Got to say You need bigger balls
No crescent type shavings full ring will seal.
No crescent type shavings full ring will seal.
1st chain fire
- Thread starter Whitworth
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Those fire sticks are essentially small Diesel engines. Compress air fast enough and you produce heat. Friction is not at play here. Besides, when the ball moves forward it is decompressing the chamber and contents which causes adiabatic cooling. (At a very small level in this case.)
I have not had one and after reading and videoing stuff, I'm unsure how to proceed in the aftermath.
Should one:
A) Throw the gun down and run screaming in the opposite direction
B) Do a WTF and check for damage to the gun, then to me.
C) Let my cigarette droop to my chin, turn and face my Bud's, and grind from ear to ear.
Robby
Should one:
A) Throw the gun down and run screaming in the opposite direction
B) Do a WTF and check for damage to the gun, then to me.
C) Let my cigarette droop to my chin, turn and face my Bud's, and grind from ear to ear.
Robby
I've always done step B after I gathered my wits about me.
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I just think chain fires are just an inherent "quirk" for percussion revolvers.
From the 1830's to the 1870's, percussion revolvers had a relatively brief heyday and we probably shoot them more now than people did in this original period.
There was probably less written accounts of chain fires in the percussion period because perhaps-
Nitrate cartridges somehow mitigated or reduced chain fires? Maybe all this loose powder, ball, and lube stuff we do now increases the likelihood through some factors we haven't thought of?
People fired their guns less?
Or they had chain fires and it wasn't even worth noting? Kind of like how modern shooters don't recount every jam they had in their modern "unmentionable" at the range.
The popularity of cartridges came in with pinfires, and cartridges here in the US, in the late 1860's and so, the chain fire thing was just a quirk of these "old guns" that no one had to care about anymore.
Besides personal defense, gun fights and combat, most users of percussion revolvers didn't fire their guns. Is there any written accounts of gun slingers like John Hardin who spent much of his man killin' days using percussion revolvers, writing about chain fires? There are volumes and volumes of letters, journal entries and verbal accounts given of the use of muskets and rifle-muskets in combat but relatively little about the use of percussion revolvers in combat. I have yet to read a letter from Wild Bill where he's all like "had a chain fire in the Navy today, first time in a while..." and his life and accounts of his exploits with his Navies are well documented.
From the 1830's to the 1870's, percussion revolvers had a relatively brief heyday and we probably shoot them more now than people did in this original period.
There was probably less written accounts of chain fires in the percussion period because perhaps-
Nitrate cartridges somehow mitigated or reduced chain fires? Maybe all this loose powder, ball, and lube stuff we do now increases the likelihood through some factors we haven't thought of?
People fired their guns less?
Or they had chain fires and it wasn't even worth noting? Kind of like how modern shooters don't recount every jam they had in their modern "unmentionable" at the range.
The popularity of cartridges came in with pinfires, and cartridges here in the US, in the late 1860's and so, the chain fire thing was just a quirk of these "old guns" that no one had to care about anymore.
Besides personal defense, gun fights and combat, most users of percussion revolvers didn't fire their guns. Is there any written accounts of gun slingers like John Hardin who spent much of his man killin' days using percussion revolvers, writing about chain fires? There are volumes and volumes of letters, journal entries and verbal accounts given of the use of muskets and rifle-muskets in combat but relatively little about the use of percussion revolvers in combat. I have yet to read a letter from Wild Bill where he's all like "had a chain fire in the Navy today, first time in a while..." and his life and accounts of his exploits with his Navies are well documented.
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B then A
;-)
;-)
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This just about sums it it.
Although they were THE hand-held firearm of the day, there is little to zero mention of organised shooting competitions using handguns. Rifles, OTOH, have ALWAYS attracted competition viz. the Coors and other schuetzen matches.
Off topic …but I saw this post here , I think under “Flying Nipple”…. Regarding power at the nipple end from firing a percussion gun…
“The last shoot I was at, my friend was bench shooting, then all the sudden! His nipple blew out of the drum with such force, it broke his lock, and grazed the side of his face. I took a good look at his rifle, and it appears gas had been leaking around his nipple. He is lucky, he wasn't more seriously injured. Shooting those bench guns with large loads, gotta be extra careful.”
it seems for a number of reasons , paying attention to both ends of a cylinder makes sense.
“The last shoot I was at, my friend was bench shooting, then all the sudden! His nipple blew out of the drum with such force, it broke his lock, and grazed the side of his face. I took a good look at his rifle, and it appears gas had been leaking around his nipple. He is lucky, he wasn't more seriously injured. Shooting those bench guns with large loads, gotta be extra careful.”
it seems for a number of reasons , paying attention to both ends of a cylinder makes sense.
There will probably always be a gray area. Gun guru Elmer Keith felt most chain fires were to ill fitting caps. Mark Twain, in his book "Roughing It" said he had a pepper box (probably 4 barrels, and when he fired the thing all four barrels went off at the same time. How do you explain that? 4 ill fitting caps? four barrels without lube, etc. at the chamber ends?
