[Allison]

I have an old Navy Arms revolver that the chambers measure out to
.378"-.379" and was wondering if anyone had a similar situation. Is
it advisable to just flatten the .375" balls a little with a hammer to
get them to widen some so it will shave some lead when loading?
If so, how many thousandths oversize should I take them to? Am
thinking about having Dixie make me a mould so should I go say
.385? Also I have an opportunity to buy some wheel weight lead to
pour balls with. Is it a good idea to use it instead of pure lead?

[wittzo]

I read where someone used a vise to flatten their balls, but you could get a .380" Lee mold and melt the .375" balls down and use them to cast .380" balls. Or you can use them but load them with dry felt and lubed felt wads over the powder to reduce fouling and prevent a chainfire, or goop the cylinders up with Crisco or Bore Butter for the same purpose until your mold comes in the mail.

If you load the balls and they shave a ring, none of that is necessary and you can keep using the .375" balls, of course.

Pure lead is better, it will spread to bite the rifling and will reduce leading your bore, but you can make good roundballs out of stick on ribbon wheelweights, they're close enough to pure (97-98% lead content), just make sure they're not zinc or iron. If you get the lead too hot, it will melt the zinc before it floats to the top.

Clip-on wheelweights are a bit too hard (95% lead), they'll be rough on your bore and really hard to load. They're still useable for smoothbore, though.

When I bought a 5 gallon bucket of wheelweights a few months ago for $50 it weighed about 160 lbs. I think I've already culled out 15 lbs of zinc and iron weights, but the lead I got out of it will cost less than $1/lb, which is fair. I can sell the zinc and iron for a few dollars.

[Allison]

Thanks, Wittzo. I'm going to try to flatten a few .375" balls to see what happens. As is,
they just roll in and out of the chambers. Did Navy Arms always bore the chambers
oversize?

[StrawHat]

Navy Arms merely imported the revolver. Uberti made 36s with cyliners that accepted the .380 round ball. Well made revovlers and very accurate. I have a pair of 1861 Colts clones and find them to be nice companions at the range.

Get a bullet mold for the .380 round ball and get rid of the 375s. At best you will get bad accuracy, worst case is a chain fire. Not really much fun either way.

What model revolver do you have?

[Allison]

Strawhat: It's a Leech & Rigdon model.

[pohill]

Track of the Wolf .380 roundballs and moulds:

http://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/tableList.aspx?catId=2&subId=25&styleId=58&partNum=BALL-375

http://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/TableList.aspx?catID=18&subID=126&styleID=410

[Allison]

Thanks Pohill. I wonder if I'd be better off with their .389" round ball to make sure
I get some lead shaving? Or would it be too much? I used gage pins this morning
and I get .379" and .380" will just slightly start in.

[pohill]

I'd go with the .380. Some of these guns are chamfered (bevelled) at the chamber mouths so it might be hard to get an accurate measurement. Some of mine shave a ring of lead but it's down in the chamber. I have some antique revolvers that could use a .390 - I tried "bumping up" a .380 ball with a hammer ( I loaded every other chamber) but it's an inconsistent, inaccurate and unsafe method.
Too large of a ball will put too much strain on the loading lever.

[Allison]

Thanks again Pohill. This is an awfully nice revolver and am looking forward to
shooting it so I appreciate your advice on getting the ball size right.

[Hellgate]

If you ram the ball snugly onto the powder you will bulge it a bit. I have a '61 navy that would prefer .380 balls but if i press in the 375s none of them move forward under recoil (called "ball creep", it is not a venereal disease but oughta be)

[Curator]

Your chambers might not be actually oversize but the correct size for your revolvers bore diameter. I have seen many of these .36s with groove diameters of .378 to .383. Try slugging the bore with an over size ball then checking to see if it slides easily into the chambers. For a cap and ball revolver to shoot its best chambers should be a couple of thousandths over groove diameter. I have a Pietta 1861 Navy with a .383 groove diameter and ..385 chambers (gunsmith reamed from .370) I load and shoot .390 balls with excellent accuracy. Before the reaming I couldn't hit the backstop using the factory-suggested .375 balls.