[eagle24]

This afternoon I rushed out to the range to try my new 51 Navy (uberti). Got a target up and had about an hour of good shooting light. Fired a cap on each cylinder and poured 20gr of fffg topped with a lubed pistol wad into each cylinder. Put the cylinder back in and rammed the first .375 ball down. It cut a good ring of lead off the ball, but when I retracted the loading ram, guess what??? The ball came with it. I tried another cylinder, same result. I was so frustrated, I loaded up and came home. Ever experienced this?

[Tommygunn]

Yes. You need .380 balls.

[scrat]

i was talking to a guy today on this same subject at the range today.
two things.

1. either your using the wrong size ball need a bigger ball. OR
2. week or not hardened steel. Meaning when you force a ball in it you forcing the chamber bigger. instead of jamming the ball in it.

I almost suspect the second. Which means you need to harden it up. Measure that cylinder first. each chamber. Then You need to heat it up. Heat it up very very good. Then drop it in cold water. Then dry it off. then heat it up again. and le it cool down on its own. That will harden it up. Re measure the cylinders to make sure they are still in spect. Then go try it out at the range.

[DrLaw]

Besides the bigger ball, do you have grease in the cup of the rammer that is possibly acting like a suction cup?

Never had anything like that happen.

The Doc is out now. :cool:

[Coyote Hunter]

I had the same problem with my uberti '51...ya gotta go with .380 balls, then no problems. The will also tighten up you groups a lot. I got mine from Dixie gun works.

CH

[mykeal]

2. week or not hardened steel. Meaning when you force a ball in it you forcing the chamber bigger. instead of jamming the ball in it.

The ball is lead. The cylinder is steel. Even raw steel is many, many times harder and much less malleable than lead. I just don't see how the ball could stretch the cylinder.

[scrat]

true very true. didnt think of that. but then thats what some guy told me at the range today.

[mykeal]

It is not uncommon to have problems with .375 balls. Most of the Pietta .36 cal revolvers have chambers (not cylinders) bored too close to .375, like .372/.373. This is very likely the problem here. Unfortunately the solution is .380 balls, which are hard to find; none of the major manufacturers make them anymore. One is almost better off to buy the toys and roll your own.

[TheWall]

Try .376 balls. I have a new Pietta 1851 Colt Navy and the .376 balls fit very well. You can get them at Dixie Gun Works (see link below).

https://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_info.php?cPath=22_99_311_312&products_id=1358&osCsid=524a703e045cfa87a91df6bc9391a9ad

[pohill]

Track of the Wolf sells .380 balls.

http://www.trackofthewolf.com/(S(tj5eryu0wkj1jk55fb134a45))/categories/tableList.aspx?catID=2&subID=25&styleID=58

[mec]

dixie sells cast 380 balls and they work just fine. If you want to use your .375s, put them ont the bench and smack them with a mallet or screwdriver handle and fatten them up a bit. Then load with the flat end forward and they will swage into the chambers tight enough. Accuracy will be fine too.

[eagle24]

dixie sells cast 380 balls and they work just fine. If you want to use your .375s, put them ont the bench and smack them with a mallet or screwdriver handle and fatten them up a bit. Then load with the flat end forward and they will swage into the chambers tight enough. Accuracy will be fine too.

Thanks, I'll try fattening the .375's up and order .380's next go around. Everyone else thanks for the input also.

[Im283]

I read about all the problems you guys seem to have with your .36 cal pistols and it makes me glad I only have .44's

I can readily find .454 or .451 balls and then there are no troubles

[Old Fuff]

Sometimes what are represented to be .375" balls (or whatever) turn out to be undersized. This shouldn't happen of course, but it does. If you have a dial caliper, or know someone that does (your friendly local gunsmith should) measure a ball or two to confirm what the diameter is. If it is truly running .375" your gun needs a larger size.

Now. The absolutely dumbest thing you can do is to heat up the cylinder and quench it in cold water or oil. You have no idea what steel alloy the cylinder is made of, and this kind of do-it-yourself heat treating may leave you with the metal annealed, and therefore softer, or you may inbrittle it. Neither condition is good. There is no way you can ram a lead ball into the chamber and expand the chamber. The chamber will either shave lead off of the ball, or you won’t be able to get it seated at all. If the idiot at the range wants to ruin his gun that’s his business, although I wouldn’t want to stand too close to him while he’s shooting it. :scrutiny: :eek:

[Im283]

The chamber will either shave lead off of the ball, or you won’t be able to get it seated at all

Kind of off topic but I could swear I read somewhere that originally the chambers were conical in shape. If this was the case then the balls back then never sheared any lead when being seated. If this was the case a very specific powder charge would be needed to have the ball seat properly.

