1860 Problems.

[arcticap]

The oversized .457 balls would tend to stick to the ram more due to the extra force required to ram them in.
Smaller balls may swage in better without the thick wool wad. Home made waxboard or card wads aren't nearly as thick.

 

[Hellgate]

I have had rammers grab the ball and pull it up. I then carefully reamed the inner lip of the rammer face to take away the sharp edge that was catching the ball.

 

[Wildfire]

I am back.

Hey :
Well ;
I unloaded the one that gave me so much trouble. Cleaned out that cylinder.
Found that the wads were most of an 1/8" thick.
Next. I loaded 30 grains of "P" then just the .457 ball. The ram went down that extra 1/8" and that seemed to do it. The balls stay put now and fired right and none of the others came loose will shooting.

I also took that huge burr off where the spent primers were to rotate out .
Only one tried to hand up. I will open that up a little more and that should help there too.
The reason I wanted the wads was to eliminate the need for grease.
But if this can not be , Oh well. I will get some Crisco. The lube 1000 that I have always used seems too loose and is hard to get in there .

I too worked on that ram and it helped a lot. I squared it at the end and then removed the sharp edges and that seemed to help with the balls sticking to it.

So , it looks as if the cylinders were too wet. and I was not getting the balls deep enough.

If you are making your own wads , do you lube them too. Or do you use them dry ? How thick are they ? Is oversized a little OK there ?
I could make my own very easy.
If a standard size hole punch is not right I can make one on my lathe.

You guys have been a lot of help here. Thank You.

 

[Wildfire]

Orange Juice?

Hey :
Is that an Orange juice jug that you made those wads from ?
Waxed cardboard ?

I could do that.......

 

[arcticap]

Yes, the 1/2 gallon orange juice cartons are .026-.027 thickness waxboard and the pint size dairy containers are thinner.
These wads are about .4570 - .4580 maximum in diameter with some measuring a hair less.
Put them in and ram the powder down tight, and then ram the ball separately.
Then an extra wad can be put over [or under] the balls too if you want.
A tiny bit of grease on top of one or two chambers helps to provide a a little bit of lubrication.

It's too bad that you can't use the wool wads underneath the balls but at least the they're holding now.

 

[Hellgate]

Wildfire,
I buy automotive felt (F-1) in 1/8" or 3/16" thicknesses and chuck a 7/16" hole punch into a drill press and over a piece of hardwood I punch out gazillions of wads on the drill press set at a fairly low speed (can't remember). THEN I lube them in 50/50 beeswax and lard or 50/50 Beeswax and olive oil. Oversize can be a problem in cold weather as the wads get hard in the cold.

 

[Wildfire]

Printed this time.

Hey :
I printed your answers this time. I must be getting old or some thing.
I am home and off the road for a week or two now and have so much to do.
I ordered 5 Daisy Red Ryder BB guns and have to get them. Grand Kids and Christmas. Oh and 1 little Buck model too.
She is 3 and is died in the wool . I also got some part ballons and will do a lot of pumpming up of ballons very soon. These little girls will go totally crazy .

My arm will likely fall off by the time it is over.
From cocking those BB guns and pumping up ballons , if I don't freeze to death first.
Anyway , thank you for the help and I will go at it as soon as I can .
I feel kind of stupid on this one. I have been shooting for most of 40 plus years , reloading for over 30 and have more guns then I can count. Just never messed with these BP revolvers.

 

[Wildfire]

It worked.

Hey :
Well . The gun fire's fine now.
I also had a problem with the primers hanging up. They would jam the whole works up and there you sit . Can't get the hammer back and pretty much so are done.
I removed the burr where the primers are too follow the cylinder out. That worked.
Next I found that my hammer was not hitting the primers hard enough to set them off. I found that the hammer was hitting the frame on the inside curve and that was stopping the hammer from getting all the way to the primer.
I removed .014" from the curve of the hammer and it now sets off all primers.

 

[Sagetown]

Glad you got those bugs worked out. The splintered caps are always a problem. Seems like the last few years of purchasing NIB arms, I've had a few disappointments in having to learn how to solve relative simple gunsmithing problems , but I'm far from being a knowlegable gunsmith .

 

[arcticap]

So now you've made the poetry in motion act right...Good 'fer ya'!

 

[madcratebuilder]

Another case of a shooter turned gunsmith with the help of an Italian revolver. Good job, hows the arbor fit?

 

[StrawHat]

madcratebuilder

Another case of a shooter turned gunsmith with the help of an Italian revolver.

Not just Italian revolvers MCB, I've had a few problems with some revolvers built here. No one egts them right all the time, not at prices we can afford. Or at least not that I can afford!

