Loading Patched Balls in a Revolver?

[arcticap]

This may have been asked before, but I'm still curious about it.
Has anyone ever tried to shoot a .433 round ball with a .010 patch out of a revolver?
I realize that it might not produce great accuracy, but shouldn't it seal the chambers well enough to prevent a chain fire?
A slightly thicker patch or another PRB combination might work even better, especially if the .433 round ball was cast using harder lead which would result in a slightly oversized round ball.
If the patch was lubed, would it swab or lube the bore at all, or would it separate before it goes through the forcing cone and have no positive effect?
One reason for asking is because it occurred to me that if folks had hard lead alloy on hand, that they could cast and load undersized ~.433 patched round balls as a cheaper alternative.
Bare balls don't shoot all that bad out of single shot pistol barrel at short range, maybe they would shoot okay out of a revolver too if the distance to the target was reasonable.
And using patches to seal the chambers would be cheaper than buying wool wads and less messy than sealing them with runny lube during hot weather.

 

[arcticap]

It also occurred to me that if a large enough oversized patch was selected, say the size for a .54 -.58, then it could be tied with thread and loaded with the thread facing downward in the cylinder so that the ball would be pushing the patch through the barrel while affixed to it.
Thus swabbing the barrel and sealing the bore with the patch upon firing could be accomplished.
Maybe that would also produce better accuracy by filling in the rifling
Other methods to temporarily fix the patch to the ball even if just lasting long enough to load the PRB face down should work because again, the patch would be getting pushed.
Sealing with wax, paste or masking tape or whatever other easy method can be thought up should work, at least in theory.
Once it's loaded, the P&RB should be good to go together as one.

 

[mykeal]

I must admit I've never tried it. Clearly the patch would be ineffective at stabilizing the ball, which is half it's main purpose in a rifle or single shot rifled pistol; unless you tied it as suggested. I don't know if it would be an effective chain fire 'preventer' (I see no reason why not), but it should work ok as a gas seal in the chamber, which is the other half of it's main purpose in the rifle or single shot pistol. The transition to the forcing cone is the interesting part; I'm sure the patch would be forced through the bore by the expanding gas, but it would not be in a position to stabilize the ball, unless somehow tied around it. As for transferring lube material - the lube is going to be liquefied and will be applied to anything it touches as the powder/gas column advances, so that's not an issue.

As for motivation - just how much will you save casting .433 instead of .454? A .433 ball weighs 122 grains; a .454 weighs 141 grains, for a difference of just 19 grains, or .04 ounces (assuming 480 grains to the ounce). How much are you paying for lead that saving .04 ounces, or 0.0025 lbs per ball is meaningful?

 

[scrat]

toooooo much work. trying to reinvent the wheel. There was a discussion back. Not too sure if it was here or somewhere else. First problem is the forcing cone. Its been shown that its not consistant on the patch making it through the forcing cone. Thus your accuracy can be all over the board. if the patch is not tied or put around the ball all the way it could break loose and you would have a rattling ball down the barrel. Then same time loading the patch and ball has shown to work and not work. What happens is if the ball is a tad to big then when you press down on the loading arm then you cut the patch into two pieces. thus im sure you have a good seal. however the same good seal would be done if you used the correct size ball with out a patch. Now as far as the time its going to take to accept mediocre results is not for me. Now agreed it gets costly to use wads...... Wads were not always used though. The original way and the proven way in the past was pressing a proper sized ball into the cylinder with some crisco over the balls. Now most of us i know do not use crisco a lot of us use different things. But its probably best to stick with loading a proper sized ball into the cylinder with either a wad or not and lube. Its shown to give the best results and is a proven method.

 

[Hellgate]

I would use the hard, undersized balls as slingshot ammo or in a 44 cal rifle as a PRB. You will have to really seat the PRBs deep or trim the patches and THEN seat them deeper or the cloth will catch on the barrel during rotation of the cylinder. I'll bet the cylinder would get jammed by fragments of fired patch and reliability would go out the window. Maybe you oughta try it and give us a report so we'll all know for sure if it is feasible or a dumb idea. Since no one I know has ever tried it we're just dealing with opinions here. My bet is that it was tried back in the 1830s with the Patterson revolver and found to be either unnecessary or unreliable. If you have marauding Indians about, you want reliability.

