Cap and ball, proper loading.

[MilsurpShooter]

Well recently I've been reading up on black powder shooting, cap and ball revolvers mainly. So far my only Blackpowder experience is in some .45-70 reloads for a family heirloom Springfield Trapdoor and a few shots from a 3 band Enfield at the range from a gentleman who wanted to shoot my Winchester Trench Gun (He carried one in Korea).

The sticky thread in this forum has been invaluable and has given me many an hour of reading. However, after reading here, reading a number of various google links, and a few other forums google has directed me too, I've gotten myself confused. Now I know I'm over thinking it and that's probably the problem, but the question pretty much boils down to the chamber grease in an effort to prevent chainfires.

Seems the standard method I read is to load the powder, seat the ball, cover the cylinder face in grease. I've heard nothing but good things about a "gatofeo" lube. Beeswax and tallow is available at Dixie Gun Works so as soon as I find canning paraffin I'll probably cook up a version of that (unless that lube isn't intended to be used as such and I should be using something different over the cylinder face?)

Everything seems simple enough until I started reading about wonder wads and theories about chain fires coming from loose fitting percussion caps as opposed to the cylinder face. Read some information with regards to just using wonder wads between powder and ball and nothing else. Then another place I visited said to use lube over the wad but under the bullet this way the cylinder gap on firing doesn't blow the lube away from the other cylinders and more of it travels down the barrel to soften the fouling. This method also lowers mess on the chamber face where particles of black powder could become stuck and increase the risk of a chain fire supposedly.

I'm just trying to figure out the safest method and perhaps the least messy of the alternatives. I've got some ox-yoke wonder wads (pre-lubed with Wonder Lube 1000 plus) so theoretically with this method all you have to do is load powder, seat the wad, seat the ball, cap and done? Or is this in itself flawed, will this offer sufficient lubrication to prevent fouling or would it still be served best with some liquid lube over the ball, or under the ball and over the patch?

Same problem I had when I started reloading, I'm probably over thinking the simple stuff but when it comes to shooting I'd rather be too cautious when it comes down to it.

Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can give. I'll be sure to update this with pictures of the Trapdoor.

 

[rodwha]

Lube over the ball can be messy. I've not tried it. I prefer a lubed felt wad between the powder and ball.

Chainfires are supposedly more often from a loose fitting or missing percussion cap as we use oversized projectiles that are smashed into the smaller chambers. But if either the projectile wasn't the right size or had a mar on it's side it's possible fire can get past, and the same goes with a marred chamber.

I use Gatofeo's lube both on felt wads I punch myself or as bullet lube.

Paraffin wax can be found at the grocery store as Gulf wax.

 

[Crawdad1]

I've got some ox-yoke wonder wads (pre-lubed with Wonder Lube 1000 plus) so theoretically with this method all you have to do is load powder, seat the wad, seat the ball, cap and done?

That's how I do it. No chain fires in nearly 40 years of shooting these things.

 

[ivankerley]

im new to this only 120 rounds down range with my '60 (in 2 trips to the range)
tried lube over ball on one cylinder, kinda messy...
since then i dont use anything, figure if im shaving a nice ring when i seat and the nipples fit good im good to go! least thats what im doing now
Gene

 

[Panzerschwein]

I make my own lubed felt wads, not difficult at all. MUCH... MUCH cheaper than buying the pre-made ones! Much faster and waaayyyyy less messy than lube smeared over the loaded balls. Here is how I make them:

I buy 1/8" thick plain hard wool felt from Duro-felt. They have free shipping and are just great to do business with.

Next I get pure beeswax from where ever it is cheapest, and pure mutton tallow usually from Dixie gun works.

Next I melt 1 part beeswax to two parts tallow in a glass bowl in the microwave, stirring the beeswax in. It will end up looking like clear chicken broth!

Next I dip pieces of the felt into this mixture while it's still piping hot, and allow the excess lube to drain thoroughly. Next I let the lubed felt dry.

After this, out comes the 3/8" hollow punch and a hammer! I start a poundin' away at the lubed felt and get get hundreds of wads out of a 12"x12" piece. I think I figured they cost about 2.5 cents per wad, vs. the store bought ones at over a dime a piece!

