If this is true, the center of the cylinder at the back may have pushed in the breech face enough to allow the caps to impact the same breech face during recoil which could ignite the other caps. Check to see if this is possible with your revolver. Just another possibility.
.32 cap and ball
- Thread starter schreck5
- Start date
Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2009
- Messages
- 13,447
- Reaction score
- 7,851
My suggestion...
Load all five chambers just the way you have been with plenty grease except use paper balls instead of lead balls and see if you get multiple discharges. If yes, load it again and before you put caps on it pull the cylinder.
With the front of the cylinder face down on a table top gently place the caps on the nipples.
Do they go on easily and come back off? If so then bypass at the cap to nipple fit may be allowing ignition to occur at that location and something must be done to inhibit that ignition. Pinching the caps could help. Applying grease after the caps are in place, same as folks do to inhibit water, could help.
So, whether the caps come off easily or not, apply grease to the caps. Then, go shoot the revolver and see if you still get multiple discharges.
The method to my madness is that even though a light paper ball is not going to produce as much pressure and therefore back flow through the nipples, I suspect that there exists some large nipple holes and / or looseness in the fit of caps to nipples.
Load all five chambers just the way you have been with plenty grease except use paper balls instead of lead balls and see if you get multiple discharges. If yes, load it again and before you put caps on it pull the cylinder.
With the front of the cylinder face down on a table top gently place the caps on the nipples.
Do they go on easily and come back off? If so then bypass at the cap to nipple fit may be allowing ignition to occur at that location and something must be done to inhibit that ignition. Pinching the caps could help. Applying grease after the caps are in place, same as folks do to inhibit water, could help.
So, whether the caps come off easily or not, apply grease to the caps. Then, go shoot the revolver and see if you still get multiple discharges.
The method to my madness is that even though a light paper ball is not going to produce as much pressure and therefore back flow through the nipples, I suspect that there exists some large nipple holes and / or looseness in the fit of caps to nipples.
I think you are right. On the breech face, there is a ring around the center of if. It is machined into the breech face. It has a lot of irregular wear and just barely hit the edge of the caps. If this is the case, then the gun is just a paper weight since it is all one piece with the frame.?
osage orange said:
the machined ring is supposed to be there. Any irregularities should be filed off, any that are above the surface of the recoil shield.
It may also be that the ring was machined off location and you may need to fix that.
IF the irregularities can touch the caps, then the nipples are too long. The caps should be well below the back of the cylinder. But not so low that the hammer can not reach them.
You need to find someone close to you, maybe at a gun club, someone who knows about these pistols and have them give you some pointers on fixing it.
nope, not a paper weight, just needs some lovin.
can you post some pictures?
Many years ago I bought a Colt 1849 brass frame kit from D G W. Assembly went well and I shot it with 10 gr of 3F DuPont BP, it was shooting fine for a while. It then started to chain fire. It also had a chamfered cylinder (not much) but that was not what caused the chain firing it was the recoil of the first shot forced the cylinder back into the recoil shield and fired either one or two adjacent chambers. When I inspected the recoil shield closely I could see minuet nipple marks. The gun became a wall hanger - I now only have steel frame C&B handguns. Brass frame C&B guns are great for blanks, re-enacting and firing with SMALL charges once in a "Blue Moon" but that's about it -- My 2 cents, your mileage may vary :v .osage orange said:
Zug, That is exactly what this one is doing, only the caps are hitting that ring that I was talking about. The cap on either side of the fired round is crossfiring.
Wish I would have explained things better in the 1st place!
Cynthia, Yes, pics are worth a thousand words,but this ole 'puter just won't do it. And too expensive to fix.
Wish I would have explained things better in the 1st place!
Cynthia, Yes, pics are worth a thousand words,but this ole 'puter just won't do it. And too expensive to fix.
I just did some measuring on my Colt 1848 brass frame CVA revolver with my dial caliper.
It's an old cheap replica that is probably pretty close to what you own.
Putting a straight piece of metal on the rear of the cylinder so that it bridges the place where the nipples are, I found the distance from the outer end of the nipple to the rear of the cylinder is .030-.040 depending on which nipple I'm measuring.
Put another way, the ends of the nipples are .030-.040 below the rear of the cylinder.
This is far enough below the surface so any precussion cap that is placed on a nipple should not stick up above the rear face of the cylinder.
I then measured the diameter of the circular ring on the frame that that the rear of the cylinder slams into when the gun is fired.
It measures .745 diameter.
Without getting into how I did it, I also found the distance from the center of the cylinder out to the center of the nipples is a diameter of .803
That boils down to saying the recoil ring is large enough to fire a cap if the end of the cap happens to be slammed into it.
With your gun having depressions in the recoil ring that will allow the cylinder to move further back than it should, it is no wonder you are getting multiple firings.
There is a fix for this.
Get a small metal cutting flat file.
With the hammer at half cock (to get it out of the way) carefully file the face of the recoil ring down so that the high places between the deformed depressions are removed.
Try to keep the amount of material that's being removed equal.
Don't remove any more material than is necessary to even out the face.
Keep what's left of the recoil ring parallel with the larger face around it.
When you assemble the pistol you should be able to tap the barrel wedge in far enough to remove the extra cylinder movement fore and aft that removing some of the recoil ring will cause.
If you can't get the wedge to drive the barrel back to reduce the new cylinder gap, the gun is still safe to shoot. It will just put a lot more of the blast out the gap between the cylinder and the barrel.
I've seen photos of some of the Confederate made pistols that had a gap of over 1/16" and they seemed to work.