 

[dwave]

Seems like a bad idea to me. My first thought was the cylinder gap could cause a problem, then the forcing cone.

Something that MAY work would be a Sabot, but that seems like a waste of time and money as getting the proper RB would be the way to go.

 

[Chawbaccer]

The design of the gun precludes the use of a patch. Who wants to futz around with another step when loading a gun? Just loading one shot in a rifle can be a challenge to me at times. It would be pretty frustrating messing up six times around. If something more accurate is needed, why not just get a single shot?

 

[madcratebuilder]

You could use a cyanoacrylate adhesive to secure the patch to the ball, that may keep it together till it gets past the forcing cone. You could even lube it after the adhesive kicked. Load with the cut end toward to powder.
Sounds like a lot of busy work, but would be an interesting experiment for those of use with out a day job.

 

[[email protected]]

Has Been Tried

This method has been used at thr Nationals with Great success. It really does
work well. It is a lot of extra work, You really don't gain anything over just
the plain RB. It's a real booger in the 10 min. 10 shos timed fire match.

 

[arcticap]

I wouldn't have ever guessed that patches are actually being used in revolver competitions...and I thought that I've just about heard it all.
Son of a gun!

 

[Hellgate]

So, [email protected],
At the nationals, do you have to load AND shoot the 10 rds in 10 min? Thank you for the report that the PRB has been used successfully. That was the first time I had heard of it but then I am not a N/SSA member.

 

[[email protected]]

Timed Fire

This is how the timed revolver matches work at the NMLRA Nationals in
Friendship Indiana. You are allowed to start with 5 chambers loaded. The time
starts when you fire the first shot. Then the clock is running and you have
10 min to fire the other 4 in the cyclinder plus load 5 more and fire them. If
you run out of time they score just the shots you have on the paper. You
cannot use a pre-loaded cyclinder and just swap cyclinders. When ever the
wife and I shoot this match, we only use just one chamber and just load it
10 times. We have been at this a long time though. Hope this is what you
wanted to know.

 

[madcratebuilder]

This is how the timed revolver matches work at the NMLRA Nationals in
Friendship Indiana. You are allowed to start with 5 chambers loaded. The time
starts when you fire the first shot. Then the clock is running and you have
10 min to fire the other 4 in the cyclinder plus load 5 more and fire them. If
you run out of time they score just the shots you have on the paper. You
cannot use a pre-loaded cyclinder and just swap cyclinders. When ever the
wife and I shoot this match, we only use just one chamber and just load it
10 times. We have been at this a long time though. Hope this is what you
wanted to know.

That is interesting. Do you find that a particular cylinder is more accurate? Recoil effecting the position of the rb in other cylinders while firing and effecting accuracy? Barrel temps? Or just the way you like to do it?

 

[[email protected]]

Weight

Well when I was younger, I would load 5 chambers. But I am 65 now and the
weight does make a difference. Also when you just load one at a time, the
recoil is the same on each shot. This does make a difference when shooting
at that little 3 inch (10) ring at 50 yds. All the chambers have been line bored
down thru the barrel so there is no one chamber that is better than the other.
I was lucky enough this year to win the 50 yd match in Sept. I shot a 87. Have the target if you want to see it. Its getting harder every year now.

 

[[email protected]]

Front

You can see the ring around each chamber where it has been plugged and
drilled. This was a .44 cyclinder. Dia. is .357. I use a .360 ball.

 

[madcratebuilder]

Very nice, the unending quest for accuracy! The weight! I should have thought of that. I well file that away, just hope to remember it!
I'll be 60 next bd and the eyes are starting to go away. Need reading glasses as my arms are now to short.

You can see the ring around each chamber where it has been plugged and
drilled. This was a .44 cyclinder. Dia. is .357. I use a .360 ball.

I assume you have a custom barrel on the revolver, I'm not familiar with .360. All my 36cal use .375 or .380. Very nice revolver you have.

 

[[email protected]]

9mm

Yes it does have a different barrel. It is a 9mm pistol barrel.Here is the gun.