It's a huge saving, is fun and very satisfying, and they work every bit as good as any "wonder wad" ever made. After a full day of heavy shootin', I run a dry patch and a .375 brass jag down the bore one time and the bore wipes completely clean. I kid you not.

If you want to make your own to save money and have some fun, I can't recommend this method highly enough.

PS: Oh, and they have a wonderful "meaty" smell to them from the mutton tallow! Can't beat it!

 

[Willie Sutton]

The lube is more for keeping the fouling soft than for anything else.

Lubed soaked felt wads under the ball, as described above, work as well as anything else. Best, in fact.

Dabbing a bit of bore butter on top of the ball works too... just messy. But these things are messy ab-initio so that's just mess on top of more mess.

Pick one of the above, and go shooting.


Willie

.

 

[BCRider]

I'll throw another curve at ya!

Looking over all the videos I came across one fella that simply seated the balls right onto the powder then instead of a lump of messy grease/wax mix he simply put a drop or two of cooking oil onto the ball.

I went with that option out of desperation for my first two days of C&B shooting. The fouling was so loose that it was simply an inky black gooey slime left behind in the bore. The cooking oil I use is Canola rather than generic vegtable oil.

When I apply it I use a small squeeze bottle equipped with a short but long enough plastic tube extension from an old can of WD40 or similar. I put one good size drop in the corner between the ball and the chamber wall. The oil wicks around in a few seconds before your eyes to give a good lubrication as well as keep the fouling loose.

 

[Panzerschwein]

Seems like you had good luck with this.

I prefer wads still as they cushion the rear of the ball, which prevents deformation of the lead spheroid. Also as the wad leaves the bore, it deposit's it's lube BEHIND the ball and in FRONT of the powder residue, so the powder residue sticks to each layer of lube.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Geometrically, the wad can't seal the chamber behind the ball once the ball is compressed down against the wad and powder. A chamber diameter wad compressed against a round ball, will cover only 2/3's of the powder side of the ball.

It is a simply high school geometry formula

As long as the lube is deposited against the bore before the fouling can contact it. however i firmly believe the lube should also lube the bore to help the ball slide through.

 

[Panzerschwein]

Geometrically, the wad can't seal the chamber behind the ball once the ball is compressed down against the wad and powder. A chamber diameter wad compressed against a round ball, will cover only 2/3's of the powder side of the ball.

It is a simply high school geometry formula

As long as the lube is deposited against the bore before the fouling can contact it. however i firmly believe the lube should also lube the bore to help the ball slide through.

Consequent shots WILL be lubed by the lube applied to the bore from the previous shots.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I just never could figure how a lubed wad under the ball could deposit sufficient lube to the bore to keep the fouling soft. If it is pushed up against the ball, it won't even contact the bore.

For years I used Blue and Gray Co. "Pistol Patch" I can't find it at a reasonable cost, so I switched to the bulk white grease available at auto supply houses. It seems to work as well. Mess? well yes. But it doesn't turn into a dripping liquid mess like Crisco, and I have fired over 100 shots without the gun gumming up from fouling.

 

[Willie Sutton]

^^ The lube vaporizes to a gas when heated during the firing process, and mixes with the products of combustion of the powder. The resultant fouling is softer than dry fouling and that's what we want.

The wad doesn't "wipe" anything mechanically with lube, it's just a convenient to handle sponge holding the lube in place until it's heated up and released.


The "chain fire" thing is a red herring. Lube softens fouling.


Willie

.

 

[J-Bar]

Seems like you had good luck with this.

I prefer wads still as they cushion the rear of the ball, which prevents deformation of the lead spheroid. Also as the wad leaves the bore, it deposit's it's lube BEHIND the ball and in FRONT of the powder residue, so the powder residue sticks to each layer of lube.

I think lubed wads are as effective as lube over the ball for keeping fouling soft, so that's Ginger versus Mary Ann....