[pohill]

I read about all the problems you guys seem to have with your .36 cal pistols and it makes me glad I only have .44's

I like .44s but for some reason I have more .36s. I can't say I have more problems with one over the other, or that I like shooting one more than the other. It's like the candy bar commercial - sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don't.
Variety is the spice of life.

As far as the balls pulling out of the chamber - it happens sometimes with my Walker but I think that has alot to do with the shape of the rammer tip creating suction.

[Chazz]

Wouldn't it be something if Dixie is deliberately boring out the cylinder chambers, just so you can buy their .380 balls...:neener:

I have two Pietta 1851's from Cabelas and have no problem with the .375 balls..... maybe the uberti's are chamfered? if so maybe the ball is not seating right....:what:

[mec]

Ubertis, whether from dixie or other wise, have larger chambers than Pietta. I've found that speer 375 balls are actually round and work very well. the Hornadys are lopsided with some aspects under sized for the Uberti chambers and sometimes come out stuck to the seating ram. I really like .380 balls and cast my own or get them from dixie or any other source I can find.

[Mausermike]

.375 Hornday swaged balls work perfectly in my new production Pietta 1851 - go figure. No sprue either which is a nice feature of these balls.

I will probably go with .380 though once I get my bullet casting line setup.

PS - you could flatten a ball somewhat so you shave a bigger ring of lead, tap it out from the rear of the chamber, and measure the diameter of the chamber by the ball diameter.

[Zeke/PA]

Not a good idea to attempt a cylinder re-hardening in any way.
If you are shooting anything but commercial swaged balls, be sure that they are of pure lead.
Zeke

[fluffy]

I would have to comment this thread has some of the worst internet advice I have ever seen :evil:

[Im283]

Uberti's website says to use a .380 ball in the .36

[moooose102]

the first thought that went through my head was to chamfer/polish the front edge of the cylinder, so that instead of cutting the lead, it would compress it and hold it in place. if it is cutting the lead from around the bullet, it is sizing it to the diameter of the cylinder. if you go to a larger ball, you will get a longer part of it in contact with the cylinder. that may be enough to hold it in place. but if you compress the ball as it goes in, then there would be more pressure against the wall. i am no gunsmith, or expert. it's just what poped into my head. good luck!

[Mausermike]

I too find it a little hard to believe that soft lead is deforming the cylinder. If so, I'd hate to see what happens to it when you light 25 grains of black powder under the ball.

[eagle24]

I too find it a little hard to believe that soft lead is deforming the cylinder. If so, I'd hate to see what happens to it when you light 25 grains of black powder under the ball.

I agree. These are Hornady swaged balls I was using. I don't think there is any way they were deforming the cylinder. A .380 ball may be the answer and work just fine. I was also thinking the cylinder chamber walls might not be parrallel. In other words, it might be tapered a little bit for some reason. I dunno???? I was already rushing to get out to the range, so when I had problems I just said to heck with it for the day.

[Thomas Hawkins]

There you go, Im283 is on the right track. Why don't we use the factory spec.. Take that chezy folder Uberti gives you with the gun and use the recommended size. Pietta also has a book that comes with their guns that recommends ball size. Colt has one to. It's a bummer to find out when you take your new Uberti out to the range the first time and find out the balls you have been using in your Pietta are too small. A little research later and you on your way.

[pohill]

I would have to comment this thread has some of the worst internet advice I have ever seen

That's the beauty of a forum like this. Someone can post something with all good intentions, and if he is wrong, or the advice is bad, it will be corrected and we all gain from it, learn from it, and move on.

[Mausermike]

The Pietta directions I had were trash. Maximum load of 14 grains FFFg? Right...

[Macmac]

Well, 'The guy at the range' is wrong! I know a few things about working tool steels that are unknows to me. No one who makes much of anything wants to say what the item is made of. They have funny ideas about priority over details such as these.

I can just about promise you, that if you heat up a cylinder from any gun with some source of heat that will harden it, and then go drop it in water, you will be missing a part of what ever it was... Not to mention the blueing will be gone, and then even IF you did harden it, it then will be glass hard, and bust to bits under concussion of a charge of powder and by then you will be really having a bad day! It probably won't even be round anymore.

More or less these types of guns are soft, and only some parts are hardend or should be hardened. Cylinders and barrels should not be hardened. Hammer faces, perhaps screw holes, and springs should be hardened and then tempered' drawn depending on what chore they do. The part of the trigger that fit the hammer should be hard too, for a good trigger pull, but I am not meaning glass hard either.

Not many parts of anything in a tool or a gun are at full hard in the first place. Brittle glass hard items tend to crack in use and from being dropped.

If you can file the metal is isn't glass hard. Sheet rock screws are damn hard and yet not glass hard. (I don't advise this test as you will ruin a good file)

A water quench even for W-1 steel doesn't mean you quench in water to get glass hard, and if you do it will probably crack. Incase anyone wants to try that, a horse shoe rasp is w-1.