If you make this change, your gun should be safe to shoot (unless it has other problems you didn't tell us about) :grin: .
It's an old cheap replica that is probably pretty close to what you own.
Putting a straight piece of metal on the rear of the cylinder so that it bridges the place where the nipples are, I found the distance from the outer end of the nipple to the rear of the cylinder is .030-.040 depending on which nipple I'm measuring.
Put another way, the ends of the nipples are .030-.040 below the rear of the cylinder.
This is far enough below the surface so any precussion cap that is placed on a nipple should not stick up above the rear face of the cylinder.
I then measured the diameter of the circular ring on the frame that that the rear of the cylinder slams into when the gun is fired.
It measures .745 diameter.
Without getting into how I did it, I also found the distance from the center of the cylinder out to the center of the nipples is a diameter of .803
That boils down to saying the recoil ring is large enough to fire a cap if the end of the cap happens to be slammed into it.
With your gun having depressions in the recoil ring that will allow the cylinder to move further back than it should, it is no wonder you are getting multiple firings.
There is a fix for this.
Get a small metal cutting flat file.
With the hammer at half cock (to get it out of the way) carefully file the face of the recoil ring down so that the high places between the deformed depressions are removed.
Try to keep the amount of material that's being removed equal.
Don't remove any more material than is necessary to even out the face.
Keep what's left of the recoil ring parallel with the larger face around it.
When you assemble the pistol you should be able to tap the barrel wedge in far enough to remove the extra cylinder movement fore and aft that removing some of the recoil ring will cause.
If you can't get the wedge to drive the barrel back to reduce the new cylinder gap, the gun is still safe to shoot. It will just put a lot more of the blast out the gap between the cylinder and the barrel.
I've seen photos of some of the Confederate made pistols that had a gap of over 1/16" and they seemed to work.
If you make this change, your gun should be safe to shoot (unless it has other problems you didn't tell us about) :grin: .
.32 Cap and Balls are very under-powered even when filled to the max with pyrodex and the powder is compress.
The KEY to getting respectable defensive power is getting a very tight fitting ball that will force pressure to build up before the ball starts moving.
You need to get a .32 cal in there that will shave off when seated. This will be quite difficult since the loading lever is so short and does not give you much leverage.
0 buck = .32
00 buck = .33
Here is a source of cheap buckshot.
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/Lead-Buckshot/products/65/
Note: Muzzleloading rounds should be 99% purelead so that they wear the barrel less. Buckshot is 95 % purelead. I personally do not care about the faster wear on the barrel. The guns are cheap enough to replace.
In case you are wondering how much difference this the makes in performance here are the results of my tests...
Gun .....................Barrel.........Powder by Volume.....Bullet Weight.................Avg Velocity.......... Energy............. Momentum
.31 Pocket, 1858.....3.5 inch.....15 grains 3F Pyrodex....47.5 grain, .315 ball.........433 ft/s..............36 ft-lbs..............2.93 ft-s
.31 Pocket, 1858....3.5 inch....15 grains 3F Pyrodex.....52 grain.... .323 ball.........770 ft/s.................68 ft-lbs..............5.72 ft-s
Going from a .315 ball to a .32 ball almost doubles the energy and brings it up to the power of a .22 out of a pistol.
The KEY to getting respectable defensive power is getting a very tight fitting ball that will force pressure to build up before the ball starts moving.
You need to get a .32 cal in there that will shave off when seated. This will be quite difficult since the loading lever is so short and does not give you much leverage.
0 buck = .32
00 buck = .33
Here is a source of cheap buckshot.
http://www.ballisticproducts.com/Lead-Buckshot/products/65/
Note: Muzzleloading rounds should be 99% purelead so that they wear the barrel less. Buckshot is 95 % purelead. I personally do not care about the faster wear on the barrel. The guns are cheap enough to replace.
In case you are wondering how much difference this the makes in performance here are the results of my tests...
Gun .....................Barrel.........Powder by Volume.....Bullet Weight.................Avg Velocity.......... Energy............. Momentum
.31 Pocket, 1858.....3.5 inch.....15 grains 3F Pyrodex....47.5 grain, .315 ball.........433 ft/s..............36 ft-lbs..............2.93 ft-s
.31 Pocket, 1858....3.5 inch....15 grains 3F Pyrodex.....52 grain.... .323 ball.........770 ft/s.................68 ft-lbs..............5.72 ft-s
Going from a .315 ball to a .32 ball almost doubles the energy and brings it up to the power of a .22 out of a pistol.
Last edited by a moderator:
Zonie, tsa,
I will do what both of you have suggested. By the way, the .323 balls that I ordered mic at .318. Is this ok? As I mentioned, i have a friend who is a very good machist and he said he could open my .311 mold to .323.
Agian, thank you all for the expert advice. I am bound and determined to get this little thing shooting.
I will do what both of you have suggested. By the way, the .323 balls that I ordered mic at .318. Is this ok? As I mentioned, i have a friend who is a very good machist and he said he could open my .311 mold to .323.
Agian, thank you all for the expert advice. I am bound and determined to get this little thing shooting.
Using the larger .32 ball should cut down on the chain fire cause it will seal tighter. Still lube it up. You can also get a chain fire from the caps falling off and sparks going in through the back. Pinching the caps for a tighter fit to the nipple should take care of that.
BGRooster1
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2010
- Messages
- 160
- Reaction score
- 3
Caps that fit your nipples are much better than pinching.If you can't find the right size caps, then get different nipples.Pinching leaves obvious gaps in the fit of the caps.
Which Will lead to chain fires, ask me how I know.BGRooster1 said:
Similar threads
