C&B. Why are wads even necessary?

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?
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That assumes that the chamber is the same diameter all the way through. If for some reason the barrel end of the chamber is a little smaller than the rest of the chamber then you'll get a nicely shaved ring but the ball may not seal once it is pushed further into the cylinder.

That shouldn't be common, but if you poke around you can find a few instances of it happening.
 
I received a bag of conicals for my '51 Navy in the mail today.

Will have to wait if they shave a ring of lead, Goons Gun Works still has my '51.
 
Wouldn't a layer of powdercoat help to further ensure a seal and prevent any opening up of groups? I know it won't stop all the carbon fouling alone, but I think it would be helpful coupled with the methods your already using. I have no BP firearm yet, so I'm just talking
 
skizzums

I have always thought of powdercoating as hard but subject to chipping and cracking from impacts. Kind of like porcelain on a sink. I wonder if repeated explosions would not crack and chip powdercoat.

Then too, it would not be possible to have exactly sized cylinder holes, and the heat to apply powdercoat might change the temper of the cylinder (that might be good).
 
powder-coat is not brittle/flaky at all, it's very flexible if just going with the straight poly-ester type, which is what us backyard bullet makers generally use. I haven't seen powder-coat come off of anything yet. I have seen it burnt off and grooves that rub it off due to excessive friction when running super. but for a pretty slow heavy round ball, it'll stay right where you put it. You won't be shaving it off either, since it's just covering the ball, when you running it through a sizing die, it just slides through and allows the lead to shape under it. I am only making an assumption, but i'd think it worth a try since it's such a simple process. if it interests you, i could coat a few and send them to "someone" that has a BP and has a hankering to try.

Hi-Tek seems to be harder and more brittle, although i don't have more experience than one box of 500, it definitely wasn't soft enough to push your fingernails into it like PC, but since they actually get run wit supers it may be an even better route if it resizes the same.

then there is the thermoplastic powdercoating, where the bullet itself is heated to the melting point of the powder, generally nylon, which will "fusion-bond" with the metals, as it cools it will harden some i would suppose. I wasn't around guns when the NyClad's were the big thing, so i never got to feel it and see if it was soft or not. I am only making an assumption that NyClad's were coated using this method, they may have not.

if powdercoating balls, i guess it might be best to use a .001 undersize ball and fill the void with a heavy coat. that way you'll only be squeezing the poly which would make a great seal, i think. guess it'd have to be tried both ways.
 
I don't think coating the bullets with anything will be helpful in a cap and ball revolver, as any such coating will be shaved away when the ball is pressed into a chamber.

Steve
 
I have a bunch of .38spl Nyclad rounds in the box. I have never shot a single one of them. They look pretty slick though. I think it would be worth a shot to coat some conicals to be fired from a C&B Revolver.
 
powder-coat is not brittle/flaky at all, it's very flexible if just going with the straight poly-ester type, which is what us backyard bullet makers generally use. I haven't seen powder-coat come off of anything yet.
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I have. Where I worked testing high voltage transformers they powder coated them and they were always getting chipped.
 
Wouldn't a layer of powdercoat help to further ensure a seal and prevent any opening up of groups? I know it won't stop all the carbon fouling alone, but I think it would be helpful coupled with the methods your already using. I have no BP firearm yet, so I'm just talking
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Howdy Again

Frankly, I have no idea, nor do I wish to experiment.

When you buy your first Cap & Ball revolver you will discover that you can't get much leverage with the loading lever under the barrel. It is not long enough to provide much leverage. That's why dead soft, pure lead balls are best. Anything harder than pure lead puts a lot of stress on the loading lever, making it difficult to seat a ball. If there is too much resistance, you can even bend or break the pin that holds the lever mechanism together. That's why I have always used pure, dead soft lead balls.

And no, I have never used one of the loading lever fixtures that lets you load the cylinder off the gun. I have always been happy enough using the lever built onto the gun.
 
That's why dead soft, pure lead balls are best. Anything harder than pure lead puts a lot of stress on the loading lever, making it difficult to seat a ball. If there is too much resistance, you can even bend or break the pin that holds the lever mechanism together.


You are totally correct on that Driftwood, that happened to me twice
 
Wad, what's a wad? Thought that was something in a shot shell.
Haven't shot my Lyman 1858 Remington 44 C&B in quite a while. But getting the urge. I'll just shoot it as I was taught thirty sumtin' years ago. 30gr. Black powder, lead round ball pressed over it, and grease smeared over the ball to help prevent chain fires, and keep the powder fouling soft. Worked great back then, don't know why it wouldn't still work today.:D
 
Wads were available back in the day but most people didn't use wads or lube. Maybe a little beeswax for waterproofing. They didn't shoot as much as we do either.
 
Not "necessary" but they make for more enjoyable and safer shooting. I read where George Nonte wrote of the first time he fire a C&B revolver and experienced a chainfire, he said he was firing a Colt 1860 Army with the shoulder stock so his hands were behind the cylinder, but to hear that loud report and find the handgun pointing at the 12 O'clock position.....
 
Original Colt instructions from the 1850s call for inserting the ball without wads or patches, but I did read that some soldiers did put tallow or grease in front of the balls during the Mexican war; not sure how reliable that information is.
 
Original Colt instructions from the 1850s call for inserting the ball without wads or patches, but I did read that some soldiers did put tallow or grease in front of the balls during the Mexican war; not sure how reliable that information is.
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That was probably for waterproofing.
 
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