round ball pushing back out

[Dave Rosenthal]

I have never heard of tumbling round balls. I use Oxyokes over powder with 454 balls in Ubertis and never had an issue backing out or chain fires....

Me too, and I've been doin' it ^^^^^this way^^^^^ for years & years!

Dave

 

[Dphar]

You are compressing the wad and its rebounding enough to move the ball.

Dan

Many years ago I thought the same thing--until I loaded 52 grains of 3Fg Goex, a lubed wonder-wad and a .454 Hornady into my Uberti Walker. Even 55 grain charges don't make the balls jump outta the chambers under recoil, and you have to really lean on the loading lever and compress the charge & wad to get those balls down under the surface of the cylinder face.

My take on this (and I've experienced this first-hand) is that the rammer is cut to too sharp of an edge and is pulling the balls slightly out of the chambers when the rammer is withdrawn. I had a 1860 Uberti Colt Army do this, especially in cold weather. Sometimes the balls would stick to the rammer as I withdrew it. By letting a friend take a couple thousandth's off the edge of the rammer, the entire problem went away, and I only used 27 grains of powder in the 1860 Army.

If the revolver hasn't been altered the chambers should work fine with .457 balls (UNLUBED)right outta the box. Either use a wonder-wad underneath the ball or some lube over the ball, but NEVER LUBE THE BALLS THEMSELVES, as that is just asking for trouble. Believe it or not, I like to use older balls with a little oxidation on them, as they "grab" the cylinder walls even better than a "perfect" ball, and I have to do half of my shooting from 50 yards away from the target for the NRA Qualification Program.

Hope this helps and let me know if I can be of any more help.

Dave
NRA Distinguished Expert ML Pistol

I never thought it was recoil. I figured the wad is putting some spring back in the load and pushing the ball up.

Dan

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

You are compressing the wad and its rebounding enough to move the ball.

Dan

Many years ago I thought the same thing--until I loaded 52 grains of 3Fg Goex, a lubed wonder-wad and a .454 Hornady into my Uberti Walker. Even 55 grain charges don't make the balls jump outta the chambers under recoil, and you have to really lean on the loading lever and compress the charge & wad to get those balls down under the surface of the cylinder face.

My take on this (and I've experienced this first-hand) is that the rammer is cut to too sharp of an edge and is pulling the balls slightly out of the chambers when the rammer is withdrawn. I had a 1860 Uberti Colt Army do this, especially in cold weather. Sometimes the balls would stick to the rammer as I withdrew it. By letting a friend take a couple thousandth's off the edge of the rammer, the entire problem went away, and I only used 27 grains of powder in the 1860 Army.

If the revolver hasn't been altered the chambers should work fine with .457 balls (UNLUBED)right outta the box. Either use a wonder-wad underneath the ball or some lube over the ball, but NEVER LUBE THE BALLS THEMSELVES, as that is just asking for trouble. Believe it or not, I like to use older balls with a little oxidation on them, as they "grab" the cylinder walls even better than a "perfect" ball, and I have to do half of my shooting from 50 yards away from the target for the NRA Qualification Program.

Hope this helps and let me know if I can be of any more help.

Dave
NRA Distinguished Expert ML Pistol

I never thought it was recoil. I figured the wad is putting some spring back in the load and pushing the ball up.

Dan

Dan,

Either thing can happen, although if I ram really well the ball reforms into a wad-cutter as the soft lead is formed into a chamber-filling slug. Evidence of this occurring is perfectly round holes in a paper target that look like center fire wad cutters! So in the huge colts with heavy-duty loading levers that you can really LEAN on (when using a loading stand)you never have to worry about balls "jumping" since they reform and gain lots of contact area with the chamber walls.

Now in my 1860 Colt Army example, the ball was "sticking" to the rammer and lifting up attached to it. The wad & powder were all of the way down into the chambers. Taking "a little meat off of the rammer" fixed the problem.

Using two or more wads to take-up lots of space in the bigger Dragoon chambers WILL give you the spongy effect you speak of. Some folks read the Pietta factory recommendation of 15 grains in a chamber and use 2-3 wads to bring the ball up to the top of the cylinder's chamber mouths. I really wish Pietta would stop with that BS!

If I can be of any more help to anyone here, simply PM me since I don't see this board every day.

Have a great weekend & make good smoke!

Dave

 

[gl1200a]

I own four ROA's.
Literally thousands of rounds through them.
My friends have ROA's with more than that through them.
With .457 balls we have never had this experience.
I would make sure your balls are .457.
We shoot cast, not swagged.

Only time I have experienced this is with bullets from a Lee mold, not round balls.

 

[bpd303]

I have never experienced balls backing out with any of my pistols either, although I don't have a ROA. I would clean off the Alox and mike balls to see if they are a true .457...

 

[Dickydalton]

I've got one chamber on my Uberti Pocket Police that occasionally the ball pulls back a bit with the rammer, but not often. As far as wads, I have recovered many balls shot into washed sand, that have the wad stuck on the back of the ball and showing rifling marks and no sign of powder gas burning by. That is with 44s and 36s.