Revolver Question

[sse]

Someone asked me this the other day, but I don't have one and have no experience with them, so I don't know.  If shooting round balls from a BP revolver, are they patched?  I said yes, then no, then I don't know.

Still don't...thanks to anyone who can clarify!

[Rocklock]

No. Revolvers use balls a little larger than bore size.   IE in a Ruger OA nominally .45 caliber a .457 ball is used. Upon ramming the bare ball into the chamber a thin sliver of lead is shaved off all the way around the ball creating the seal.
TC

[sse]

Ah, thank you...

[Rocklock]

De nada.
TC

[Fletcher]

It is often a good idea to add a seal/lube to the end of the cylinder as well.
If the ball seal is not tight, the gun could 'chain fire'  I have a product - Just Good
Lube, that will do this.  I am also working on a Hot Summer and Cold Winter version
of the original so the consistency is not to thick or thin based out outside temperatures.

Another product of Ol' Thunder Manufacturing  - which I bought from John Shorb.

[sse]

IN a BP revolver, are the cylinders and bore the exact same diameter?  Is there any kind of expanded chamber at the breech of the bore?

[rollingb]

Rather than smearing a soft lube (like Crisco) over the ball after loading (which usually gets blown away after a neighboring charge is fired), I prefer to use a stiffer 1/8" lube "cookie" (made of bee's wax and sheep tallow) between the powder and ball.
I've left cylinders loaded for a week (or more) without any sign of the "cookies" contaminating black powder charges.  :rt th
Various sized reamers can be bought online.  

[sse]

Thanks, rondo...very interesting.

[Uncle Russ]

FWIW: A bit of trivia.......
In years past, DGW "used" to have the original instructions for loading and firing, "The Colt BP Revolver", which had been copied and printed in their catalogs.
It was in the back of their catalogs, along with tons of other often overlooked but good to know information.
(Some of you oldtimers may remember this.)

I don't know when it became popular to add the lube to the loading process, but I can not remember a time, at least in my own lifetime, when this was NOT recommended.

Interesting thing is, in those "original instructions", there was never any mention of any kind of lube.

As stated before, the cylinder was apparently believed to be "sealed" by the shearing action of seating the ball, but some felt  that same "shearing action" obviously led to the round ball looking a wee bit more like a football than an actual round ball.
I have read, that according to this same lot of advanced thinking people, this was actually desirable because "bump-up" at ignition, and cylinder gap,  actually exaggerated this effect creating a projectile with better ballistic qualities....?
I do believe this is where cylinder coning came into play....with one particular breed of folks believing "the more rounder the ball the more precise the flight".
Personally, I have never been astute enough to notice if any of these theories are even worth talking about when it comes to actual shooting.
Still yet, for the new shooter, I thought it might be worth mentioning.

I have also never been witness to a so-called "chain fire", with or without lube, but I do believe that stronger charges in a Revolver are to be avoided at all cost, due to the fact that heavier charges can, and sometimes do, move the remaining ball in the cylinder forward, from its seat on the powder, and the use of Crisco only makes a messy sport more messy in this instance.

If rfd sees this I would like to hear his thoughts on this same subject, especially the "elongated ball" theory. LOL

Uncle Russ...

[sse]

Thanks, Uncle Russ...

If rfd sees this I would like to hear his thoughts on this same subject

Me, too...

[rollingb]

I do believe this is where cylinder coning came into play....with one particular breed of folks believing "the more rounder the ball the more precise the flight".

My understanding is, coning (or reaming) chambers simply assures each chamber is the same exact size as it's 5 neighbors in the cylinder and brings it closer to the pistol's groove size.
My two Pietta 1858 cylinders have chambers that vary in size by as much as .002 and average .452,... and groove size of .456 (as close as I can measure). That probably doesn't effect accuracy too much, especially if the cylinder on each pistol isn't "timed" exactly to line up perfectly with the barrel's bore (thus the need for a revolver to have a tapered "forcing cone" of 11 degrees at the mouth of it's bore).

