COLT WALKER .454 or .457

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Fark

Fark

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I have a Uberti COLT WALKER. Should I use.454 or .457 round ball in it ?
 
I use 457 in mine, but I have a Ruger Old Army that uses those, so that’s what I have and they work fine. The 454 will also work, but I think 457 is best.
 
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I know it's not good to have undersized balls.. ha. I have 454 that I shoot in my 1858 Rem and they kinda seem a little small. Not much of a ring shaved off the ball at all in the Remington. Didn't know if I should shoot them in the WALKER or not.
 
We are back to ball shaving again, removing material from the ball will affect accuracy, I shoot both .454 and .457 ball in my Walker. I have run a tapered reamer in my chambers to just slightly bevel the mouths. This allows the ball or conicle bullet to be compressed rather than shaved when loading. No shaving of lead takes place in any of my revolvers. I know, someone told you about chain fires from a ball not being shaved when seated, tis BS. If it's gonna chain fire it happens from the other end from loose caps or such.
 
.454 in mine. I have 457 as I shoot ROA’s also.
I may add that my round balls aren’t always pure lead and I’ve never really tried to load .457 in the Walker. It cuts a ring with the .454. The Walker is a 44 same as the 1860 and the Dragoon’s. Not germane to your question but .457 is intended for the ROA which is a 45 caliber, or so I believe.
Three thousands of an inch isn’t much in any case.
 
Depends on your gun, I go up in size until I have a nice lead ring shave off. That was .457 for me
 
Im all for chamfer and reaming my chambers. All my balls/bullets get NO lead shaved off...they get compressed into the chambers. This also helps with some of the gas cutting etc.
 
Thanks guys. Good info. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't ****in up.
 
...also ive noticed that when u chamfer the chambers..the lead that would have been shaved off of a bullet/ball on a regular chamber will still be attached to the bullet/ball and this thin ring of lead will act like the skirt of a hollow based bullet and help fill in the grooves of the rifling.so basically just imagine this thin ring of lead wrapped around the bullet/ball and picture it going down the barrel...the lead ring will have no choice but to help fill in most of the lands and grooves. Thus helping with accuracy and helping prevent gas cutting. I also like to add a card and thin lube disk behind the projectile to help keep pressure even and matching from shot to shot. This should all help accuracy and consistency between loads, also helps with deviation.
 
So your saying instead of the chamber now in effect becoming a sizing die it just pushes a ring of lead forward on the lead bullet.
 
What happens is the ball becomes oblong and cylindrical, looking like a regular bullet with round ends. If you are shaving lead it basically throws it off balance and accuracy suffers, especially at longer ranges. Plus those little lead rings are irritating to me and I don't like them when they mess with rotating of the cylinder, so there.
 
Jackrabbit1957 said:
What happens is the ball becomes oblong and cylindrical, looking like a regular bullet with round ends. If you are shaving lead it basically throws it off balance and accuracy suffers, especially at longer ranges. Plus those little lead rings are irritating to me and I don't like them when they mess with rotating of the cylinder, so there.
Click to expand...

I think that there's some conjecture going on there.
Shaving lead may make the ball out of round, but when fired the ball is slamming into the forcing cone and rifled barrel.
I also have doubts about how anyone can measure any difference in accuracy.
It's certainly not provable without a reasonable doubt, at least not without a whole lot of specialized testing and even then.

Are balls more accurate than bullets?
If a ball is shaved when loaded and results in it more closely resembling a bullet, then why wouldn't the shaved ball be more accurate?

Perhaps every revolver,chamber and barrel are different, and every shot and load will be unique and one of a kind?
XYZ, the wind or the temperature of a dirty barrel may affect the accuracy of a shot more than whether a person shaves their balls or not.

I guess that shows that we all have our biases and that no good deed goes unpunished! :neener:
 
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I shave the ring off of both my revolvers, and they are both accurate enough for me. I use a wad lubed with my own beeswax and crisco mix behind the ball, and away I go.
 
I have an Uberti Walker. Only once I used .452 round bullets. I had the impression they moved while firing the gun. Then I used .454 rb. Didnt feel too good about it. The lead rings werent closed. For me .457 is the way to go.


BtW.... my remington needs .462 ...
 
