Chamfer revolver chambers?

[kwilfong]

I remember reading something years ago about chamfering the chambers on c&b revolvers so that it swages the balls instead of cutting a ring of lead. Has anybody here tried it?

 

[fstreed]

I had it done on my Ruger Old Army. It works.

 

[kwilfong]

Thanks!
I think I'll try it. I just bought a Cabella's 1858 Remington Target. Sold my Old Army some years ago and just got back into black powder.
:thumbsup:

 

[R.M.]

I've done it to all my C&B guns. Can't really say it's better, but it sure hasn't hurt either.

 

[redwing]

The Rogers & Spencer {Euroarms} Target comes with chamfered chambers among other refinements. The camfered chamber is a real plus when laoding and shooting C&B handguns. :thumbsup:

 

[Len Graves]

How much chamfer are we talking about? Are you doing more of a coning, or just breaking the sharp edge? I can see some loading advantages, but if made too large would you get excess "blow by" at the forcing cone? All in all an interesting thought.

 

[redwing]

Why would anyone open a chamber beyoned the diameter of the forcing cone? No, I have never seen a chamber mouth cut larger than a forcing cone. :shake:

 

[fstreed]

How much chamfer are we talking about? Are you doing more of a coning, or just breaking the sharp edge? I can see some loading advantages, but if made too large would you get excess "blow by" at the forcing cone? All in all an interesting thought.

On my ROA the gunsmith just barely broke the edge, you have to look close to see it. I agree that you wouldn't want to overdo it.

Some have mentioned that their replica revolvers will shave a ring of lead, then the ball will be loose in the chamber. Perhaps this might help that situation?

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

How much chamfer are we talking about? Are you doing more of a coning, or just breaking the sharp edge? I can see some loading advantages, but if made too large would you get excess "blow by" at the forcing cone? All in all an interesting thought.

On my ROA the gunsmith just barely broke the edge, you have to look close to see it. I agree that you wouldn't want to overdo it.

Some have mentioned that their replica revolvers will shave a ring of lead, then the ball will be loose in the chamber. Perhaps this might help that situation?

The ball isn't loose in the chamber, it is slightly undersized compared to the forcing cone, after it's forced into the chamber when the tiny ring of lead is cut from it upon loading. This happens when the chambers are smaller than the forcing cone. Then the undersized ball "rattles" down the bore and doesn't evenly engage the rifling.

FWIW I shoot out-of-the-box revolvers without any work done on them. My Uberti's are quite accurate as-is, so the old adage, "If if ain't broke, don't fix it" is the rule of the day. That being said, if I were in a competition where EVERYBODY had it done to their equipment and I hadn't, I might consider myself to be at a disadvantage for that match.

In a "perfect world", if I were running revolver matches, I'd have separate divisions for out-of-the-box and worked-on guns with big front sights, chamber work, revolver-smith timing jobs, etc., etc. in an effort to even the playing field so as to enable a really good pistol shooter to win a match instead of a fair shooter with a tricked-out custom gun. For me part of the lure of black powder is to overcome some of the obstacles that the Shootists of yesteryear faced. If I want to shoot a tricked-out hand gun, I'll pick-up my .40 Limited Para with integral extended magwell, flared ejection port, hand-fitted match-grade barrel, ambi-safety, high-vis sights, custom 2-pound trigger, full-length guide rod, beaver-tail grip, etc. that I use for I.P.S.C.

Dave

 

[fstreed]

FWIW I shoot out-of-the-box revolvers without any work done on them. My Uberti's are quite accurate as-is, so the old adage, "If if ain't broke, don't fix it" is the rule of the day. That being said, if I were in a competition where EVERYBODY had it done to their equipment and I hadn't, I might consider myself to be at a disadvantage for that match.

