bullet seating depth

[hrt4me]

Is there an ideal seating depth for lead round balls (or conical bullets) in the cylinder of a revolver (for accuracy)?
Do you want the leading edge of the round ball or conical bullet to be just below flush with the cylinder face?

 

[Justin.44]

Ideally, yes. You want the bullet to travel the least amount of distance before it enters the forcing cone of the barrel. That's one of the reasons many use a filler, such as cream of wheat, to bring the bullet closer to the top of the cylinder, especially helpful with lighter loads.

 

[bore_butter]

so what has anyone been doing when you get the filler or powder measurement wrong and there is excess lead sticking out the cylinder. do you just saw it off with a pocket knife or would that cause a loose ball.

 

[Justin.44]

so what has anyone been doing when you get the filler or powder measurement wrong and there is excess lead sticking out the cylinder. do you just saw it off with a pocket knife or would that cause a loose ball.

The cream of wheat compresses quite a bit. When I do this, I pour my powder charge, then fill the chamber almost to the top with the filler, and it smashes down enough to clear the chamber. That's with round balls... with conicals you can't fill it that much or yes, you'll likely be sawing the tip off.

 

[bore_butter]

just wondering because i've been dogged with murphey's law all my life.

 

[Greasecookie]

When that occurs I trim off enough with a pocket knife so I can rotate the cylinder. And then change the powder charge/filler to make sure it doesn't happen again. It will happen while playing with loads. Corn meal seems a little more compressible than cream of wheat, so that helps, you can crank on the loading lever if your load stack is a little too much.

 

[Bad Karma]

so what has anyone been doing when you get the filler or powder measurement wrong and there is excess lead sticking out the cylinder. do you just saw it off with a pocket knife or would that cause a loose ball.

I test loads on a revolver loading press. If they’re a but full it’s easy enough to pop the cylinder into a vice, (gently, padded with leather please) and using woodworking chisel, remove the protruding portion of the ball. This is safest for the cylinder, gun, and fingers. If I were to overload in the field I would probably use the knife, but I like my knives and my guns, (ditto for fingers) too much to do it more than once or twice.

A word about vices and cylinders. Marking up the finish isn’t the only concern here. A 5 inch bench vice offers enough leverage to deform the chambers, even if only a little bit.

 

[ZUG]

Corn meal compresses MUCH more than cream of wheat. I've not had cream of wheat compress any if at all. I do a "trial and error" adjustment on a cylinder loading stand for a particular powder charge. Once I have it where the ball is below the end of the cylinder by about 1/16"+ I write down all the info and keep it handy. I make up scoops to hold the filler out of cut down to fit modern cartridges.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

Ideally, yes. You want the bullet to travel the least amount of distance before it enters the forcing cone of the barrel. That's one of the reasons many use a filler, such as cream of wheat, to bring the bullet closer to the top of the cylinder, especially helpful with lighter loads.

I like to use more powder rather than a filler. Light, uniform compression between chambers give me excellent accuracy.

 

[Greasecookie]

I've also given up on fillers, after a long time of using them. I do like felt wads, but the commercial ones are kinda spendy.

 

[bang]

Found no difference with or without filler other than having more or less to have on hand.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

so what has anyone been doing when you get the filler or powder measurement wrong and there is excess lead sticking out the cylinder. do you just saw it off with a pocket knife or would that cause a loose ball.

Yes, I have carved off some lead when it was sticking out of the cylinder. This happened when using the Eras Gone conical as it is a bit longer than the Lee. I could not get it seated deep enough with my usual powder charge.

 

[user 48679]

The projectile must be seated against the propellent, just like any other muzzleloader.

 

[hrt4me]

The projectile must be seated against the propellent, just like any other muzzleloader.

of course, that is a given

 

[rodwha]

A fellow on another forum found that with bullets (wider meplat?) needed to be seated at least 1/16” below the face as gas cutting chewed up the nose.

I’ve found that both my ROA and NMA seem to have a more accurate load no matter what projectiles I’ve used. I intend to modify my designs and essentially fill the excess in the chambers with lead and will be leaving a little wiggle room for powder variations and space to keep from gas cutting.

 

[No second place]

Is there an ideal seating depth for lead round balls (or conical bullets) in the cylinder of a revolver (for accuracy)?
Do you want the leading edge of the round ball or conical bullet to be just below flush with the cylinder face?

If just plinking at close range you may not notice the difference. Match accuracy has been only possible for my revolvers (Ruger,Remmy,Colt) with 20 grs or less + filler, cornmeal or C of W. Seating as close to flush as possible...c