Im all for reaming and chamfering because i saw a difference between a stock cylinder that had no chamfer and one with chamfer...then i tested a chamfered against a chamfered with .003 over groove diameter reamed chamber. The chamfered and chamfered with reamed cylinder outperformed the stock cylinder using the same load and bullet/ball. I also got more fps as well. I used pietta .36 cal 1851 and 1861 sheriff model using Old Eynsford powder (with weighed loads starting at 15 grains going up one grain until stopping at 21 grains) with a .375 round ball, 380 round ball, .377 wide 140 grain kaido conical, and my own custom designed .380 wide .36 cal bullet from accurate molds that is basically a tapered REAL bullet. When comparing the fps and accuracy the combinations always favored the chamfered and reamed cylinders. I also tried it with and without card and lube disc and it also showed that it helped with deviation, speed, and accuracy and came to the conclusion that it must be due to the card and thin lube disk (not lubed felt wad) helped seal the edges around the back of the bullet and prevented gas cutting and loss of pressure. I also got the same accuracy results conparing roundball to kaido conicals in a .36 cal that Mike Belleview got in a video of his pietta .36 model where he compared roundball, kaido conical, and pointed conical....the kaido conical severely outperformed both roundball and pointed conical. Thats why now all i shoot is kaido conicals or my own custom designs that are .250-.265 wide meplat conicals .480-.500 inches tall and .380 at the widest with a weight of 130-140 grains...ive found this to be the sweet spot for my .36 cal bullet designs. After these tests i personally make sure to chamfer and if possible ream the chambers over groove diameter.
 
TheOutlawKid said:
Im all for reaming and chamfering because i saw a difference between a stock cylinder that had no chamfer and one with chamfer...then i tested a chamfered against a chamfered with .003 over groove diameter reamed chamber. The chamfered and chamfered with reamed cylinder outperformed the stock cylinder using the same load and bullet/ball. I also got more fps as well. I used pietta .36 cal 1851 and 1861 sheriff model using Old Eynsford powder (with weighed loads starting at 15 grains going up one grain until stopping at 21 grains) with a .375 round ball, 380 round ball, .377 wide 140 grain kaido conical, and my own custom designed .380 wide .36 cal bullet from accurate molds that is basically a tapered REAL bullet. When comparing the fps and accuracy the combinations always favored the chamfered and reamed cylinders. I also tried it with and without card and lube disc and it also showed that it helped with deviation, speed, and accuracy and came to the conclusion that it must be due to the card and thin lube disk (not lubed felt wad) helped seal the edges around the back of the bullet and prevented gas cutting and loss of pressure. I also got the same accuracy results conparing roundball to kaido conicals in a .36 cal that Mike Belleview got in a video of his pietta .36 model where he compared roundball, kaido conical, and pointed conical....the kaido conical severely outperformed both roundball and pointed conical. Thats why now all i shoot is kaido conicals or my own custom designs that are .250-.265 wide meplat conicals .480-.500 inches tall and .380 at the widest with a weight of 130-140 grains...ive found this to be the sweet spot for my .36 cal bullet designs. After these tests i personally make sure to chamfer and if possible ream the chambers over groove diameter.
Click to expand...

