Is chain fire more likely from the front end with ball or conical bullet ?

[Terrier]

At one point in my experimentation with loads for my Remington, I was gobbing the loaded cylinders with a coating of lard to top them off with. I found that pure lard melts before all the cylinders are shot. And makes a mess. I also tried Olive oil and beeswax over the loaded cylinders, works way better, but still makes a mess.

Then I experimented with felt wads soaked in the olive oil and beeswax:
Powder, vegetable fiber wad, cream of wheat filler, lubed felt wad, bullet. I found that if I used a little too much cream of wheat filler, the compressed felt wad would push the bullets forward enuf that they’d lose their grip and fall out of the cylinder.

That happened with Ox Yoke Wonder Wads as well as my own homemade wads.

No chain fire, tho…

 

[M. De Land]

At one point in my experimentation with loads for my Remington, I was gobbing the loaded cylinders with a coating of lard to top them off with. I found that pure lard melts before all the cylinders are shot. And makes a mess. I also tried Olive oil and beeswax over the loaded cylinders, works way better, but still makes a mess.

Then I experimented with felt wads soaked in the olive oil and beeswax:
Powder, vegetable fiber wad, cream of wheat filler, lubed felt wad, bullet. I found that if I used a little too much cream of wheat filler, the compressed felt wad would push the bullets forward enuf that they’d lose their grip and fall out of the cylinder.

That happened with Ox Yoke Wonder Wads as well as my own homemade wads.

No chain fire, tho…

I've been making my wads of eighth inch Duro-felt soaked in my home brewed Mathews lube made for black powder cartridge bullets consisting of Murphy's oil soap, bear oil and bees wax. So far it has worked really well in the Walker, Uberti 62 Police and Pietta 58 target with both ball and bullet.
I don't like the grease over ball or bullet lubing because the amount of lube present is changing with each additional shot and I hate it getting all over my spotting scope and shooting glass lenses.
The felt lubed wads so far seem just as accurate and are far less messy.
I've made several copies of Fred Lieths wad cutting dies that fit into my RCBS Rockchucker loading press.

 

[Bad Karma]

I've been making my wads of eighth inch Duro-felt soaked in my home brewed Mathews lube made for black powder cartridge bullets consisting of Murphy's oil soap, bear oil and bees wax. So far it has worked really well in the Walker, Uberti 62 Police and Pietta 58 target with both ball and bullet.
I don't like the grease over ball or bullet lubing because the amount of lube present is changing with each additional shot and I hate it getting all over my spotting scope and shooting glass lenses.
The felt lubed wads so far seem just as accurate and are far less messy.
I've made several copies of Fred Lieths wad cutting dies that fit into my RCBS Rockchucker loading press.

I don’t use lubed wads all that much but I do use the veggie fiber version from BACO. They’re sized for rifles so they’re .462” diameter but I like the snug fit and they work really well. Twenty bucks a thousand so I don’t have to cut wads? I’ll take that deal!
If I did go to a lubed wad I would go back to The Outlaw Kid recipe, melt your preferred lube, cut two layers of paper towel to fit a baking dish and then pour the lube over that. No more than that is needed but you still have to cut the wads. If I had a die like yours I might do it myself.

 

[M. De Land]

I don’t use lubed wads all that much but I do use the veggie fiber version from BACO. They’re sized for rifles so they’re .462” diameter but I like the snug fit and they work really well. Twenty bucks a thousand so I don’t have to cut wads? I’ll take that deal!
If I did go to a lubed wad I would go back to The Outlaw Kid recipe, melt your preferred lube, cut two layers of paper towel to fit a baking dish and then pour the lube over that. No more than that is needed but you still have to cut the wads. If I had a die like yours I might do it myself.

Yeah, making Duro-felt , head gasket veggie or LDPE wads of plastic sheet with the die is like popping bubble wrap, sort of self soothing and makes yah feel good! Tweezer picking the saturated felt wads out of the heated, liquefied lube before it sponifies to solid is the tedious part but it makes the best lube wads by the hundreds that I know of and they don't melt in hot weather and work equally well when it's cold.
I did make a change in the Mathews lube recipe switching from Neatsfoot oil to my rendered bear fat oil that has worked very well. Ned Roberts had it right about the bear oil properties working very well for black powder guns. The bear oil turns to a white grease when it cools and so does not contaminate the powder charge. It is amber colored when liquid before cooling and turning into white grease. Combined with the Murphy's oil soap and bees wax it makes a real good all temperature bullet or wad lube.
No more lube mist covering shooter and equipment !

 

[maillemaker]

I don't think a well-fitted round ball vs. conical will make any difference.

However, conical bullets will have much more contact, or near-contact, with the chamber than the perimeter contact patch of a round ball.

Heeled conical bullets should seat straight without cocking.

 

[M. De Land]

I don't think a well-fitted round ball vs. conical will make any difference.

However, conical bullets will have much more contact, or near-contact, with the chamber than the perimeter contact patch of a round ball.

Heeled conical bullets should seat straight without cocking.

Seating of conicals squarely to the bore is only as good as the ram alignment with each chamber unless loaded in a press out of the revolver.
Ever do any cartridge run out testing when bullets are press seated and observed how out of co-axial alignment many are ? Seating bullets in a percussion revolver is like bullet seating cartridges with six different presses and seating dies!
A ball that leaves an out of shaped or broken cutting ring is also seated out of line but the hemisphere base has a mitigating effect on misalignment and is the primary reason balls usually demonstrate the best accuracy in my opinion.
My guess is round balls loaded into cartridges may produce the same effect but have not tested the theory.