Revolver capping and chamber grease

[StewartLeach]

Finally, more than fifty years after getting my first ML rifle, I have acquired a revolver. A few questions:

I find it hard to place caps on the new Pietta 1860, either with fingers or a stick type capper. Would replacing the factory nipples help? Any tips on tools or technique?

Have been applying a dab of baking shortening to the front of the chambers with a popsicle stick. Is there a better grease for this purpose?

Thanks,

White Fox

 

[Chowmif16]

It may just be that your caps are too small. Cap size is not very well standardized #10s from Remington or CCI etc will be slightly different sizes. Same for #11s. You may just have to experiment.
I have tried several different cappers, and have come to the conclusion that it's just easier to use my fingers. I know there are others who use cappers and like them. I just don't seem to be able to make them work for me.
Cap fit is important, as loose caps are a cause of chain-fires.

Vegetable shortening will work as over chamber grease in colder weather. You will find that in hot weather or as the gun gets warm from shooting that it will melt and get everywhere. You may want to use something a bit stiffer. There are tons of recipes for grease, usually comprising some combination of beeswax, Crisco, soap, tallow, fat, etc etc.
The beeswax will stiffen it up.

 

[Maven]

Using lubed wool felt wads under the projectile will eliminate the need for greasing the chamber mouths and are so much more convenient and less messy. Slixshot nipples may resolve the difficult capping issue too.

 

[Chowmif16]

Agreed on both counts.
I don't put grease over the chambers anymore, I use home made felt wads.

As you say, Slix shot nipples will work better too. I use Treso nipples and have had good success with them.

 

[Zonie]

For your enjoyment, the following is a quote instructing the new owners of Colt's revolvers about the loading and care of their pistols.
These instructions came with each new gun back in the mid 1800's.

DIRECTIONS FOR LOADING COLT'S PISTOLS.

First explode a cap on each nipple to clear them from oil or dust, then draw back the hammer to the half-cock, which allows the cylinder to be rotated; a charge of powder is then placed in one of the chambers, keeping the barrel up. and a ball with the pointed end upwards without wadding or patch is put into the mouth of the chamber. turned under the rammer, and forced down with the lever below the surface of the cylinder, so that it cannot hinder its rotation
(care should be used in ramming down the ball not to shake the powder from the chamber, thereby reducing the charge).
This is repeated until all the chambers are loaded. Percussion-caps are then placed on the nipples on the right of the lock-frame, where, by drawing back the hammer in the full-cock the arm is in condition for a discharge by pulling the trigger; a repetition of the same motion produces the like results with six shots without reloading.

It will be safe to use all the Powder the chambers will hold, when loading with the flask, leaving room for the Ball, whether the Powder is strong or weak. Fine grain Powder is the best. Soft lead must be used for the balls. The cylinder is not to be taken off when loaded. The hammer, when at full cock forms the sight by which aim is taken.
To carry the arm safely when loaded let down the hammer on one of the pins between each nipple, on the end of the cylinder.
The arm should be throughly cleaned and oiled after firing, partriculary the arbor-pin on which the cylinder turns.

DIRECTIONS FOR LOADING WITH COLT'S FOIL CARTRIDGE

Take the white case off the Cartridge, by holding the bullet end and tearing it down with the black tape. Place the Cartridge in the mouth of the chamber of the cylinder,
with the pointed end of the bullet uppermost, one at a time and turn them under the rammer, forcing them down with the lever below the surface of the cylinder so that they cannot hinder its
rotation.
To ensure certainty of Ignition, it is advisable to puncture the end of the Cartridge, so that a small portion of gunpowder may escape into the chamber while loading the pistol.

DIRECTIONS FOR CLEANING

Set the lock at half-cock; drive out the key that holds the barrel and cylinder to the lock-frame, then draw off the barrel and cylinder by bringing down the lever and forcing the rammer on the
partition between the chambers. Take out the nipples. Wash the cylinder and barrel in warm water, dry and oil them throughly; oil freely the base pin on which the cylinder revolves.

