Chainfire, yay.

[mykeal]

Oldfalguy - the term 'chain fire' simply describes an event where one or more out of battery chambers discharges immediately following the in battery chamber. it does not discriminate as to the source of the ignition of the out of battery chambers.

There is much speculation, the vast majority of it without data, regarding the cause of a chain fire. Regardless of one's personal opinion or experience, it is reasonable to say that the best insurance against a chain fire is both properly fitting and installed projectiles (ie, the 'shave a ring of lead' statement) and properly fitting and installed percussion caps. Chain fires happen when hot gas (not sparks) from the fired chamber make their way to the powder in an out of battery chamber; the gas must be of sufficient temperature to ignite the powder. If one leaves a path due to a loose or out of shape ball or cap, the gas can make the journey, and if it's still hot enough, well, then, bang.

By the way, grease and/or wonder wads are good backup insurance against the odd leaky path from the front, but a proper fitting ball is the best prevention in that case.

The gas can get there; you need to see that it doesn't.

 

[Ginormous]

Nice pic mykeal! Looks hot there! This really shows how the hot gasses do in fact envelope the cylinder area of a revolver. Scary stuff, and just reaffirms my decision to start wearing shooting gloves of some sort, and to replace the OEM nipples with something a bit more robust. I'll also keep using those lube pills between ball and powder. They have some great benefits besides assisting in sealing the cylinder breech

 

[Voodoochile]

mykeal;
I never get enough of seeing this picture of your '51 in action nor of Smokin Gun's picture of one of his Remingtons.

Very cool.

 

[mykeal]

Not my gun, nor my hand. Not even my picture - I 'borrowed' it from another forum and post it every now and then to remind folks of what the real chain fire mechanism is.

 

[Fingers McGee]

Here's a couple more pics of C&B ignition

 

[Matt-J2]

Looks kind of odd, what with the hammer being back and all.(the image shown by Mykeal, that is. posted this as Fingers was posting)

 

[arcticap]

what with the hammer being back and all

Maybe the hammer is rebounding from the amount of blowback through the nipple, due to a large powder charge.
Depending on the individual gun and model, hammers can start rebounding after loading ~40 grains of powder or more.

 

[Matt-J2]

Could be, I certainly can't say. There is an awful nice stream of sparks rising vertically from that area, that's for sure.

 

[mykeal]

You need to understand how such pictures are made. That photo, unlike the ones posted by Fingers, is not a single instant in time, but rather a time lapse photo. The position of the hammer that you see most clearly is simply the one most illuminated by the flash - there are many others under it that don't show as well because they are not illuminated. Sort of like the long traces of the burning embers.

The point is, we don't know if that hammer position is as the trigger is pulled or rebounding from the nipple - it's whatever the flash caught. My own personal guess is that the flash caught an early position, as or even before the trigger is pulled, and the embers/burning gas simply superimposed themselves on the image that the flash did not illuminate. Notice the flash on the background trees as an example.

 

[fordlover35]

Just glad that you are ok. That could have truned out a lot wores. A friend of my dads lost three of his fingers from the same thing happing to him. Again just glad that you are ok.

 

[Oldfalguy]

Ginormous Hope you hand is improving
Mykeal thank you for the excellent explanation
The picture was MOST illustrative.
I for one am going with Treso nipples and a glove.

 

[Ginormous]

Thanks all. It looks to be healing pretty well now.

And I am definitely a glove wearer now.

 

[gotgcoalman]

Thanks all. It looks to be healing pretty well now.

And I am definitely a glove wearer now.

All sorted it was your right hand,you had the camera the wrong
way around.







Sorry about that and wish you a speedy recovery.
Dave.

 

[Ginormous]

Now there's a good argument against the Weaver grip with BP shooting if I ever saw one!

 

[BCRider]

Well, you guys have turned me into a glove wearing shooter as well.

I've seen some VERY nice deer skin gloves. Check out the ones that the horse riders wear as well as don't bypass the dress gloves.

Leather responds well to soaking and then wearing until dry by stretching where tight and shrinking a bit were not tight. With some trials I'll bet you could wet form a set of deer skin gloves to conform to a nice shooting grip. And hey, even if the thin deer skin is ruined during any future such accident at least it'll only be the glove. Do up two gloves so you have a spare.

I wonder if this is why the officers and calvary guys always had gloves?