There is a lot of mumbo jumbo out there in tinkerland, and if you listen to some guy at the range much, I get the feeling it will be hard on the wallet.

Maybe if the guy was a blade maker, and said something you could understand more. Chances are some guy at the range is a paper pusher, and thinks he knows things he PAYS others do do.

I got a lot of junk made, making knives untill I discovered the right guy in the right place to set me straight.

I wasn't happy the day I smiled, oh more like grinned, at my ever so special art knife, and he took that knife, and with his own whittled off the blade like it was balsa wood!

Looking back at things I guess that was pretty fine by me, since my blades sell best at Voo after 'some guy from the range' wants it, but not bad enough, and I take his store bought junk stainless, and whittle it off for him with one of mine..... Mine are pure hell on pot hook of steel too. I will shave of slivers off one side, after I hack up and down the pot hook using different parts of my blades so they both take hits.

Then if you want my blades you pay up, like right now, and if you don't yer a fool... Not much happens to mine after you wipe off the dust and debries...

Of course all my recipes are a secret, one item I use in the method is a very hard to come by Bat's blood!

[eagle24]

There you go, Im283 is on the right track. Why don't we use the factory spec.. Take that chezy folder Uberti gives you with the gun and use the recommended size. Pietta also has a book that comes with their guns that recommends ball size. Colt has one to. It's a bummer to find out when you take your new Uberti out to the range the first time and find out the balls you have been using in your Pietta are too small. A little research later and you on your way.

Yep! But guess what, since I did'nt have the paperwork until I got the gun and this is my first .36, I ordered what the place I got the gun from recommended. They don't even keep .380 balls. I got some coming from Dixie today though. If you're in a pinch, mec has the answer. Smack them with a brass hammer to fatten them up and they work fine. Got me by today anyway.

[DrLaw]

I would have to comment this thread has some of the worst internet advice I have ever seen

And your advice would have been??? :scrutiny:

The Doc is out now. :cool: But also wondering, really wondering about somebody trying to harden a cylinder. Bad idea.

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

Well, some of the stuff I read on here make's me want to agree with Fluffy!!..
What's the problem? Just load'er up with some .380's and have at it. It dosen't matter if Mr. Joe Blow has a .36 just like your's and the .375's fit his perfectly. It's obvious they're too small for your .36 so get some bigger balls. Damn! Do I have to think of everything around this thread?..!!!

[mec]

The Doc is out now. But also wondering, really wondering about somebody trying to harden a cylinder. Bad idea.

A few years ago, some outfit was advertising a service to (allegedly) harden all the major parts of percussion revolvers to make them hold up better. In actual fact, I have not been able to detect any softness in my ubertis or a few of the piettas I have shot. Same with Euroarms. Brittle springs and lockwork can be a problem but those parts have been better in the last few years.

the problem with .375 balls can be confusing at first. When I got into this a few years ago, nobody had gone into print about the situation and I was confused when the first ball emerged from the chamber stuck to the seating stem.

[Old Fuff]

Well, some of the stuff I read on here make's me want to agree with Fluffy!!..

:cuss::cuss::cuss: That's FUFFY!! :D :D

[Im283]

lmao, I swear Fuff, I have always read you screen name as Fluff. Sorry but I will get it right when I read you posts from now on.

[Old Fuff]

lmao, I swear Fuff, I have always read you screen name as Fluff. Sorry but I will get it right when I read you posts from now on.

“Old Fuff” is a nickname, bestrode by two teens who were out to rattle my chain… :what:

Understand that they would only do such an outrageous thing to someone they liked. Otherwise they’d just give them a cold shoulder. ;)

Of course I am greatly aggrieved when it’s misspelled because I’m so thin skinned. :evil: :D :D :D

[GENTLEMAN OF THE CHARCOAL]

Well, yesterday at around 0900hrs a gentleman posted on the first page of this thread and identified himself as 'Fluffy'....
New member....
Joined in '07....
I will attend to the matter....!!!!

[Old Fuff]

Good heavens!!!! There is a FLUFFY... :what:

I would have never thought... :eek: Could we be related??? :scrutiny:

What is the world coming too ......... :neener: :D :D

[scalper]

Seems like I read an article awhile back that addressed the whole problem of .375 balls being to small and no good .380 available commercially. This guy suggested using one of the Lee molds and casting your own. It really is not that hard and is a lot of fun as well.

I actually have one of these molds and and is great. However my 1851 from Dixie (Euroarms) is also a .36 caliber, but the regular Hornady .375 balls work great. So must be just a tad too small for yours.

Try casting. It's a blast and cheap. And for those of us into BP, kinda has a certain amount of appeal.