TO TAKE THE LOCK TO PIECES, CLEAN AND OIL

First--Remove the stock, by turning out bottom and two rear screws that fasten it to guard and lock-frame, near hammer.
Second-- Loosen the screw that fastens mainspring to the trigger guard and turn spring from under tumbler of the hammer.
Third--Remove the trigger guard by turning out the three screws that fasten it to the lock-frame.
Fourth--Turn out the screw and remove the double arm spring that bears upon the trigger and bolt.
Fifth--Turn out the screw pins that hold the trigger and bolt in their places.
Sixth--Turn out the remaining screw-in and remove the hammer with hand attached, by drawing it downwards out of the lock-frame. Clean all the parts and oil them throughly.

TO PUT THEM TOGETHER--Replace the hammer with hand-spring attached, then the bolt, the trigger, the sear spring, the trigger-guard, the mainspring, and finally the handle, returning
each screw to its proper place, the arm is again in for use.

Notice that no mention of lube over the ball was given. Also, nothing was placed between the ball and the powder load.

Over the years, we modern shooters have added some things to our way of loading. Some may improve things and some, maybe not.

I will add that if you take your pistol completely apart pay special attention to the direction the long and short legs of the trigger/cylinder stop spring is installed.
It can be installed upside down and look good but the trigger and cylinder stop won't work correctly.

Have fun.

 

[StewartLeach]

Well, my barrel should be easy to clean, as I have been using greased felt wads and a dab of shortening. Think I will continue with the wads, but skip the grease.

Will try the Slix nipples.

Thanks to all.

White Fox

 

[Tom Compton]

I'm still using from my hoard of Hodgdon's Spit Ball to wipe before loading and then over loaded balls. Has nothing to do with mythical chain firing from the front and everything to do with cleaning and consistency and accuracy. Where allowed in a match I only load one chamber and top with Spit Ball.

 

[Chowmif16]

Zonie,
thanks for posting Colt's loading instructions, it's cool to see what they were saying at the time.

Just idle speculation (nothing more), but it seems to assume that they are loading conical bullets since it says to make sure the pointy end is facing up. Maybe the conical had some lube on it? Or, maybe they assumed that they weren't going to shoot several cylinders worth in a given shooting period. I.e, other than military use, these were personal defense weapons and it's likely that they only anticipated firing six shots in any instance.

Just musing...

 

[smoothshooter]

Something else you can do to maintain accuracy is to run a patch that is wet with saliva, 70% isopropyl alcohol, or whatever down the bore every 24 to 36 shots or so. No need to remove the barrel for this. Do it with an empty cylinder. You only need to make three or 4 passes. Takes only a few seconds.

Forget the grease over the chamber mounths. Just makes a mess and does nothing to prevent prevent chain fires.

You can shoot without using any lubrication at all in your loads, which was the common way the old-timers did it. You will have to clean the bore and add lube to the cylinder pin/arbor every 18 rounds or so; at least that has been my experience

 

[Billnpatti]

Maven is right about the wool felt OP wads. You can make your own by buying some felt from Duro Felt http://www.durofelt.com/image_26.html and a set of hollow punches from Harbor freight http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=hollow+punch+set. I lube mine by "buttering" a sheet of the felt with my favorite lube and then placing the sheet of felt in the microwave for a few seconds to melt the lube into the felt. Then I punch out the wads using a hollow punch. Doing it this way will save you a ton of money if you shoot your revolver very much.

 

[smoothshooter]

+ 1 on buying bulk felt from Duro Felt and punching out your own wads. Doing that cuts the cost per shot by a third, at least, as does making your own bullets.
Wads are so easy to make I can't bring myself to buy them. Even for a high - volume shooter like myself, 3 or 4 square feet of 1/8" felt sheeting lasts a long time when making revolver wads.

 

[swathdiver]

I find it hard to place caps on the new Pietta 1860, either with fingers or a stick type capper. Would replacing the factory nipples help? Any tips on tools or technique?

Have been applying a dab of baking shortening to the front of the chambers with a popsicle stick. Is there a better grease for this purpose?

Current production Piettas seem to like the Remington #10 percussion caps. They should load easy with a Ted Cash Universal Straight Line Capper or the Colt Snail Capper.

In my experience however, the Pietta Colt is hard on its cones and I had to replace them after only a couple hundred rounds so the guns would keep going bang every time the trigger was pulled. We replaced the cones with the ones from Track of the Wolf and have been pleased. Do consider though the Slix Shot cones.