But if you think an under ball wad will maintain the ball as a sphere, I suggest you recover a fired ball. You will see a deep impression ring on the nose where the rammer seated the ball into the chamber, and a lot of lead missing around the equator where the rifling is. A fired round ball is not much of a sphere anymore, wad or no.

 

[MilsurpShooter]

The help is much appreciated guys. I had a feeling I was overthinking it but I'd rather be sure as opposed to finding myself in a potentially dangerous situation. Still probably make up some of the gatofeo and soak the wads I have in it. Do a comparison see which works better type of thing and see which works better on the powder fouling.

I've got a Uberti Walker repro is on the way and I've got a brass framed Pietta 1851 Colt sitting around for show. It was on sale for $95 at the Gander mountain I visit, impulse buy. It wasn't until after I got it and started researching I learned about the bad things regarding brass frames and what have you. Fool and his money you know the old saying lol.

Anyhow as promised, some pictures of my only original Black Powder gun

http://imgur.com/YgMuGLs
http://imgur.com/aH7CzbS
http://imgur.com/S0EOKK7
http://imgur.com/Vf3CzeH

 

[rodwha]

If you are looking for an inexpensive yet great punch I can give you the email to the retired machinist who made both of mine. He charges $10 + shipping and makes them to the size you want (he claims oversized a little is best). No need in buying those expensive punches.

And Durofelt is the place to get your felt (1/8" hard) at a great price as mentioned. Scroll down until you find the one in bold mentioning wads.

Dixie Gun Works is a good place to find the mutton tallow and beeswax if you can't find it locally.

Check out Ballistol too. Great product!

 

[44 Dave]

Too much grease splattered all over can attract powder on following loadings and help flame transfer to adjacent chambers.
I use home made wads.

 

[AJumbo]

Powder, lubed wad, ball, cap, go make like Josey Wales, who NEVER over-thought anything.

The only chain fire I ever experienced was caused by poorly-fitting caps, and I've fired a scad of rounds without wads or any grease over the ball. Grease works, but it's messy as heck; I'm going to try BCRider's idea next chance I get, though, mostly just to try it.

 

[Jim Watson]

A treatise on the powder train effect as a cause for chain firing in cap and ball revolvers, with scraped bullets as a secondary cause.
http://www.geojohn.org/BlackPowder/bps2.html

 

[dickydalton]

Geometrically, the wad can't seal the chamber behind the ball once the ball is compressed down against the wad and powder. A chamber diameter wad compressed against a round ball, will cover only 2/3's of the powder side of the ball.

It is a simply high school geometry formula

As long as the lube is deposited against the bore before the fouling can contact it. however i firmly believe the lube should also lube the bore to help the ball slide through.

We argued this subject before. The wads that I buy from The Possible Shop are over .480 for the 44 cal and .410 for the 36 cal. and do seal the bore behind the bullet. They are NOT Chamber diameter. I even posted pictures of wads stuck to the ball with rifling marks and blackened bases and ZERO gas leakage past the wad. Do you really want to start arguing simple high school geometry that proves you wrong? I can post the whole argument again if you wish.

 

[Driftwood Johnson]

Howdy

I bought my first Cap & Ball revolver in 1968 when I borrowed my Dad's car and drove down to the old Navy Arms showroom in Ridgefield NJ. It was one of the brass 44 caliber 'Navies'. In those days the standard operating procedure was to pour the powder into the chamber, ram in a ball, then cover the ball with Crisco. Wonder Wads had not been invented yet.

My experience with Crisco was that it was next to useless. The flash and hot gasses jetting out of the barrel/cylinder gap would melt the Crisco in the chamber next to the barrel so that all that was left in front of that ball was a thin, runny layer of oil. Not much use for anything.

I did experience a chain fire in those days. I was aiming at a woodchuck and when I pulled the trigger the bang was much louder than usual and the gun almost jumped out of my hand. The chamber under the hammer as well as the one next to the barrel had both fired. One ball went down the bore, the other hit the square steel under the barrel and took off for who knows where. Near as I could tell the woodchuck escaped injury.

That treatise makes a lot of sense. I well could have had a 'powder train' leading towards the chamber next to the bore. I have never bought the 'loose caps' theory. I have also always thought that a badly formed ball could leave a void between ball and chamber that could provide a path to the powder.