That's great and I respect your opinion about your results with your gun even though many details are missing.
I'm unsure about how you came to the conclusion that chamfering is the reason for your results, and how that can be extrapolated to apply to every other gun.
For example, if a person altered their forcing cone and did not have chamfering, would it improve accuracy to a higher or lesser degree compared to chamfering?
And then there's the issue of how to determine an improvement in accuracy, such as whether a machine rest was used in a windless tunnel or not.
And even then, there's an assumption that powder charges can be duplicated exactly each and every time since even if the weight is the same powder compression can vary, and that the barrel condition as to fouling and temperature remains at a constant.
There's anecdotal evidence and then there's scientific evidence that controls for methodology.
And that's also not including the generalizations that are being made across the board for all guns when no 2 guns necessarily have the same specifications about chamber dimensions, bore dimension, barrel-cylinder gap, forcing cone dimensions, rifling depth, twist, crown concentricty, chamber alignment etc....
As I mentioned in my post above, there's a lot of room for reasonable doubt.
More than anything I would hate to mislead people that any one way is absolutely better than another.
This began about only chamfering and not about reaming, gas cutting and Kaido bullets.
But to be honest, perhaps not every gun or make has similar forcing cone dimensions, and not all guns are Colts.
If you didn't notice, the topic of the thread was about Colt Walkers and which size ball is preferred.
And then it naturally progressed to chamfering and how doing that displaces lead when the ball is rammed.
With chamfering, the lead is displaced forward which wasn't mentioned, but improved engagement of the rifling was.
However, that begs the question of why would a ball with forward lead displacement be more accurate than a ball with a hair shaved off it, as little as a .001.
Even with chamfering, the projectile will still be swagged into the chamber of the same relative diameter,or will each chamber be different and not even line up at the same exact angle on every gun so as to be able to even draw such a conclusion regarding accuracy.
And your gun is not even the same caliber as the Walker or from the same maker.
My point is that generalizations are not easy to prove, and we've been down this road before regarding chamfering on another thread where it was recommended.
I think that it's a great topic and maybe a new thread can be started about it.
But the same questions about proof and methodology will still be there for me.
Just because I mentioned my doubts doesn't mean that chamfering isn't beneficial for some guns, but that wouldn't mean that every gun will always benefit from it.
Or that your method of chamfering is the same as everyone else's who wants to do home chamfering.
And that's another whole can of worms, what exactly is chamfering and how is it properly done?
I don't want to see people misled into thinking that all guns are the same, all chamfering is the same, all forcing cones are the same, Remingtons will benefit the same from chamfering as do Colts, or Piettas will benefit as much as an Uberti or Ruger, or that all chambers line up the same.
I think that it's important to closely examine the details of general recommendations and to not leave any issues hidden by not closely examining their validity.
Once someone makes generalizations and another questions it based on methodology or whatever, to go on about it as proof without the details and then including even more variables proves nothing.
I think that discussion about chamfering is intended to appeal to people as something that they should do or else they're missing out on something when that hasn't been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Some companies used to do it, and some don't and never have.
It's possible that homemade chamfering can cause more harm than good.
It displaces lead but the internal chamber diameter remains the same.
I still don't know if displacing lead forward is beneficial for every type and shape of projectile.
Do you?
I can't say that I believe anything about its claimed benefits.
When a person gunsmiths their gun, that can alter more than one factory specification that can lead to other changes such as barrel cylinder gap, chamber alignment or whatever.
I don't know if what you may do to your gun can be duplicated by anyone else so that they can be sure of obtaining the same result.
Thus my apprehension about believing blanket statements being made about any type of modifications that don't include important disclaimers and full disclosure of details which are lacking in your posts about chamfering.
Chamfering is claimed to be more accurate, but how much more accurate and at what distance are important missing details.
And all of the other missing details just lead to more and more questions and doubts.
I could never test the accuracy of a .22 target pistol with different ammos without at least mounting some kind of a scope on it.
 
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Measure the bore. Measure the cylinder bore.
Mine, an older one, was hitting 6-7 inches low and right with .457 with heavy ring at 25 yards. The bore measured. 445/.446. Reamed cylinder up to .45, increased angle and polished forcing cone. Hits 4-5 high on line now. .457 tad easier ram and tad lighter ring. Only one I've ever had to work on these items.
Also check the arbor length fit.
 
I only tested two guns and 3 barrels. An 1851 and 1861 navy (the 1851 navy was a regular 7.5 inch barrel and also used a sheriff 4 7/8ths inch barrel. while the 1861 had a 5.5 inch barrel)..., but i used 5 cylinders. Unfortunately I dont have the equipment to run a really precise scientific test. Im very careful to be precise with my loads tho. Always weigh my charges in paper carts and i try my best to apply even pressure...in this case no paper carts were used but they were weighed on a digital grain scale...although i did place even pressure on each load due to having an adjustable stop on my table top loader/rammer. I was skeptical that i would see an improvement especially when it came to reaming as i figured the soft lead would obturate just fine to fill the grooves and that a measly .005 change in chamber size shouldnt make much of a difference..and after charlie hahn and other shooters kept telling me it does make a difference i went ahead and did my own tests. Although not entirely scientific..i got the same results each time no matter the weather or gun and cylinder combo as they were mixed up between 2 guns, 3 barrels, and 5 cylinders . I even did it blindly and pre loaded every cylinder and only checked which cylinder gave what performance after the shooting was done...just in case i was subconsciously aiming or shooting better because i was hoping a specific cylinder would do better. Im guessing this is the reason that a lot of the higher end shooters/target models (piettas shooters model, ruger old army, also long hunts customised c&b revolvers) have cylinder chambers over groove diameter. So yes Mr.Articap u are right...and to all that are reading i will have to give the disclaimer that my tests were not entirely scientific and they are just the results that i have been able to confirm and obtain using my own guns. I also felt that round ball would always also be more accurate that conicals...and it is more accurate than a lot of conicals out there such as the 130 grain Lee conical. But then i tried kaido conicals and i was amazed at its accuracy...better than roundball and that is once i built up a very good load for both of them. Then i saw mike Belleviews video where he got the same exact results i did...then others chimed in saying their results matched. After that ive been primarily a conical shooter, but it has to be a specifix conical and load etc. I should also give the disclaimer that these results werent scientific either, but the results were matched by others and i shot in two different climates only....deep south humid hot sub tropical south texas & mile high elevayion dry arid and cold high desert...but these are using my Pietta guns...you may get completely different results with your guns so please dont hold me to the claim that these results will match using any gun out there.
 
