Lube-Pills. Got to love them.

Ugly Sauce said:
I like to be sure to completely seal the chamber. A little extra waterproof protection, and falling in a crick in the spring when they are running hard is a real possibility for me. Yes, a sane normal person would just pack a cartridge revolver...but the cool factor...you can't beat the cool factor of packing a cap-N-ball!
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Sanity is highly overrated...and I have to try this, I have some 90% beeswax 38 wax bullets I can melt down.
 
Sam Colt did demonstrate how water resistant his revolvers were. He would sometimes place a loaded revolver in water give his speech. At the end he would pick up the revolver and shoot it. If the balls sealed and the caps fit tight ,I can see this working. I don't know where I seen this but it is the kind of thing he likely did.
Black Jack Shellac
 
From all the testing I have seen, it seems that it's the caps that fail. In most tests, when the gun is treated to water, either submerged, or sometimes only very lightly sprinkled, and then fails to fire, re-capping will usually (or always?) result in all the chambers going off.

That is kind of puzzling to me, it "seems" to me that if the caps fit tight enough, they should not allow water to seep in. ? I kind of wonder if all the tests I've seen, weren't done with loose fitting caps. ? I like my caps to fit tight enough that they have to be pushed on, or "seated" with force, and then are difficult to remove. But, I've never done a water test. I did see one, which I can't remember who it was, that would rub some bee's wax on the cone/nipple, rotate the cap on the cone a few times, and then got 100% reliability after submerging the cylinder in water for a full minute, I think. But the fact that he could rotate the cap on the cone tells me it was not a very tight fit.

Then recently, someone posted that they had a cap in a shirt pocket go through the wash, and then the cap fired just fine. !!!???!!?? So, the whole issue is kind of confusing to me. At any rate, it at least makes me feel good knowing that the cylinder is well sealed at one end at least.
 
If Colt really did this.We don't know how the gun was prepared. Also If the gun was placed in like a bucket nose down The caps had a better chance of keeping the water out. Push a water glass upside down in water and no water gets very far up the inside.
Black Jack Shellac
 
[
Black Jack Shellac said:
If Colt really did this.We don't know how the gun was prepared. Also If the gun was placed in like a bucket nose down The caps had a better chance of keeping the water out. Push a water glass upside down in water and no water gets very far up the inside.
Black Jack Shellac
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that and there’s enough surface tension so that a snugly fitted cap will not allow water to enter. I’m going out of town for a bit but when I get back I’ll replicate that experiment…
 
woodnbow said:
[

that and there’s enough surface tension so that a snugly fitted cap will not allow water to enter. I’m going out of town for a bit but when I get back I’ll replicate that experiment…
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Oh yeah...the "diving bell" principal. Supposedly what kept water out of the circuit breaker (kind of like a distributor, has the points but isn't) on the old Harleys in deep water. The circuit breaker cap was like an "upside down" cup. But I will pass on that experiment.
 
Your analogy of sealing the powder when falling in a crick leaves a little to be desired. Is the cap and nipple sealed as good as the ball/cylinder ? ;)
 
paul harm said:
Your analogy of sealing the powder when falling in a crick leaves a little to be desired. Is the cap and nipple sealed as good as the ball/cylinder ? ;)
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Truth. No, I believe the cap and cone are the weak point, as far as water-proofing goes.

Now, and again, from the youtube water "tests" I've seen, it is the cap that fails. But again, replacing the cap seems to put the revolver back in firing order. If water were to enter the chamber from the front end, I think that could be worse, as then the powder would have to be emptied out and replaced, a much longer process. But, the chances of that, with a good tight fit of the ball in the cylinder is less likely I think, and I don't see water getting into the powder from that end with a lubed bullet.

But yes, from what I've seen so far, it is the cap that gets contaminated. And again, I saw that happen on one video when the pistol was only lightly sprinkled with water. ? Anyhow, if I do take a dunk in the crick, hopefully, at worst, I'll just have to re-cap the pistol. And, I hope I never find out!!!!
 
