Chain Fire Workaround: Skip Every Other Chamber?

[Dashing Leper]

Imagine a scenario where you need to reload for more than one shot, say on a trail or on a hunt, but you have none of the usual chain fire preventatives like bore lube or wadding-- just powder and rounds. Do you think a possible workaround to prevent chain fires would be to simply load three chambers, leaving an empty one between each load? You halve your ammo capacity, but decrease the likelihood of flashover reaching a live chamber mouth or nipple.

 

[Grumpa]

You are just wasting chambers. If the balls fit (full circle lead ring cut when seating the ball), and the caps aren't loose, you won't have a chainfire.

Richard/Grumpa

 

[Stantheman86]

You might as well just load 1 chamber and basically just use it as a multi chambered single shot.

I sometimes have done this when I'm at the range and the shooting session is petering out or I'm getting tired/hungry.....and I feel like popping off "a few more " I'll just stuff and cap 1 chamber and pop a ball off at a rock or something.

I'm sure this was done at some point in the past as an emergency measure. Sometimes there's no time to load all 6 .

 

[Dashing Leper]

You are just wasting chambers. If the balls fit (full circle lead ring cut when seating the ball), and the caps aren't loose, you won't have a chainfire.

Richard/Grumpa

Pose a worst-case scenario: you have rounds that fail to swage a full ring of lead (too small or out-of-round) and/or your caps aren't seating well. Will the distance + 120 degree shielding angle of the arbor keep the flash from impacting the lower chambers?

Barring that, how about two shots in an emergency? Chambers on opposite sides? Rather than a single-shot revolver as mentioned above, could we cheat out two shots if the arbor can shield the bottom chamber?

 

[Stantheman86]

I'm just gonna come out and say it......the original "Chain Fire Workaround" was called the metallic cartridge.

Other than that , the Percussion Revolver is limited to the technology of the era. The design of the Percussion Revolver lends itself to the risk of a chain fire.

I don't understand the logic to try to "cheat" a chain fire by spacing out the loading of the chambers.

By that token I am safer from chain fires in my Dragoon with its larger in circumference cylinder than a Navy.

Chain fires are rare, and it's not like when they happen it's catastrophic. There's tons of YouTube videos of chain fires caught on camera. Unless all 6 go off and the ball hits the loading lever they usually just bounce off the sides of the barrel.

Much like how a spark in the breech of a muzzleloader can flash a charge and we mitigate this by using a powder measure. We mitigate chain fires by using properly fitting caps and tight bullets/balls.

I've had failures in "unmentionable " revolvers and rifles , anything involving mechanical parts and lots of fire can fail. Had a case head failure in a high powered rifle, much more dangerous than a chain fire.

 

[smoothshooter]

Imagine a scenario where you need to reload for more than one shot, say on a trail or on a hunt, but you have none of the usual chain fire preventatives like bore lube or wadding-- just powder and rounds. Do you think a possible workaround to prevent chain fires would be to simply load three chambers, leaving an empty one between each load? You halve your ammo capacity, but decrease the likelihood of flashover reaching a live chamber mouth or nipple.

Imagine a scenario where you need to reload for more than one shot, say on a trail or on a hunt, but you have none of the usual chain fire preventatives like bore lube or wadding-- just powder and rounds. Do you think a possible workaround to prevent chain fires would be to simply load three chambers, leaving an empty one between each load? You halve your ammo capacity, but decrease the likelihood of flashover reaching a live chamber mouth or nipple.

I never understood this “ terror “ people have about THE DREADED CHAIN-FIRE!
If you are using the proper sized caps and bullets, they just don’t happen. Even without using lubricated wads, or even worse, grease spread over the balls at the chamber mouths. I
And if it does happen, you will walk away undamaged, and your gun will almost never be damaged in any way.
Think about it: during a chain-fire the bullets not in line with the bore will be traveling at around 150-200 feet per second as they exit the chambers, as proven by chronograph. About the speed of the cheap BB guns they sell nowadays, or less.
Definitely survivable.
Annoying, but survivable.

 

[Dashing Leper]

I'm looking for experimental data to use against a hypothesis, not a soapbox.

The question is: "Will it work?" and not "Should you be doing it?"

