Question about loading and fillers and crisco

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I am trying to understand how a Filler would contribute to Accuracy?


Very interesting to me...both for the only slight FPS differences mentioned earlier, and, for possibly improving accuracy ( assuming Cylinder Chamber to Bore relationship is good, already? )


I actually went out to the range since my last Post, intending to get some Cream of Wheat on the way there, then totally forgot to get any...eeeeesh...will get some soon I hope.
 
Filler places the ball closer to the barrel, and ensures that there isn't a gap 'twixt ball and powder when using light loads. As it's a method used by the pros and recommended by folks such a Mike Venturino, I'll keep using the filler for best results.
 
Ohhhhhh, okay...makes sense.


I will definitely try it.


For Target or Plinking, if there is no need for heavy Powder Loads, while retaining a good Ball to Forcing Cone minimum, then this sounds like a very good way to go indeed.

Why waste Power? when results can be just as good using less, and using filler..?


Cream of Wheat is on the shopping List..!
 
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Cream of Wheat is on the shopping List..!
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Give instant grits a try, too. Works great for me.


Making more BOOM and more SMOKE is a waste of powder?
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Thing is, you're probably not making as much extra BOOM or SMOKE by overfilling as you'd think. BP doesn't explode, per se; it's more of a rapid burn. After being ignited, the powder continues to burn and develop pressure as it's moving down the barrel (one reason BP barrels tend to be long. Also one reason for the BOOM of BP vs. the CRACK of modern explosive powder). Too much powder with too short a barrel, and a fair amount won't be burned before it's pushed out of the muzzle. Word is, some of the old Mountain men used to determine powder charges by firing their guns over snow; when no unburnt powder exited the gun to leave traces on the snow, they reckoned they had the right charge.
 
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Well..... I hesitate to type this since it's sort of counter to what all the folks here believe in using... BUT....

I shot about 180 to 200 rounds last year from my two 1858's. No chainfires at all. Balls were .457 so a nice ring was produced without having to overstrain the lever. The load was 30'ish grains of black. No lube pill, no filler, no wad. Just push the ball into place until I felt a light "crunch". No Crisco or other buttery grease type top lube either. Just one drop of canola cooking oil that wicked its way quickly around the ball to cylinder joint to form a wet seal. The canola oil kept the fouling greasy and the fouling didn't tend to stiffen the cylinder in place even after a bunch of 25 round per gun days.
 
I did fourty-something rounds out of my WALKER a few days ago, and, I have not cleaned or wiped anything off of it yet.


I figured, over a few weeks or months, I would do a few hundred rounds, and, see how things seem with no cleaning of any sort.


This with me thin little 'Lube Wafer' buddies between Powder and Ball or Powder and Bullet.


The Canola wicking around and over the Ball indeed sounds like it ought to work well for all the benifits of Barrel Lube and soft light easy non-built-up non-jamming Fouling one would want...if maybe being less 'dry' or durable than say, a Lube Wafer would be in loading or leaving a loaded Cylinder for some while...or if maybe being liable to wick into the Powder over time, if it had time to do it.

Anyway, sounds like a good idea or method to me...a drop of Canola there around the Loaded Ball edges.

I will stay with my 'Wafers' though, and, continue the just thought of experiment of seeing how things seem over a couple hundred rounds with no cleaning of any sort happening.


Be a good excuse to stay on bringing Mr. WALKER to the Range, too...:)
 
I did fourty-something rounds out of my WALKER a few days ago, and, I have not cleaned or wiped anything off of it yet.
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You may wish to clean that as soon as possible. Byproducts of burned black powder are highly corrosive...especially from the potassium nitrate salt. You may not see it yet but it's embedding in the steel and will eat at it and it's an accumulative process. Each time you wait to clean after shooting, whatever microscopic corrossion has occured, will of course, just get worse, and eventually become pitting. Clean that gun...please!!!!!!
 
Yeah, I loaned my 51 to a friend once to try. He brought it back uncleaned, da moron! I got MOST of the rust out of the thing. It was near freezing up! Clean ASAP! I don't even let 777 go and it doesn't have sulfur in it. One thing about 777 I love, no goo. I loaded up and fired 48 rounds the other day and not even a hint that the cylinder might be gooing up. I couldn't do that without cleaning with BP years ago. The 777 just leaves a light dusting of black soot.
 
