C&B. Why are wads even necessary?

P

Pond James Pond

New member
I've seen the vids and I've done it myself on someone's Pietta 1858.

When you push the .454 ball into the cylinder that little lead ring shaves off.

That makes for a pretty air-tight seal, so what is the added advantage of using a lubed wad?

It won't be lubing the ball as that is ahead of it and with the seal I've just described, is a chain-fire really still a risk?
 
Mostly wads just keep the fouling soft.

I think most would say that properly fitting caps and a shaved ring of lead are the best protection against chain fires.

This is mostly what I believe anyway, could be wrong.
 
most chain fires are from the nipple end of the cylinder...when a cap falls off a loaded chamber....but as others have stated ..a wad behind the ball does help in prevention...especially ...when undersized/out of round balls are used
 
james

I don't think wads are essential. There are shooters that don't use them. There may even be historical evidence that they were not used in the Civil War and at other times.

The real question for me, is fouling. Will using a lubricant allow more shots between swabbing the barrel? Most folks think that it does, I believe.

So then the question becomes how to best implement the lube.

Some believe that 'over the ball' lube, will lube each ball as it travels through the barrel and will prevent chainfires, even though that's a messy proposition to shoot. In this case, the lube won't contaminate the powder, being protected by the ball, but leaving the pistol loaded ( for carry etc. ) is also messy. The tight fitting ball will remove all lube from the barrel, and I think the ball probably does not need this lubrication anyway.

Others think that lube 'under the ball' will leave a smattering of lube in the barrel, that will soften the remaining powder residue. I have subcribed to this theory, having been convinced by Geo John's writings.

If you lube under the ball, you then must consider how to keep the powder dry. Probably if you shoot right after you load, this is not a problem, but if you don't shoot for some time, I think it could be. So a solution then, would be a wad between the lube and the powder.

A variation of this would be a lubed wad for convenience, but to me, that still might very slowly contaminate the powder. There will be those that will dispute this from experience, and I think that they are right, but I just feel better about a dry wad.....unless I am in the middle of a grass fire that it has caused.

And then too, I have acquired the proper felt, tallow, bee's wax and modified my Harbor Freight hex punches to make the lube and wads. At this point I can't see buying expensive lubed wads.

So pick your poison....it's interesting to hear what works or not from other shooters.
 
Lube does help with cleaning out the fouling between shots.
But it's not necessary for preventing chain fires if the projectiles are a good fit to the chambers.
Maybe covering the ball with lube was a way to prevent chain fires when the exact size ball wasn't always available.
Might have been a common problem back in the day and the idea just became kind of a tradition.
Mebbe??
I use either nothing or a dry wad made from auto gasket paper.
It seems to scrape the barrel clean quite well without any mess.
After switching to the very clean burning Hodgdon 777, even that isn't necessary.
 
g.willikers

I may need to try some of the 'high priced spread' after I shoot up my Pyro. I too am limited by availability of pistol BP.
 
In my 47 years of experience chain fires come from the front of the cylinder. I've tried to make them chain from the rear by leaving all the caps off and can't make one do it. Some chambers are slightly out of round but will still shave a ring and some believe that granules of powder stick to the chamber walls during loading and get crushed between ball and chamber and acts like a fuse. Using a wad or over ball lube fixes both. Colt advised against wads so they must have had pretty common usage. Most CW loads were paper cartridges with conicals and the paper would act as a barrier. If you do use lube it doesn't take but a little dab around the edge of the ball. Any more and it gets blown all over the gun. Me, I use wads for the most part.
 
I subscribe to hard grease under the ball without a wad, with conicals I lube the base and grooves. After 40 shots the Remington 1858 functions normally with this method, the only observable consequence of fouling is that it is slightly harder to turn the cylinder while loading.

Now, when I am making paper catridges with this method I do not worry about contamination of powder, because a thin layer of nitrocelllulose glue is between the powder and grease, and it is a hard grease (50% lard, 50% vax) which won't melt.

Admittedly I did not try to keep it loaded very long; only 10 days or so. However I did not run into any problems with the powder and grease, only occasional trouble with caps going bad because, I think, of oil residue on the nipples contaminating the primer.
 
Well, this is all a bit hypothetical as I've never had to clean a BP gun and I've only ever shot clean-burning powder in my CF weapons so cleaning for me has never been the chore I've sometimes read it to be. Interesting to know that it (lube) is not essential, though.

Anyway, I'll still research the lube as described by some as knowledge is no bad thing. Who knows, perhaps it doubles as crossbow string/rail lube too.
 
Cleaning bp is easier than cleaning smokeless and you don't have to buy the fancy cleaning products to do it with. You can if that's what floats your goat but smokeless products don't work on bp.
 
If memory serves, using lubricated wool felt wads in a cap and ball revolver is a 20th century "invention".

If you keep shooting without lube, your groupings will open up in short order.

forgot to mention earlier, in my own testing of .36 and .44 Pietta 1858s, the most accurate and tightest groups were shot with lubricated felt wads rather than grease over the balls.
 
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You can if that's what floats your goat but smokeless products don't work on bp.
Click to expand...

I do have a bottle of Hoppe's BP cleaning in the kit at home.
The fact, I have nothing to shoot, nor shoot with (powder-wise) didn't stopping me from buying that!!
 
I went to lubricated wads as a less messy alternative to Crisco or grease in the cylinder ahead of the ball. I put the wad in the combustible cartridge and don't leave the range looking like an auto mechanic on a bad day. (Keep the cartridges bullet down, so the lube from the wad doesn't soak into the powder on a warm day.

Yes, both the wads and the grease in the chamber are 20th century ideas.

Jim
 
I didn't mean to imply that I don't use a lube. I use the Gatofeo mix of bee's wax, paraffin and tallow. I put a fingertip dab of lube under the ball and over a dry felt wad.
 
For grease I just melted down a candle and lard in roughly 50/50 proportions then poured it in a can. It doesn't get too runny, together with powder residue it turns into a soft goo which comes out pretty easy during cleaning and the gun doesn't bind up like Remingtons are known to do when I put a bit of it under and to the sides of the ball / conical. That's good enough for me. Looking what people are selling as a lube, might as well save the money.

It's not essential from the point of view of chainfires (because a properly fitting projectile will prevent them) but otherwise the gun fouls up a lot more.
 
I use an over the powder wad and an over the bullet wad plus I put a ring of oxlube around the outside of the over ball patch. I have dropped my revolvers in a creek and still had them fire.
 
In my 25 years of shooting at Friendship I can say that I have never seen
anyone use a wad in their revolver. I tried it when I started back in the late 50's
but soon gave it up as useless and unnecessary. Yes you read that right , late 50's
 
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