 

[Phil Coffins]

No. The reasons for a chain fire is more complex than spacing.

 

[Dashing Leper]

Such as whether or not the arbor will deflect the flashover...

I may have to come up with a preliminary experiment: Perhaps if I load one chamber, then slip a piece of paper (nitrated?) into the other two chambers-- one set close to the mouth, the other deeper down. Shoot off the round and see if the paper in either or both catch the flash.

 

[Mean Gene]

I've had two chain fires over the last thirty years of shooting bp revolvers, and it's not all that bad, just surprising when it happens, but I agree it really wouldn't matter if you skip a chamber.

 

[Bad Karma]

I’ve never had a chain fire. I’m certainly not going to reduce my pistols capacity by half just in case.

practice clean, sound loading technique, well fitting ball or bullets and caps that fit snugly on the cones, on a good quality revolver in good repair and stop worrying about the remote chances...

 

[Desperate Lee]

I am with you brother. Never had one and never will cause i do practice good loading techniques. ( KNOCK ON WOOD )
DL

 

[Dashing Leper]

So, no curiosity in this bunch... Believe me, finding out this doesn't work is just as good as seeing if it does. At least we can either add it to our list of possible options or we can educate others that this won't keep a poorly loaded chamber from catching a flashover.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

I've been shooting cap and ball revolvers since the early 70's and thankfully have never experience this phenomenon. I mainly shoot conicals and while the bullets are lubed, I don't apply any grease over the bullet. I do not understand how a spark can jump chambers when using oversized balls that seal so tightly that a ring of lead is shaved when seating. I have at times wondered if this subject is actually a myth, similar to the story of percussion caps that detonate when seated by thumb pressure.

 

[bang]

Only chain fire I ever had was the result of mistakenly putting a #10 lid on #11 primer tin. Proper size projectile in smooth cylinder bore and proper fitting primer doesn't chain fire.

 

[Stantheman86]

Sure I'd be interested to see if the flash will reach into the next chamber and ignite nitrate paper.

The flash melted some of the top layer of the pure Tallow in the neighboring chambers when I fired one round but it did not burn off or melt through to the bullet.

Way before I knew what I was doing I fired hundreds of balls through an ASM 1860 Army with Pyrodex and round balls with no felt wad. I didn't even know about cap fitting. Never had a chain fire.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

If you don't have wads or grease to seal the chambers, you are only carrying half your supplies. a cap tin with wads or a syringe full of lithium grease weighs so little and takes such a small amount of room.

 

[Bad Karma]

So, no curiosity in this bunch... Believe me, finding out this doesn't work is just as good as seeing if it does. At least we can either add it to our list of possible options or we can educate others that this won't keep a poorly loaded chamber from catching a flashover.

Plenty curiosity here but if it’s not a problem it might be best to just enjoy the ride... if I was experiencing chainfire, or hanging fire, or anything but instantaneous fire, yes, I’d investigate, get to the bottom of things and fix them.

One thing common to many of the members here is the long years of experience, most have figured out how to run these guns very reliably. My experience says that if the ball fits tightly, there’s no powder spilled all over the face of the cylinder, and the caps fit on a revolver in good repair, chainfires don’t happen. I sometimes use lubed wads or cards under the bullet but most often I don’t. Again, I have never experienced a chain fire so I’m not sure how to improve that.

 

[Stantheman86]

I'd be more interested in an experiment to see how the occurrence of chain fires changes with Pyrodex vs real Black.

 

[Grenadier1758]

I would expect with the higher ignition of Pyrodex, that the occurrence of chainfires would be greatly reduced.

My experience many years ago with Pyrodex in my revolver was a consistent delay in firing. I still have the remainder of that can of Pyrodex.

My chain fire experiences (in the 1960's) were with irregular sized shot. I was sold a bag of swaged shotgun shot of about 36 caliber as the gun shop didn't have properly sized ball. All the books ere instructing revolver shooters to use 0.375 ball in their 36 caliber revolvers. That's where I learned to measure the cylinder diameter (0.375") before I ordered ball. Needless to say there was no swaging of the ball into the cylinder. No chain fires but the balls in the adjacent cylinders all fell out on recoil of the first shot. Once I started using 0.380" balls there were no chain fires and no jarred loose balls.