If you go to making your wads, we cut the bulk wool felt so it fits onto a 6x9 cookie sheet. Then we mix and melt the lubricant and let it absorb into the felt and cut the wads as needed.

Our previous lube recipe for wads and for lubing the conicals was 5 Parts Mutton Tallow, 4 Parts Beeswax and 1 Part Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Works just fine but after making up a batch, we came across the US Army's 1855 and 1861 recipes.

The former consists of 3 Parts Mutton Tallow and 1 Part Beeswax and the later consists of 1 Part Mutton Tallow and 8 Parts Beeswax. So for me and my house, we're going to mix up some of each and try them out on our conicals and wads.

Sometimes for me, it's just plain fun putting grease over the balls and leaving out the wad. This is what I have newbies do the first time they load the guns.

The recipe for that is 6 Parts Mutton Tallow, 1 Part Beeswax and 1 or 2 Parts Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

 

[old fogey]

You can mix 2/3's beeswax to 1/3 coconut oil and this makes a excellent bullet lube!

 

[99whip]

White fox,

You are probably going to end up with more than one of these revolvers...just the way it happens. Here's a few of my tips, others have given lots of good ones also.

Tip 1-the Ted Cash snail capper may work for you, I have one Pietta that it works well on but another that it doesn't.

Tip 2- the Treso or Slix shot style nipples are both very good and will give you a good fit with caps, another bonus to using these nipples, when you have more than one revolver, it'll be nice to have one cap size that works for both (or more).

Tip 3 - on my pietta that the capper doesn't work well. I lay or hold the gun on its side and lay a single cap in the cutout area. Then I use about a 3 inch piece of wood dowel and just push the cap onto the nipple. I find it much easier than trying to use fingers.

Others have given great tips also. Have fun.

99whip

 

[Khufu]

I have been shooting revolvers for more than 40 years. I used lube once, and the resulting mess was enough to put me off them for 6 months, someone suggested wonder wads, which I tried, and the mess issue was resolved, when the local shop was out of stock, I just shot them without the wads, and there was no difference. someone at the range insisted I was inviting a chainfire and an oldtimer stepped in and said chainfires are not caused at the front of the cylinder, but from illfitting caps. I have seen 2 chainfires, neither resulted in injuries, but did destroy the revolver. one had had the nipples "sharpened" because the owner dryfired it and filed off the resulting mushroom and the caps he was using were loose. the other, the owner was using #11 caps and pinching them to make them stay on, some fell off when he fired it and upon cocking fell into the lockworks. this makes me believe that the advice I had gotten early on about chainfires and cap fit were likely true. I do have a '51 navy early model with square back triggerguard that for some reason lead fouls really bad. I have started using thin cardboard (cerial box)over powder wads soaked in hot spg. this has helped the leading issue greatly. most of my .36 cal reclovers have a .375 bore and a .360 cylinder, one an Uberti, the other 3 Peitas. the square back, no maker marks, has a .360 bore and a .370 cylinder. it shoots better than any I own and loads easy.
My recomendation is if you are going to use lube over the balls, stock up on baby wipes! they make it actually possible to scratch your nose.

 

[John May]

Have been applying a dab of baking shortening to the front of the chambers with a popsicle stick. Is there a better grease for this purpose?

I may have already posted this recipe before but here goes again anyway!

I use the following chamber lube as recommended to me by a MLAIC Revolver shot (won a few medals as I recall).
Take equal parts by weight of white beeswax and plain un-scented bar soap, grate it reasonably finely with an ordinary kitchen grater and mix it together. Dissolve this in approximately 1/2 cup of pure turpentine (not turpentine substitute). I found it best to seal it in a coffee jar and let it get on with it by itself. Give it a good shake every so often and stop when you have reached a consistency that suits you and more importantly, the weather conditions. It needs to be easy to apply and sticky enough to hang on when firing. I usually make up a medium sized jar full and put it in an old plumbers tallow box for effect! It will tend to dry out after a while but a spoonful of Turps and you are back in business. I have used plain beeswax with no problems, the lube ends up mustard colour but still does the job, matter of choice I suppose?

 

[don hepler]

I want the cap to fit where it will be snug, but fully seated. I experiment with different caps, to find one that fits. If it is a little tight, I chuck the nipples in my cordless drill, and use emory cloth or sand paper to get them to the perfect size. I use a dowel to push them on, to get the caps fully seated.