Also, if the chambers were designed to shoot perfectly "round" balls,.... there wouldn't be be a tight enough "fit" to keep the balls from rolling back out of the cylinder through normal carry and handling (IMO).
Any chamber that has been "reamed" ("coned") to bring it closer (+ or - .001) to actual groove-size should be more accurate (IMO  

[cb]

FWIW - (almost) all chain fires are caused by ill fitting caps. This has been verified several times using hi-speed photography. Elmer Keith in his 'Sixguns" book notes the old timers he learned from used a thin lubed felt wad between powder and ball

[Bigsmoke]

If one wants to talk about accuracy in these revolvers, then all of the Colts should be left in the closet, and only Remingtons and others of that design should be talked about.
After all, when you are dealing with a Colt, you have to take into consideration Sam'l Colt's famous, disappearing, float left/float right rear sight (the hammer), and also with the barrel, each time you remove it and reinstall it, the wedge can go in slightly differently, thus affecting the front sight.
Talk about a nightmare, wow.
Of course, I have seen Colt's that shot pretty good, I have even owned a few, but for pin point accuracy, nah, the logic just isn't there.
I agree with CB, the problem with chainfires is more with ill fitting caps (or caps falling off due to recoil) than to leakage around the ball and fire getting into the chamber that way.
FWIW, back in the days when I was a notorious pistolerro (choke/gag) I would always slightly pinch the cap prior to installation on the nipple.  Never had a cap fall off when loading that way.  Eventually, I got a capper and tried loading with that and I was plagued with caps falling off.  The spent caps tended to stay on the nipples also, so there wasn't as much problem with them getting bound up when cocking it for the next round.
All fun stuff to look back on, as it has been more than a few years since I shot a revolver.
John

[Uncle Russ]

Going back a little to what Rondo said....and I would take his word on anything!
I totally agree 100% that "truing" the cylinders, or making the other five the same size as the current largest one, is going to make the revolver more accurate for shot-to-shot, even on a Colt.
I like the simple round ball only because that's what I had on hand, and what I played around with back in those days.
Is the conical more accurate? Likely so. I have heard many shooters say it is...in some guns.
Others, not so much.

I owned a 1860 Uberti Colt that I had bought used and it had the cylinders trued, and coned...which was a big selling point.
The "coning job" that was done on this particular pistol was little more than a slight bevel at the mouth of the cylinder, and with the same to the forcing-cone of the barrel. I forget the exact measurements of the cylinders but they were all the same.
I sold that gun years ago right here on this forum. I want to say Snake eyes bought it, but I can't remember for sure. If I did sell it to him maybe he will speak up.
(I thought I had some pictures on photobucket, and maybe I still do, but it has been so long since I used photobucket I was pretty well lost on finding much of anything.....looks I have to go back and re-learn that thing again.)

That particular Revolver would shoot as good as I could hold it, probably much better, if I had a better rest back in those days.
Still yet, I have often asked myself if it would shoot any worse had it not have had that done. And I asked myself that question after I had sold it and got a new Pietta.

I honestly thought I would have to have the same thing done for the new gun, to "bring it up to snuff", so speak,but that didn't prove to be the case.
Once I got all the "gunk" cleaned out of the new Pieta, and after I had shot it a few times, I happened to run into a fellow shooter that had a Ransom Rest on the range. I asked him to run a cylinder through it just for grins and giggles.......
To say I was totally blown away would be an understatement!
Sure wish I could do that!

Like so many other things, when it comes to guns, they are certainly not created equally.
And the modern day adage, "your mileage may vary" would certainly apply to Black Powder Revolvers.

Just sayin.....

Uncle Russ...

[rollingb]

This might be a good time to talk about the difference between reaming and coning the chambers of a revolver's cylinder.

When "reaming" chambers of black powder revolvers,.... it is usually done to a depth of only about 1/2 the length of the cylinder.
This still allows the mouth of each chamber to remain sharp and shave a ring of lead off a ball when it's being seated in the chamber.

When "coning" chambers of black powder revolvers,.... the "mouth' of each chamber is coned slightly (kind'a like the crown of a barrel's muzzle) to allow seating a ball without shaving a ring of lead off it, basically the "cone" allows the ball to be "swagged" into the chamber.

A ball that has been swagged into a chamber has a bit more of it's side bearing on the chamber's wall, than a ball that's had a thin ring of lead shaved off it when being seated, not much, but a little bit.

To add to these mostly irrelevant revelations,.... a chamber that has been "reamed", can also be "coned", and some shooters seeking to squeeze every ittsy bittsy teeny tiny bit of accuracy out of their C&B revolvers,... do both (and that's just to a revolver's CYLINDER  
Myself,.... I'm happy to just hit a bunny at 20 yds. with mine.