Besides loose fitting caps and a passage way at the chamber end- any other theories? I can see how one other chamber might have a problem and there is a second chamber- but when several other chambers go off? The heat from the gun itself causing the trouble? Something else?
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I never even thought of that aspect
There are volumes of writings about muzzleloading rifle match shooting, Col Hiram Berdan has written books, I have books about Civil War "Snipers" and how many of them were avid match shooters before the war , and they go into great detail about shooting their rifles.
But the fact that revolvers were defensive weapons, military sidearms and basically were just really nice looking tools, with there being no organized target use of them. Is probably a big factor as to the lack of any in-depth info on chain fires
We have to remember that the resurgence of percussion revolver shooting was mainly due to Spaghetti Westerns , and the Italian gun makers seeing a chance for profit . Plus most countries have relaxed laws for muzzleloaders so people could enjoy shooting percussions in countries where it was harder to obtain a cartridge gun
Even in the US the novelty of picking up a cap and baller at a sporting goods store over the counter means half the people I know own one
So, there are ironically most likely 10x as many percussion revolvers in use now than their was when they were made originally. Magnifying the "flaw" of chain fires. People are like? What's the fix for chain fires? A Cartridge revolver.
Just like I tell my gun friends who wonder why I "bother to mess with " stuff like muskets and cap and ballers. I'm like, it's a hobby and I enjoy it, but you can easily see why every developed nation's military went to breech loaders and cartridge revolvers as soon as they possibly could. There is no "fix" for the quirks of these weapons besides the inevitable evolution past them.
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In the mid-19th C in continental Europe, the upper classes, with the space and leisure time, certainly engaged in target pistol shooting, viz. the wonderful single-shot target pistols by the likes of LePage, Mang in Gratz, Kuchenreuter and others. These were very expensive toys, even then, way beyond the reach of the average working man.
In the late 1840's a farm worker in Bavaria was earning a 5 marks a week - a LePage pistol set could be bought for around 300 marks.....
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Unless I am mistaken the nipples on pepper boxes didn't have recessed nipples surrounded by metal to shield them from flash. Legend has it Sam Colt didn't have them on his first prototype and it exploded. YMMV
I was amazed to hear , I’m not sure how accurate this is, from Blackie Thomas on YouTube that percussion revolvers develop about 20K psi for an instant in the chamber.
He added that if the nipple hole gets much larger than a paper clip it needs replacing . I have quite a variety of sizes from a Sharps musket cap to stock Uberti , Pietta revolvers to a target Pedersoli Remington , shotgun , Slixshot & Treso but it did make me think about keeping a better eye on the openings.
I couldn’t fit a pick down the nipples that came with the Pedersoli Remington at first but they’ve opened up more now.
He added that if the nipple hole gets much larger than a paper clip it needs replacing . I have quite a variety of sizes from a Sharps musket cap to stock Uberti , Pietta revolvers to a target Pedersoli Remington , shotgun , Slixshot & Treso but it did make me think about keeping a better eye on the openings.
I couldn’t fit a pick down the nipples that came with the Pedersoli Remington at first but they’ve opened up more now.
I think the revolvers used in the military had larger flash holes in the nipples to insure ignition.
On poorly fitted nipples- I can see how there is an air passage into the chamber and flame could run through and cause a chain fire. On the chamber end, it seems if a ring or lead is produced, or the ball "swaged" into the chamber, that any air passage would not exist. There would have to be a scratch or gouge in the chamber for flame to get past the ball and ignite the powder. For a ball to move forward from recoil, it would have to move virtually out the end of the chamber in order to expose the powder- it seems.
On poorly fitted nipples- I can see how there is an air passage into the chamber and flame could run through and cause a chain fire. On the chamber end, it seems if a ring or lead is produced, or the ball "swaged" into the chamber, that any air passage would not exist. There would have to be a scratch or gouge in the chamber for flame to get past the ball and ignite the powder. For a ball to move forward from recoil, it would have to move virtually out the end of the chamber in order to expose the powder- it seems.
Ed C.
54 Cal.
I replaced the nipples on my 3 BP guns with Track of the Wolf and Slix Shot nipples. Both seat the #11 and 1075 caps very well when pushed on with a seating stick or whatever you want to use.
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I doubt that’s accurate at all. Years ago now Lyman tested open top revolvers and the most pressure they ever developed was in the neighborhood of 9000 lead units of pressure. Far less than 20,000 psi.
I do agree with replacing nipples when the orifice exceeds .032 or so.
FYI…Zonie in a thread “PSI with black powder” Agrees with the higher number…and higher actually …
https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/threads/psi-with-black-powder.29260/
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Erwan
45 Cal.
That pressure is very high...
I didn't find it anywhere on my Lyman book (1975) :
- Feedback on powder charge
- PSI with black powder
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