[berkmberk1]

Just thought I'd throw in my $13.99....... two cents adjusted for inflation............ In regards to the rammer face causing a suction.........could it be possible that your rammer has an overly sharp face that may be cutting into the ball and thereby sort of imbedding itself into the ball and dragging it back out?

[berkmberk1]

How wildly west are you Dr Law?

[Misfire99]

I'm actually not sorry but I think nobody has hit on the reason this guys balls keep popping out. He rams them in to deep. After you travel a short ways into the cylinder you come to an area that is tapered. He is pushing the ball into that area and is swaging it down. This is also why the rammer is pulling them back out because he has embedded the face of the rammer in the lead. I think he should seat the ball no further then the very top of the cylinder. And yes you should not have any space between your powder and your balls. So use something like felt wads or cream of wheat or pufflon or even a grease cookie or a combination of the above. This, I would bet, will solve the problem. No need to buy bigger balls or beat them with a hammer.

[pohill]

I think that, with this gun, it's a "perfect storm" scenerio - the lubed wad is creating a suction AND keeping the ball from being properly seated in a chamferred chamber with balls that are too small, which would all be fixed by .380 balls. Or try the .375 without the lubed wad. Check the tip of the rammer that contacts the balls - is it cut too deeply, as it is on my Walker?
Mec's suggestion to whack the balls and flatten them does work - I've done it, but I got some puzzled looks from other shooters. "Why are you beating up your bullets?"

[mykeal]

"Because they were bad.":D:D:D

[eagle24]

I'm actually not sorry but I think nobody has hit on the reason this guys balls keep popping out. He rams them in to deep. After you travel a short ways into the cylinder you come to an area that is tapered. He is pushing the ball into that area and is swaging it down. This is also why the rammer is pulling them back out because he has embedded the face of the rammer in the lead. I think he should seat the ball no further then the very top of the cylinder. And yes you should not have any space between your powder and your balls. So use something like felt wads or cream of wheat or pufflon or even a grease cookie or a combination of the above. This, I would bet, will solve the problem. No need to buy bigger balls or beat them with a hammer.

Actually, I was using 22gr of fffg and an over powder wad. seating the balls just below the chamber face. .380 balls will work fine I think. The .375 balls worked great Saturday evening and yesterday after I used mec's method and "fattened" them up. BTW he is also correct that they still shoot accurately. Pain in the rear to have to fool with getting them turned the right way though.

In regards to the rammer face causing a suction.........could it be possible that your rammer has an overly sharp face that may be cutting into the ball and thereby sort of imbedding itself into the ball and dragging it back out?

I looked at this last night and believe the rammer is overly sharp and does contribute to the problem. The contour of the rammer face is also of a smaller diameter than a .36 ball. Looks to be more on the order of a .32. I may take some of the sharp edge off the rammer as well.

[Old Fuff]

I think he should seat the ball no further then the very top of the cylinder. And yes you should not have any space between your powder and your balls. So use something like felt wads or cream of wheat or pufflon or even a grease cookie or a combination of the above.

Let me emphasize this point. Because if there is an air space between the powder charge and ball it is likely you will blow up the cylinder, or in the case of a single shot – rupture the barrel.

This may have been one reason Colt Walker cylinder sometimes exploded. Reducing the powder charge is sometimes a good idea because you can get batter accuracy, but always use some kind of filler between the charge and ball or bullet.

[skj]

I'm been having the same problem with my 3rd model Uberti Dragoon. The gun is new with only about 400 shots. I use 40 grains with a felt wad and a 457 ball (Hornady). It was only happening occasionally but it is getting worse. I never thought of the suction idea. I going to wipe off the end of the plunger each time to see if it makes a difference.

[Misfire99]

Because if there is an air space between the powder charge and ball it is likely

I don't think likely is proper. Possible is proper. If it was likely it would have happened to me when I first started. I shot my 1858 Remington like that for over a year before I heard anything about not having an air space. If you watch Cabellas video on how to load a cap and ball revolver they don't say a thing about air space. They do say that the ball should be at, or just below, the edge of the cylinder. So if it is likely then it would have happened with all the balls I shot down range. So using the word possible is better. And I even question that. If you are shooting a rifle with a 100gr charge you can put a bulge in the barrel. But 22gr charge in a revolver is a lot lot less. So I question the concept in a revolver. And the reason that the Walker blew out cylinders is the same reason that the Titanic sank. Poor quality steel. I think the real reason you want to have no air space is for accuracy. Just like the people at Pufflon have shown with there product having a filling taking up the air space give better accuracy.

[Tommygunn]

I always thought an iceberg did in the Titanic........

[Im283]

I thought the reason to have the ball set at the dge of the chamber is for better accuracy.

Personally I just jam the ball as far in as it will go, if i add grits it sits closer to the barrel, if not it sits further into the chamber. Never really noticed much difference in accuracy actually.