Do I really need to lube my balls?

[M. De Land]

The guy who wrote this article on preventing chain fires, among other black powder subjects, experimented to cause chain fires. Loose caps did not once cause chain fires when he intentionally used them extensively to try initiating them.

Throughout his testing, the one thing he found in common with chain fires he could cause was powder getting crushed between the ball and chamber wall. He diagramming what happens here:
View attachment 169804
The rest of the article is at this link:

http://geojohn.org/BlackPowder/bps2Mobile.html
It's a really interesting read, as are the rest of his articles on black powder shooting.

I find a lot of out of round cbamber mouths when reaming them and have wondered if that does not contribute to it as well. Also I have noticed that very often when cutting a lead ring off over sized balls when pressing them home, the ring will often not be complete. My thought is this is a gap in the lead ball seal.
I've never experienced a chain fire in five decades of percussion revolver use , have had caps fall off loaded chambers many times while shooting a cylinder full so am beggining to question if chain fire is really caused very often through the nipple.

 

[TrapperDude]

I find a lot of out of round cbamber mouths when reaming them and have wondered if that does not contribute to it as well. Also I have noticed that very often when cutting a lead ring off over sized balls when pressing them home, the ring will often not be complete. My thought is this is a gap in the lead ball seal.
I've never experienced a chain fire in five decades of percussion revolver use , have had caps fall off loaded chambers many times while shooting a cylinder full so am beggining to question if chain fire is really caused very often through the nipple.

An out of round chamber could certainly allow space for powder to remain between the ball and chamber wall.

With that being said, an incomplete ring might come from the ball rolling a little away from where it isn't cutting a portion of a ring. I've noticed where I'll sometimes get inconsistent rings or whole rings when I load, and it can go back and forth. If you look at lead balls, they usually seem to have minor imperfections on their surfaces, and those might cause them to tilt a little as they sink into the chamber mouth.

 

[M. De Land]

An out of round chamber could certainly allow space for powder to remain between the ball and chamber wall.

With that being said, an incomplete ring might come from the ball rolling a little away from where it isn't cutting a portion of a ring. I've noticed where I'll sometimes get inconsistent rings or whole rings when I load, and it can go back and forth. If you look at lead balls, they usually seem to have minor imperfections on their surfaces, and those might cause them to tilt a little as they sink into the chamber mouth.

I will check for ball roll at seating but have never noticed any lead smear on the ball tops. I always remove the loading rammer when I get a new revolver , chuck them up in my lathe and cut a hemisphere in the end with a ball mill cutter. This makes a perfect round top on each ball when seated.

 

[M. De Land]

An out of round chamber could certainly allow space for powder to remain between the ball and chamber wall.

With that being said, an incomplete ring might come from the ball rolling a little away from where it isn't cutting a portion of a ring. I've noticed where I'll sometimes get inconsistent rings or whole rings when I load, and it can go back and forth. If you look at lead balls, they usually seem to have minor imperfections on their surfaces, and those might cause them to tilt a little as they sink into the chamber mouth.

The other thing is how well the rammer in the gun is lined up with the chamber when seating balls and cutting the lead rings. A cylinder ball press (out side the gun ) will eliminate this very real problem with ball or bullet.
You'll find most top pistol match shooters use them from what I've observed.

 

[nick_1]

again, my real life repeatable chain fires were from putting as much powder in the chamber as was humanly possible. (i was 15years old) and then hammering the ball in with a mallet and wooden dowl. with liberal lube you could fire this load . without lube it chain fired every time. it had absolutely nothing to do with caps or nipples.

 

[TrapperDude]

I will check for ball roll at seating but have never noticed any lead smear on the ball tops. I always remove the loading rammer when I get a new revolver , chuck them up in my lathe and cut a hemisphere in the end with a ball mill cutter. This makes a perfect round top on each ball when seated.

I will check for ball roll at seating but have never noticed any lead smear on the ball tops. I always remove the loading rammer when I get a new revolver , chuck them up in my lathe and cut a hemisphere in the end with a ball mill cutter. This makes a perfect round top on each ball when seated.

I've never actually looked inside the chambers to see what the tops of the balls look like after ramming them home, so I have no idea if there's any lead smear. That certainly is something to check out.

I have one of those external loaders, too. I use that to preload cylinders the night before a range trip so I can start shooting sooner. At the range, I then just use the rammer to load the last two or three cylinders I shoot, just for the sake of practicing that skill.

 

[Billy Boy]

Is there noticeable reduced leading from lubeing your balls in cap and ball revolvers? or does it just make a mess and is harder to get clean at the end of the day? i am not concerned with chain fire as I had a fair amount of experience with that as a teenager and INMOP it comes from overloading with real black powder. My 25g of tripple7 under a .454 ball is not going to chain fire. I tend to believe that useing bore butter on my balls will reduce leading but perhaps that is just wishful thinking?

I roll the balls in Lee Liquid Alox. They don’t turn powdery white in my storage spaces and are safer to handle, they shear into the chamber mouths easier, and I never have a leading issue.

 

[BadDaditood]

Last month I tried a lubed wad over loose powder… for the first and last time- it hit the target and started smoldering!
Fire danger around here is permanently pegged in the red.
Beeswax and olive oil, my BPCR lube, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t burn… maybe the powder that stuck to the lube took it’s time burning?

 

[nhmoose]

Use a little Vaseline and flea powder and they should be good to go

 

[Stantheman86]

Last month I tried a lubed wad over loose powder… for the first and last time- it hit the target and started smoldering!
Fire danger around here is permanently pegged in the red.
Beeswax and olive oil, my BPCR lube, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t burn… maybe the powder that stuck to the lube took it’s time burning?

Like the guys who put blackpowder in the base of a Minie ball and seal it with wax to make a "tracer " that leaves a smoke trail

 

[nick_1]

shot 48 rounds through the remington. tripple 7. no lube. bore looked horrible but cleaned up fine. It did take a bit of wire brushing.