 

[Wildfire]

Almost all.

Hey :
I have very few guns that did not need some sort of work done on them.

My 1860 is very easy to work on . Some guns are not.

I will own more BP revolvers in the future.

My 1911 colt has over 100,000 rounds through it and still shoots with the best of them. The frame , slide, and barrel are original. More than likely 99% of those rounds were cast bullets.

You were right . The .454" balls work now too. keep the Chambers dry.
I cut thin waxed wads, and put a tiny bit of grease after the balls. Works good. The other store bought wads were too thick.
I will just add them to the give away pile.

 

[pohill]

I throw this out every now and then- for lube, I've been using the vegetable spray PAM over the loaded balls, and down the barrel. I used it the other day in 30 degree weather. Just a little dab keeps the balls lubed and the barrel clean.
I even sprayed it under the balls once (by accident), right over the powder, and it still worked.
It might not be for everyone, or anyone, but it works for me.

 

[BCRider]

Pohill, based on a mention on a black powder forum and on a You Tube vid of two folks that used oil instead of "grease" I went with a drop of canola oil over the balls. Part of this was due to the balls being so deep on my Remingtons when loaded with 30 grains that it would have been very difficult to grease them correctly without loading in a HEAP of goo. Meanwhile the drop of oil just wicks around the ball politely and fills in any trace of a void to prevent chainfires. It's super quick, easy to do and seems just as effective as any other method.

Wildfire, it's been quite the learning experience but it's great that the issue has a cure. I have a couple of questions about this though. Just how close a fit is the rammer in the cylinder mouths? If you sealed off the nipple with something and inserted the rammer with a bit of oil around it does it seal and not let air out easily? I'm wondering if you're sucking the balls out to the more open part of the taper and that's why they floated up once the wedging action was compromised. The other thought is the mention from a few posts back about the rammer cup tending to grab the balls as they swage slightly into closer contact. You said that the issue wasn't as bad when you oiled the cup. Might be that some polishing of the cup and perhaps a very slight relief around the rim would be called for.

Determining what angle a taper locks and retains the lock is a function of the coefficient of friction between the two surfaces and how much that coefficient is modified by adding a lubricant. That's why why some of the various machine work tapers are considered as self locking while other tapers are merely self aligning. The taper suggested by your measurements suggests that it's in the self locking range. But if something pulls the ball back even a little as the rammer is being retracted then all bets are off. Once the ball shifts and the lock is lost it'll float back. In this case the suggestion is that the air trapped between the lube pill and ball was enough to force the lock. But perhaps it had some help from the rammer as it lifted away?

 

[arcticap]

I cut thin waxed wads, and put a tiny bit of grease after the balls. Works good.

How did you make your wadcutter?

Now that you're doing it too I don't feel like such a...Lonesome Dove!

 

[Hellgate]

Get get a hole punch set at a hardware store. I use the 3/8" for the 36cal and the 7/16" for the 44s. Chuck the punch into a drill press and cut the wads out over a block of wood at a slow speed (high speed may cut better but will fling them farther after the punch fills up with cut wads). Then melt up your lube, dump a bunch in to soak it up and lay them out on a piece of foil to cool.

 

[Wildfire]

My reply.

Hey :
Well, you guys are on to me. I did everything as wrong as I could starting out. The ram was too sharp and at times would cut too deep into the balls that it would grab them , add to that the idea that I put lube on the ram to make it NOT stick is what made it create suction.
I chucked it in my lathe and squared it off a bit and removed the sharp edge. Inside and out. That helped. Then used it dry. That helped more.

You are right , once that ball starts in one direction it can not even slightly revese or it will loose its power to hold.
I start the ball , back off to make sure that it is not sticking to the ram and then push it home. In a now dry chamber. They hold.

I used a hole punch and cut some waxed cardboard of .23" thick. {All I could find} The hole punch leaves a nice thin .454" wad. It seems to slide in OK and stay put. I will go a little thicker .

I then as some said put a tiny bit of lube 1000 on each chamber mouth and she fired fine.
I still have some what of an issue with primers but , started pushing them on harder with a small screw driver and even wedging them a bit . Just till I could see them flare a little. They now stay on and fire every time.
Funny part of that is the primers that work the best are CCI # 11s.

In the future I will likely get a set of good nipples and go from there.

 

[madcratebuilder]

I still have some what of an issue with primers but , started pushing them on harder with a small screw driver and even wedging them a bit . Just till I could see them flare a little. They now stay on and fire every time.
Funny part of that is the primers that work the best are CCI # 11s.

You can chuck the nipples in a drill and carefully reshape the taper with a file for a better cap fit. I reshape mine for a good fit with CCI caps as that is what I have available local.