol... if you're shooting all day lube is a good idea. I rarely shoot more than 50 rounds out of any revolver I take to the range though I usually take several. Shooting this way, I simply don't have a need for any lube. Once in a while with my Remy's I'll lube the cylinder pin so it doesn't bind from fouling. All my revolvers stay plenty accurate up to my 50 round mark. I'm sure if I kept going though accuracy would suffer. I'm pretty convinced chain fires are happening at the rear, given you have a good ball fit. The cones on my walker are really worn and if I'm not careful with the caps, I will get a chainfire. What happens when cones wear is the vent hole keeps growing in diameter...causing a larger and larger jet of flame shooting all around the back of the cylinder. This will most certainly test the remaining caps on the loaded chambers. I suspect that enough heat and flame is being created to ignite the cap nearby without any leakage initially around the cap if that makes sense. The vents in the cones on my walker are absolutely huge( I really need to get some trescos) and with 50 grains in each chamber, things are getting pretty intense south of the chamber mouths... As someone mentioned earlier, lube over the ball really just makes more of a mess than anything. If you insist on lube, get some wonder wads to go in between the ball and powder. Back in the day, paper cartridged bullets for these guns didn't have any lube on them. I would guess the assumption was it wasn't necessary since most soldiers weren't going to be reloading a lot in the heat of battle.

[dondiego]

dondiego, swathdiver is correct: Most chain fires start at the rear of the cylinder and are attributable to a poor cap to nipple fit. The Bevel Brothers demonstrated this in an article in Muzzle Blasts several years ago. However, a poorly fitted, i.e., undersized RB (no shaved lead ring) + very sloppy powder management could feasibly result in chain firing as well.

I'll defer to Omnivore on this issue.

[rodwha]

I asked my father and he said he always uses a felt wad and that day was no different.

[Omnivore]

OK, maybe an eroded (enlarged) flash hole could result in a chain fire. So try it and report back; just how big of a drill bit do you have to take to the flash hole to make it ignite from an adjacent chamber while it's un-capped? A chainfire is not dangerous as long as you have a proper hold on the gun.

Who has actually read Fuhring"s thesis on this matter? He goes through some very methodical tests, and can create, or prevent a chainfire at will. His all came from the front. As some of you have said, it is very counter-intuitive, but so was the idea that the Earth was round, for most people.

One of the first things I do with a new percussion revolver is replace the nipples with Tressos. that way the same Remington #10 caps fit all of them perfectly. The Tresos also have a smaller flash hole than the Wap originals. Chainfires are not at all on my mind in making this decision though, because I've never had one.

Rodwha; What gun (what chamber size) and what size ball was your father using? The first thing I would do is examine the chamber mouths under a magnifying glass, looking for burrs or other defects or irregularities which could cut a ball and possibly leave a flash channel. Was he using cast or swaged ball? I'll go on the assumption that it happened from the front, unless the nipples are extremely open. Look for it at the front, because that's the overwhelmingly likely path to a chainfire.

Something happened to me last month that I've never noticed before. I was loading conicals, and afterwards, because it is a Walker, I noticed a rather large chunk of lead had been cut off the base of the bullet. I'd estimate it to be at least 20 grains of lead. In the Walker, the loading port is open only on one side, otherwise I wouldn't have notice. the blocked side captured the chunk. I don't know how I did it, but I cut a good portion of the base off the bullet. If such a thing could happen with a round ball, on most any other percussion revolver which has a loading port open to both sides, that would almost certainly result in a chainfire, and you'd never know why it happened. You'd be left speculating, and making things up, and other people would end up repeating them, and it would all sound very plausible yet be at the same time false, and this is how we too often "understand" things.

[rodwha]

I called him real quick and asked a few questions. He does not know the diameter of his chambers of his ASM 1860 Army.

He didn't seem 100% certain but is fairly sure he uses .451" balls but can't say for sure if it cuts a ring of lead. I know he's had it for quite some time but it's not his real interest.

He is lacking to get out of own for a while but I told him to really check his chambers and nipples, which I assume or factory. I'd have a hard time believing he wore them out as I'd be surprised if he's shot it enough, but I didn't think to ask if it was purchased new, or if it was his BP pistol or the one he got from his best friend who passed (where I got my ROA).

To be clear I don't believe chain fires from the front are hoey, but the idea that a grain of powder could cut its way through lead is the part I find a bit too hard to believe. I did read a good bit from that link, but it kind of drug on a bit and I lost interest.

I'm wondering how one would truly know if the chambers had an out of round spot without going to great lengths that are beyond average people. He is into reloading and likes to rebuild milsurp rifles.

[Tar Heel]

Did we migrate off topic here? I think the post was about lube.

[Omnivore]

Tar Heel; One of the most oft cited, long prevailing reasons for using "lube" in a percussion revolver is for the prevention of chain fire. Hence it could be argued that we've zeroed in on the topic.

Rodwha; IF the chain fire ignited from the front, the .451" ball would have made it easier to happen. The Waps have been recommending 451s for years, Cumpston and Bates, and others have, since over a decade ago, reported better accuracy and velocity with larger ball, and more recently more and more of the retailers have been recommending 454s. I use a minimum 454 in all my 44s, and I'm happy to use 457 as well.

Again; anyone who hasn't read Fuhring's thesis on the matter, I believe, is behind the curve. Speculation, "intuitive" surmise, and parroting of the surmise of others, are all rampant on the internet, but who has actually TRIED IT? Fuhring is the only one I've found, and so unless someone wants to chime in with their experiment designs, their extensive experimental process, and their carefully recorded findings, then please shut up. Whatever you think you know is probably wrong, no matter how many low resolution videos you've seen or stories you've heard, and no matter even your direct experience;
"I had a chain fire and so I know how it happened".
No, you don't. Unless you can prevent AND CAUSE chain fires at will, using conventional loading practices (no nicking the ball with a knife before loading, etc.), with a perfectly good gun, with perfectly good chambers, you don't actually know anything about it.

And by the way, if you have a Remington and you've used it a lot, you have dinged chamber mouths, almost guaranteed.