MCgunner said:
Yeah, I loaned my 51 to a friend once to try. He brought it back uncleaned, da moron!
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Sounds like you need new friends. :neener:

Seriously though, I don't like to loan anyone anything I own because 99.9% of the time I'm disappointed to see what I get back...that is, after I nag them to return my stuff several times then get the "nasty" look from them like they are doing me a favor. No good deed goes unpunished....learn it, live it. :fire:
 
Well, he's still my best buddy. :D He's just a few cards short of a deck sometimes. :rolleyes: He'd never shot BP. I was irate at the time, but I got over it. That was 35 years ago. That gun finally wore out from my own stupidity. I used to load it to the brim, was a brasser. :rolleyes: It finally got so stretched it wouldn't fire. I have a new brasser, now, and I'm older and hopefully a little wiser.

That said, I don't loan my son-in-law anything I care much about. LOL! That boy could screw up a wet dream...:rolleyes:
 
I use the cheapest store brand "Crisco", probably something thicker would work better. And be more expensive. Cleaning it off is a simple matter of wiping it off.
 
Oyeboten, yeah, the canola oil isn't something you want to do if the loads are going to sit there for days. But for my range sessions and CAS matches I end up shooting the balls out within at most 15 minutes from loading and oiling. No time for it to creep in and spoil anything. And it's stupidly quick and easy to do for times such as this where the pace of shooting avoids the shortcomings.
 
I am curious to see if I in fact get any hints of corrosion at all, for using the Lube Wafers.


A couple times now, I had waited a week before cleaning, and this during rainy days and humid weather, and, I did not see any hint of rust anywhere.

It seems like when the Lube is vaporised, it coats everything inside the Cylinders and Barrel, and, where-ever else it gets...however minutely.


I will keep an eye on Mr. WALKER and make sure no insult occurs...if any slight hint of anything is seen, I will clean him up pronto.


But part of what interests me in this, is that I think the Lube itself ends up protacting the Revolver from what otherwise would be quite soon corrosion process from the chemistry of the Powder residu and ambient Humidiy/Oxygen.
 
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I fired about 54 rounds of round ball today over corn meal filler with no crisco. No problems. Balls were .454 and shaved fine. I just got some .454 conicals cast up and have no qualms about shooting them plain. They're all pre-lubed in the lube grooves with beeswax/alox. I was going to try some conicals today since I got my loading press in, but the .457s I had cast for the ROA are too big. So, I broke out the old mold and ran off 21 rounds for testing next range trip. :D
 
It may be overkill, but clear fingernail polish seals the caps to the nipples.
An employee at Gander Mountain recommended white lithium grease to go in front of the ball as a filler. Works well , but messy..and it stays in the chambers as the gun is being fired.
 
Here's an interesting idea, why not just roll the balls around in a little bit of yer favorite lube so just a thin layer covers it, then load it? I wonder how that would work? The ball would be well lubed and ya don't have to fill the chamber with a bunch of lubricant.
I use lithium grease at times to lube cast rifle bullets...it works really well. The kind I use is a high temperature lithium grease. It's red and thicker than the normal buttery soft, white, lithium grease. More like peanut butter. Slippery as hell though so make sure ya hold on tight to your balls! (no pun intended)
 
Here's an interesting idea, why not just roll the balls around in a little bit of yer favorite lube so just a thin layer covers it, then load it? I wonder how that would work? The ball would be well lubed and ya don't have to fill the chamber with a bunch of lubricant.
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I wanted to use that method, but was worried about the lube being a powder contaminant, so dabbing a little around the entrance works for me. I quit the white lithium method because of being so messy.
 
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I would think with such a thin layer of lithium on the ball that contamination would not be an issue, especially if you are loading and shooting the same day. In pyrotechnics, I have wetted down stars with water/alcohol and dusted black powder on them to help ignition. Never failed to ignite the stars in a shell, so I truly doubt something with such a low viscosity as lithium grease is going to be a problem.
What I was proposing is to take about 50 balls, put a small amount of grease in a pan (start with 1/8th teaspoon more or less)...dump in the balls and roll them around awhile. That should leave the balls with a very light coating. If 1/8th teaspoon is too much, add more balls until all the grease is picked up and the balls are coated evenly.. or vice versa.
You can always put a small amount of corn meal filler over the powder charge to assuage your concerns.
 
I use a curved tip irrigation syringe to apply a small bead around the ball/chamber recess. They are about 20 cents each from a pharmacy. I trim the tip back a bit to make it easier to squirt the automotive grease around the edge of the ball. I goop up the first chamber more as any more than a small bead gets blown out by the adjacent chamber when fired but the first shot has a lot of goop.
 
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