Once Wonder Wads were invented I never put anything over the ball again. I pour the powder into the chamber, then ram down a wad, then seat a ball. To my way of thinking a 1/8" thick piece of felt makes a much better spark arrester than a thin, runny layer of oil. Personally, I don't really think it matters too much if the wad is greased or not. I have a lot of experience shooting Black Powder in cartridges, and use bullets that hold a tremendous amount of BP compatible lube on them. With those cartridges, the lube in the lube groove helps keep the fouling in the bore soft shot after shot. I do believe the wad under the ball in a C&B scrubs some of the fouling out of the bore with each shot. It mechanically scrubs it out. What ever the case, I get good accuracy from shot to shot just using a wad under the ball.

 

[mykeal]

First of all, a chain fire is very, very rarely, if ever, a catastrophic event. It is, of course, highly undesirable, but as a safety issue it ranks way below, for instance, using smokeless powder in a black powder gun.

The cause of a chain fire is no mystery: hot gas from the in-battery chamber entering an out of battery chamber and igniting the powder. The route that hot gas takes from one chamber to the other is the subject of much contention and little to no empirical evidence. Everyone is right and everyone is wrong on this issue. One thing is sure: seal the chamber at both the front and back and you've bought all the insurance available against having a chain fire.

As to whether one route is more likely, or causes more chain fires than the other, well, that's just pure speculation and does not apply to any given individual's situation. Nothing wrong with speculating, of course; we all do it every day. But far too often speculation is presented and accepted as fact.

None of this tells you whether or not the use of chamber mouth grease is 'proper loading' technique. So here's the answer: there is no 'proper loading' technique - that should be obvious from the fact that there's still argument over a hundred years after we started shooting black powder cap and ball revolvers. Some techniques are messier than others; some are simply time consuming for no good reason; some result in decreased accuracy; some make the gun easier to clean and some are just plain more fun.

Pick one and go out and have fun. And don't get too wound up over having a chain fire; it'll scare you, but the odds of it hurting you or anyone else are very, very small.

 

[BCRider]

Just the number of options given in this thread suggests that there's more than one or even half a dozen "roads to Rome". We're all making our guns go BANG!.... er, sorry. This is black powder so we're all making our guns go BOOM! with good regularity and repeatability. And regardless of the methods we would all appear to be having good luck with keeping them running reliably enough over the course of a day.

So do what works and be happy.

I've been casting my own round ball for a while now and it's not uncommon to find some with fissure lines on them. Those get thrown back and I modify the temperature or casting speed to move away from the conditions that produced these cold flow balls. Even then while I'm doing this I'm thinking that I'm over thinking it and the swaging effect of the ramming of the ball more than likely closes any small lines. On top of that the viscosity of the oil I use would fill in any little lines that did remain. But I still toss them back for re-melting anyway.

On a slightly related note I wonder how many of you actually use a push stick to aid in seating your caps firmly?

 

[Panzerschwein]

Yes but I've had a cast round ball with an air pocket in it totally collapse under the loading lever, and for some reason was really hard to get out. I had the remove the nipple, dump out the powder, and use a cleaning rod and hammer to get it out!

 

[doubleh]

When I first started shooting blackpowder back in the sixties I had the benefit of an experienced shooter to provide knowledge of what and what not to do. He told me to put a dab of crisco over the balls in the revolver I wanted to shoot. Yes it's messy to some extent but you have to throughly clean the gun after shooting it or experience big problems later on so I really don't mind. Black powder is just dirty anyway. It's not too hard to keep a wiping rag handy to wipe your fingers after applying the crisco and it can't be beat for cheap and easy. I've never had a chain fire either.

I use a large syringe to apply it which cuts down on the mess considerably.

 

[Noz]

Sam'l Colt said pour in powder, ram ball, cap and fire. If your caps fit tight, your balls are smooth and perfectly round and of the right alloy you are good to go. If not then a wad or grease adds an element of confidence to your shooting. If you shoot as much as some of us that element of confidence is invaluable.

Wad size? 11mm works great form my 1860s.