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Keeping an 1858 loaded indefinitely

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This one was still loaded when my father acquired it in the 30s. He replaced the caps and even after 70 odd years every chamber fired.

18104 (15).jpg
 
Five chambers went sixteen months in a Pietta .44 Remington spare cylinder. No special storage. Sometimes the cylinder was on the gun for property walks (anti-mountain lion and rattle snake) or it was just sitting around on a bookshelf or on my desk.

Thirty two grains Pyro P, a .454, Remington #10’s

and a heavy viscous beeswax and olive oil lube/sealant on top.

Each charge detonated without any perceptible delay and went through and fractured some lumber pieces as if it had been loaded that same day .

Not quite 70 years but a good while anyway
 
Rfp10000 said:
Reliability with real black and proper fitting caps is no problem. Normally I would use a lube wad for load & shoot situations at the range but I feel the lube over time could affect powder. Sometimes I’m not in an area where daily discharge is possible. I always clean the day of discharge Indefinite in my question can mean a few days or a few months or so.

When you leave it loaded , do you load with lubed wad or just powder & ball?
Click to expand...
In loading, I seat the ball directly over the powder. Have used a lube called, 'Grease Ball' in the past, to cover the chambers but my supply is direly diminished and have been unable to find it anymore. If you go for an extended period of time, it does tend to crust over, but it doesn't affect its lubricating. It is/was nasty and require extensive cleaning after firing your weapon. but there no hard fouling in your bore. Saw/read somewhere that someone was offering 'real' bear grease. Old timers used to swear by it. May have to look into this. As I've commented before in this forum, I grew up in a time when many 'true' old timers that had used C&B revolvers and learned everything I know from them, so some of my methods may be antiquated but then at 76 so am I and really too old to learn new. more modern methods. Anyway, the 'old' ways still work after 40 some years of shooting C&B, so why change now?
 
I had a loaded (and clearly marked) rifle in my gun safe for about 10 years. When I finally got around to firing it, there was no lag time and it was just as big a BOOM as a fresh load.
 
SeaBee133 said:
I fired off a caplock double barrel 12g in 2011, that had sat around loaded since 1921… Figured I would unclog the spiderwebs in the barrels by popping a couple caps… 🤬🤬🤬
Click to expand...
Reminds me I have a CVA SXS in the safe that has been loaded for the last 4-5 years. Used to goose hunt with it with a friend, and the last time we went out I put it away loaded as I hadn't had a shot, thinking we would be going back out soon, unfortunately he passed away shortly thereafter before we could get out again.
 
Can't think of anything more sealed than the chamber of a BP revolver.
Click to expand...

Well my container for carrying my old dive meter on an aircraft? PVC and a O ring.

Unless to have a cap that seals, you are going to get some exchange, not a lot, maybe not even enough, but its not a perfect seal either.
 
In, as I remember, the MLA of Great Britain's magazine some 60 years ago, there was an item about how long powder would stay active.
The butler in a big house asked the boss if he could take a flintlock blunderbuss down off the wall and give it a good clean, permission granted he went to the workshop and stripped it down.
He had the conveniently short barrel in the vyce and for some reason or another was warming it with a blow lamp when it went off, unfortunately he was standing in front of the muzzle and was shot in the stomach, fortunately the charge had deteriorated or wasn’t much good in the first place, and the wound was not fatal.
It had possibly been loaded for well over 100 years.
Old guns are always loaded should always be kept in mind.
 
Colonial Boy said:
In, as I remember, the MLA of Great Britain's magazine some 60 years ago, there was an item about how long powder would stay active.
The butler in a big house asked the boss if he could take a flintlock blunderbuss down off the wall and give it a good clean, permission granted he went to the workshop and stripped it down.
He had the conveniently short barrel in the vyce and for some reason or another was warming it with a blow lamp when it went off, unfortunately he was standing in front of the muzzle and was shot in the stomach, fortunately the charge had deteriorated or wasn’t much good in the first place, and the wound was not fatal.
It had possibly been loaded for well over 100 years.
Old guns are always loaded should always be kept in mind.
Click to expand...
ALL guns are always loaded.
 
Rfp10000 said:
Curious on thoughts on Keeping an 1858 Remington Pietta or Uberti loaded on 5 chambers with simple 30 gr load with no wad or lube over .454 ball.
This load always works but I always loaded , shot & cleaned daily but I’d just like like thoughts from people who just keep them loaded until they feel like shooting.
Click to expand...
I have a few things to say about all of this. I am very experienced with cap and ball revolvers. I have at least a half dozen all loaded all with spare cylinders that stay loaded. except my Walker, I only wish I had a spare stainless cylinder for it! My Walker is Case Hardened and Stainless. I have a pair of 5 1/2" Remingtons that see the most use. Loaded with 35 grains fff Goex and a .457 ball the only caps worth using are Remington #10. One more thing why would you load 5 ? Is something wrong with your cylinder?
 
it depends on a lot of factors. mostly relative humidity and how good you are at keeping oil away from your caps. I keep an 1858 loaded and spare cylinder loaded in a leather pouch. the spare cylinder is almost always 100% reliable but the cylinder on the gun itself has a spotty record. because i shoot it every week or two I get lots of chances to test it and have large sample size. the longer its left loaded the more chance of a hag fire or missfire. almost always perfect if just a week or 10 days. anything after the two week mark and all bets are off. Might be perfect, Might not. Pretty sure that I am getting oil contamination because most often if I have a missfire its due to bad caps and a fresh cap fires. If I was really concerned about haveing to rely on it in a life and death situation I would re charge every coupple of days and a week would be max.
 
nick_1 said:
it depends on a lot of factors. mostly relative humidity and how good you are at keeping oil away from your caps. I keep an 1858 loaded and spare cylinder loaded in a leather pouch. the spare cylinder is almost always 100% reliable but the cylinder on the gun itself has a spotty record. because i shoot it every week or two I get lots of chances to test it and have large sample size. the longer its left loaded the more chance of a hag fire or missfire. almost always perfect if just a week or 10 days. anything after the two week mark and all bets are off. Might be perfect, Might not. Pretty sure that I am getting oil contamination because most often if I have a missfire its due to bad caps and a fresh cap fires. If I was really concerned about haveing to rely on it in a life and death situation I would re charge every coupple of days and a week would be max.
Click to expand...
If you want reliability quit using oil , ball on powder, no lube on the end of the cylinder. I don't remember the last time I had a failure to fire.
My 1851 has been loaded for at least a year along with it's spare cylinder. One of my 1858's has been at least 6 months. It's spare cylinder goes with me at times so that I have 2 spares when I shoot my other 1858.
My .45cal Longrifle gets cleaned and reloaded so it's always hanging on my wall loaded.
 
how to you avoid rust if you don't oil your guns? a dry gun with no oil will rust in my climate..
 
Rfp10000 said:
Curious on thoughts on Keeping an 1858 Remington Pietta or Uberti loaded on 5 chambers with simple 30 gr load with no wad or lube over .454 ball.
This load always works but I always loaded , shot & cleaned daily but I’d just like like thoughts from people who just keep them loaded until they feel like shooting.
Click to expand...
I kept one of those and a 1858 navy loaded for a little over two years. Both shot like they were loaded the day before.
 
That's what I do. My spare cylinder is almost always perfect but the cylinder in the gun often has one or two bad caps after two weeks
 

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