Lube wads, over ball lube,lube cookie

[Heelerau]

MD, I have been shooting black powder for nearly as long as yourself, I too only started using Durafelt 1/8 wads several years ago, and wonder why I did not do this years ago. I am a slow learner as well. Still better late than never.

cheers

Heeler

 

[smoothshooter]

I make my wads out of Dura-Felt sheets and am very pleased with the sheets and the end product.

 

[Kansas Jake]

My wife bought some wool at the local JoAnn's for a craft project she was working on. She ended up with a number of scrap pieces she no longer needed. She had washed and dried the wool before the project to get it to shrink and stiffen. I used the scrap to make wads for my revolvers and they seem to work as well as the ones I've made from Durofelt. They may be a little thinner, but after impregnating with a lard/beeswax/parafin mixture there is not much difference in thickness. Being frugal, I just had to give them a try.

I think the key was washing the wool in hot water and drying in a clothes dryer to get the wool to shrink and tighten up.

 

[jimhallam]

When I shoot my original Tranters I ALWAYS use a reduced load + filler (semolina or couscous) and then a Wonder Wad. NO lube in the chamber mouth.
I have shot 50+ rounds without needing to strip and clean the pistol.
You will read that the greae filling the chamber is to stop "chain fire".
RUBBISH!
If the ball / bullet firts (shaving a ring of lead) HOW can the flash get to the powder that way?
Chain fire originated with "pepperboxes" -- especialloy the eatly ones without partitions ("nipple wells").
When DeWitt Bailey was filming for Christopher Roads' series "THE GUN" for the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) he had to fake a chain fire by springking BP onto the rear of a slightly greased barrel cluster (of a Pepperbox).

Lube wads for RIFLES are a completely different thing to revolvers.

 

[Enfieldguy]

Well said, Jim. I've never had a chain fire shooting live rounds with the correct size cap and bullet. I shoot combustible cartridges in my revolvers and I dip the cartridge in lube after assembling them. I'm using a 8:1 beeswax/mutton tallow blend as per Ordnance Department manuals. I'm casting the period-correct conical bullets from Eras Gone. The cartridge is dipped into the melted lube up to the junction of the paper. The lube helps in seating and has enough to keep the fouling manageable on the arbor. As for chain fires, back in my reenacting 'career' I have rigged revolvers to chain on command when firing blank loads. We sometimes did scripted hand to hand for the spectators and a 4 or 5-shot chain discharge is very dramatic.

 

[Grenadier1758]

Is your 8:1 lubricant mix 8 parts tallow and 1 part bees' wax? I would think 8 parts of bees' wax would be a very stiff lube based on my experience with 7 parts of olive oil to 1 part of bees' wax.

Of course, you are dipping your cartridge into a melted mix so that may work better for a revolver cartridge than my dipping the wrapped ball in my musket cartridges.

 

[Enfieldguy]

I'm in Florida so the stiffer lube works well. The 8:1 was what the Ordnance Dept testing came up with as they needed an all-weather formula. My goal was to duplicate the factory made issue load as close as possible and I feel I've succeeded. As for musket cartridges, I'm making my .550" Pritchett as close to what is written in Arthur B. Hawes's 1859 'Rifle Ammunition' as possible. When the Pritchett cartridge is rolled and prior to filling it is dipped base-first on pure beeswax up to the shoulder of the ball. Before I was enlightened by the superiority of the Pritchett I had been shooting the Burton minie, with varying degrees of success. But my cartridges were rolled with wood pulp paper and there was always problems with the lube soaking through the paper and contaminating the powder. Their shelf life was very short. At that time I had no idea I had the wrong paper. With the linen paper the wax will not bleed through if I keep the temp under 200-degrees. I dip them at 180 and then push them through a sizing gauge to get the wax to a uniform thickness. I also must maintain a tight cinch when tying off the base. If not tied correctly, wax can enter the cinch and cause the paper to stick to the base and cause flyers.

 

[boker]

In my 1858 my loading process is
powder
felt wad ,
ball
Topped with bore butter

Is this correct or wrong?

I have never had a issue and it’s accurate

 

[Derek]

Chain fire seldom if ever occurs at the cylinder mouth. It happens when you use too large a cap and pinch it or NO cap, across the nipples. My first BP revolver was an original Navy .36,the nipples were burnt out to near 1/8". Didn't know my butt from page four, so I used the load Elmer Keith recommended in "Sixguns",--all the powder you could stuff in and still seat the ball. Threw a gallon can onto wet ice in a field, lined up nd touched her off. Brrrrack!! Six splashes near the can! Gas squirting from those huge nipple holes blew the hammer back and rotated the cylinder, the trigger was still pulled so it fell again--repeat, repeat. The World's first fully automatic, gas-operated percussion revolver! Interesting, but hard on the underwear. From what I have read, a bullet will always be more accurate than a ball, so, not satisfied with the accuracy I have been getting with my ASM 1861 Navy I am in the process of making a bullet mould. I have already smoothed out the forcing cone and slicked up the action some.I have been lubing with a 1/8" felt wad soaked in a bees wax/olive oil mix with a thin card wad to protect the powder. I was very impressed by an ad for some paper cartridges where a guy using then ran 4 cylinders in about 5 minutes.Do any of you lads "roll your own"?

 

[Enfieldguy]

Been rolling my own combustibles for 40 years. Nitrating 100% rag paper. You need to try the Eras Gone conical molds. They're the best thing to happen to C&B revolver shooters in a long time.

 

[Derek]

Thank you Enfieldguy, I will do that!