I don't dispute that reaming can help accuracy.
My post was about whether chamfering the chambers helps with accuracy.
And how someone could reasonably come to that conclusion using their testing method.
Jackrabbit also said that shaving any lead throws the ball off balance.
Yet the uncut ball is still being swagged into the same original unreamed chamber diameter except that a tiny bit of the lead will be displaced forward,
which would amount to the size of the ring which would have otherwise been cut in an unchamfered chamber.

And you also said:

"....... The chamfered and chamfered with reamed cylinder outperformed the stock cylinder using the same load and bullet/ball......."

I didn't post about reaming.
However you did after I posted my doubts about chamfering helping with accuracy.
 
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Yeah i posted about reaming...sorry it wasnt about what you were talking about. I just added it as it was all part of my testing being that chamfering wasnt all i tested and compared. Although i will admit that i didn't get very much difference in accuracy as i did with an unchamfered cylinder....i did see speed deviation change, the chamfered cylinders had single digit deviations for the most part. I think the ring of lead that wasnt sheared off and was pushed forward on the bullet helps the ball/bullet seal the grooves of the rifling therefor helping prevent gas cutting and helping to creat even matching pressures from shot to shot. So the benefits were very small...still there...but small. So my assumption is that its only beneficial if ur an avid shooter looking for absolute performance and are picky about ur setup. I chamfer my cylinders BUT i cant guarantee others will see any improvement on their shooting experience. So i apologize to others for bringing up chamber reaming as it wasnt part of the discussion.
 
I have to make the same statement the Kid made as to what works in his guns and in mine. When I see a ring of lead shaved off a ball thats thicker on one side as opposed to the other, one can only conclude the ball has been changed for the worse, especially when that shot goes where you didn't want it to. I firmly believe in swaging the ball into the chamber as opposed to cutting chunks out of it during loading. Just my opinion, this is what works best for me.
 
Chamfer on cylinders mouth can cause a rolled edge on the front of the ball if the ball is too big. The ring cut leaves a smoother edge on front and more barrel bore contact surface the more ring it cuts. So a .454 bal may not track as well as a .451, perhaps. If my .457 required cylinder was chamfered and was not as accurate as it should be I would try a .454 or a .451 before I worried about it as long as the ball fit tight. If the cylinder bore is large enough in comparison to barrel max the the forcing cone will take care of that rolled edge. Some will shoot ok with slightly under sized cylinder bore but too small then the projectile can skip. If the accuracy of an under sized cylinder is good, say a 44, at 18-20g but falls off at 25-30gs it could be undersized cylinder bore causing skipping at the higher pressure.
As in the case of my walker. The cylinder bore too small for 40-60gs. I didn't try less because IMO that defeats the actual expected performance of the revolver. Reaming the cylinder up to a tight .451 provided good ring cut and let the forcing cone make the projectile fit the barrel max which put the performance on track.
 
walterelm said:
I have an Uberti Walker. Only once I used .452 round bullets. I had the impression they moved while firing the gun. Then I used .454 rb. Didnt feel too good about it. The lead rings werent closed. For me .457 is the way to go.


BtW.... my remington needs .462 ...
Click to expand...

It may be a Walker thing about the bigger balls needed. My 1980s ASM came with a note in box it needed .454-.457 dia balls.
 
I
Gordon said:
It may be a Walker thing about the bigger balls needed. My 1980s ASM came with a note in box it needed .454-.457 dia balls.
Click to expand...
Think it is. Mine has a barrel max slightly bigger than .44. Probably just production variance. But it pushes closer to a 45. It shot horrible. I opened the cylinder to a tight .451 and it shoots good now.
I tried to get an explanation from manufactures about the under sized cylinder bore issue but all I got back was "they are just reproductions."
Thing is the under size issue is not a consistent issue or all of us would be reaming cylinders. I think it starts happening when tooling gets worn to end of use and is not caught untill the wear is found in periodic inspection. My pair of 1858s with 6 spare cylinders shoots consistently with all. Wether it's better tolerance control or not, I don't know.
 
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