Ugly Sauce said:
Oh yeah...the "diving bell" principal. Supposedly what kept water out of the circuit breaker (kind of like a distributor, has the points but isn't) on the old Harleys in deep water. The circuit breaker cap was like an "upside down" cup. But I will pass on that experiment.
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My old jeep used to run fine in 3 feet of water until it didn’t. Always keep a spare can of WD40.
 
I just "discovered" something. SPG lube that comes in tube form, is the right consistency to scrape up and form into lube-pills, for those that don't want to mix up their own batch of lube-pill material. I'm thinking SPG should work very well.
 
These lube pills look a lot more convenient than sloppy tins of goo. I hate that stuff and I hate loading with it. It gets everywhere and just about doubles the time it takes to load.
 
Well, you can waste your time, about 1.1 second, pressing a lube pill over the ball, or waste it running a dozen patches down the bore to clean it instead of two.

Last time I checked, corn meal does not produce any velocity, and takes twice the time to charge the cylinder. Larger waste of time. And, as Hawg implies, the Army sure didn't use any cornmeal other than feeding it to the troops. !!!!

However, let's put things into perspective, how the gun is used determines what is "what you need". Needs vary depending on what you are doing with the revolver. Plinking and paper punching, I don't think it matters how how you load the gun, or if you use lube-pills, lubed wads, or cornmeal. I carry mine in the field when hunting, exploring, long treks into the wilderness, I'm not going to be pouring cornmeal in my chambers. If I actually had to use/fire the gun, I want the most power it will produce, and a easy field clean-up, or peace of mind that there's lube in the bore if I can't clean it.

And to say the Army didn't do it, General Lee did it, and what would stop soldiers from doing it? I'm kind of wondering, since there was so much axle grease around for the wagons and gun carriages, maybe that "black waxy substance" was old axle grease.??? What do you think Hawg? Old soldiers "trick"? Smear some axle grease over the chamber mouths?

Okay, just rambling on here...
 
Ugly Sauce said:
What do you think Hawg? Old soldiers "trick"? Smear some axle grease over the chamber mouths?
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I think if it had been they would have described it as grease or a greasy substance. Axle grease was composed of tallow and some kind of oil. I don't "think" it would have gotten hard. It does sound plausible tho.
 
hawg said:
I think if it had been they would have described it as grease or a greasy substance. Axle grease was composed of tallow and some kind of oil. I don't "think" it would have gotten hard. It does sound plausible tho.
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Hawg: I was born in 1940 on a Farm/Ranch waaay out in the country and we used old wagons, some wood wheels, some Iron wheels but we had to pull the wheels yearly or more often (as needed) to grease the axels with old stringy wagon grease. (I don't "think" it would have gotten hard.) Well, it does. Mainly on the outside of the axel nut but it could be difficult to scrape off. Just saying. ;) LOL
 
Dang...we may be on to something here. Great "circumstantial" evidence, and not something people would write home about, in those days. So no "documentation".
 
lv2tinker said:
Hawg: I was born in 1940 on a Farm/Ranch waaay out in the country and we used old wagons, some wood wheels, some Iron wheels but we had to pull the wheels yearly or more often (as needed) to grease the axels with old stringy wagon grease. (I don't "think" it would have gotten hard.) Well, it does. Mainly on the outside of the axel nut but it could be difficult to scrape off. Just saying. ;) LOL
Click to expand...

Good to know. You may be onto something then. I was a mechanic for the first 25 years of my life and yeah I've seen hard grease but our grease isn't axle grease so I didn't know.
 
I've been a shade-tree mechanic all me life, garage bike-builder and fixer-upper of old cars, and 1/4 mile drag-racer, and it does seem like I've seen even some fairly modern grease harden up where it was on the surface of something. Spill-over from grease nipples, things like that.

You know, I'll have to crawl around under my '48 Dodge and see what I can find. It's never been "restored", just fixed up, "improved" and always on the road since new.

I thought that wagon wheels had to be greased quite often, and wasn't a grease bucket for that purpose always hanging on a wagon? (maybe not in the movies)
 
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