In a "perfect world", if I were running revolver matches, I'd have separate divisions for out-of-the-box and worked-on guns with big front sights, chamber work, revolver-smith timing jobs, etc., etc. in an effort to even the playing field so as to enable a really good pistol shooter to win a match instead of a fair shooter with a tricked-out custom gun. For me part of the lure of black powder is to overcome some of the obstacles that the Shootists of yesteryear faced. If I want to shoot a tricked-out hand gun, I'll pick-up my .40 Limited Para with integral extended magwell, flared ejection port, hand-fitted match-grade barrel, ambi-safety, high-vis sights, custom 2-pound trigger, full-length guide rod, beaver-tail grip, etc. that I use for I.P.S.C.

Dave

Cool! They are your guns, do as you wish with them, as I will do with mine.

 

[redwing]

Dave with the scores you shoot with your Walker you don't need the .40 Auto. :nono: Hell, if you and that Walker had have been around During the Mexican War they could have let half the US Army go home. :wink:

 

[Zonie]

Perhaps some will find it interesting that Colt built his 1851 Navy's both ways.

Some had small chamfers at the chambers mouths and many didn't.

I'm not sure why this happened. He may have decided that swaging the ball into the chamber is better than shearing it into the chamber and then eliminated the chamfer as a cost reduction?

In any case, the chamfer shouldn't be much more than a small corner break as anything larger than the difference between the actual chamber diameter and the maximum ball you intend to load would just reduce the amount of steel that is keeping the chamber in one piece when the gun is fired.

 

[redwing]

Very interesting. But do you think with modern steel coned chambers would suffer. I note the very expensive high Tech. Rogers & Spencer Target version by DP&S [$1200] uses a very coned chamber mouth. :hmm:

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

To quote Clint, "You made my day" :applause: :haha: :grin: :rotf: :shocked2: .

Sometimes I feel like Patton--like I've been other places in times past. So maybe that's why I like my Walker sooooo much! :haha: :wink: :rotf: .

My hips feel the best with a full 9 1/2 pounds of steel, powder and lead "in the leather". My "weak" side gets the 3rd Model Dragoon with only 40 grains of powder :shocked2: .

Chat soon.

Dave

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

Zonie,

I didn't know that, thanks!

Did Colt do it to any other revolvers in the line, or just the .36 Navies?

Dave

 

[Poor Private]

My few questions are: How much is the cost by the smith, and is it worth the additional cost to the occasional user? Do you have all pistols done or just the ones you may use in compittion? I have over a dozen and still counting of BP pistols and soemtimes it may be a year for me to pick up or get around to all of them. Since the front faces of my BP pistols are blued do you then reblue the face, or leave as is? Theses questions may seem infantile or basic to some but I have never had a cylinder coned, or camphered.

 

[redwing]

Dave your dreams maybe for real. Do you ever see visions like this?

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

All good questions! Since neither I or any of my friends that shoot black powder have ever had it done, I can't say. I have to defer to an expert in this area.

What I can tell you from 36+ years of shooting hand guns is that the more you practice with a single gun, the better you get with it. So what I guess I'm saying is that if you start with a hand gun that you shoot only occasionally, the work that you have done won't be evident right away. You're still learning sights, muscle memory, consistency in loading each chamber, etc.

Bottom line is that no "magic fix" is going to make-up for 5-10 boxes of balls out the tube. And my money goes to consumables.

Dave

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

Yeah,

Leather gloves, horse prints in the mud, and the smell of bacon in the woods, twigs snapping in the camp fire, the taste of jerky, etc. :haha: :grin:

Dave

 

[kwilfong]

I lightly chamfered the chambers on my 1858 Target yesterday. It now loads the .451 balls with no cutting but still shaves a bit off .457's.
25 yard groups are OK but nothing to brag about yet. I still need to lighten the trigger more and continue playing with the load.
When setting up to do the work, I found the chamber diameter is .444". (I used a pin guage to line up the chambers in the mill.) The barrel slugs at .451. I think I'll order a .451" reamer and open the chambers to that dimension. It seems kind of dumb to make the ball smaller than the barrel grooves then bump them back up on firing.
How is the Ruger Old Army set up(chamber dia vs groove dia) out of the box?