Chain detonation.... grease over the end of the cylinders.

G

Gaz_in_NZ

New member
Hi,
I am putting grease over the end of the loaded cylinders of my '58 Remy and my Colt Walker (both .44 and both Uberti).

While I understand what a chain detonation is I am unsure how it can happen from the "ball end" of the cylinder.

Going back from the open end you have
1) the ball which is basically hermetically sealed in the cylinder by the pure pressure of pushing it in and shaving the small lead ring off it.
2) That sits on a wad or more often than not a "Filler" of cracked wheat or as is very prevalent in NZ ground Semolina (which is finer than cracked wheat).
3) Powder, in my case Goex FFFG.

So any spark coming from the front must get past 1 and 2 and must still be lit as it contacts 3.... I find this scenario a little unlikely. I'm not saying it can't happen but it must be very improbable... I could see a spark possibly getting past a cap that has been "squeezed" to make it stick on the nipple thus firing the cap and/or the powder in that cylinder also.

Any one got any first hand experience of a chain detonation? and if so, what were the circumstances?

Cheers in advance
Gaz
 
Yep, in my case no lube or wads. If you use one or the other with this particular gun you can leave off five caps and it will not chain. Do not use one or the other and it will chain with all six capped.
 
Chains can happen from either end--ball, or cap. Typically, if you're using the correct size ball (meaning you get a shave ring when seating) and a little lube, there's really no chance for blow-back to reach powder in an adjacent chamber. However, loose-fitting caps can catch a spark-over. Make sure your nipples are in good shape and you're using the right size cap.
 
Found this on YouTube that shows chain detonation when using the wrong size ball :-

Chain Det, Projectile too small

And most of the damage to Black Powder guns seems to be caused by "user error" or just gross idiocy... like using smokeless propellant in place of Black Powder.

Cheers and Thanks to all
Gaz
 
In a long time shooting cap and ball revolvers..

...Of many descriptions, I have had only one chainfire event.

It occurred with a pistol I had just acquired, an FIE Sheriff's model in .36, the 1851 Colt pattern, Brass frame.

I had fired six shots from the pistol previously and found it to be a quite accurate shooter for my hand.

I carried it to the farm where I normally did my shooting and discovered I only had caps which were just a little loose.

I loaded the pistol as I had become accustomed for .36 pistols. .375 ball, 15 to 18 grains of Goex. My home lube of 50/50 Crisco and wax rings (for use in sealing toilets) over the ball. The ball shaved a ring all the way around. The lube covered the ball.

Then, to get the caps to stay put, I pinched them just a bit.

I fired, I think maybe two shots before I had a detonation of the chamber in battery plus the chamber to the left as viewed from the rear, the chamber ready to go into battery.

Lead and soot had smeared itself over the lug of the barrel.

I immediately pulled the barrel and removed the cylinder. I decapped the remaining chambers, resolving to download the chambers safely in my shop.

When I had disassembled the pistol at the range, I noted that the arbor was loose. It is a brass frame revolver and my belief is that the junction of arbor and frame simply could not take the force of a double detonation pulling on the arbor.

Over the next coupla days, I tightened the arbor as best I could and actually believe that I returned the pistol to fully mission capable status. But then I got superstitious.

I got this pistol for a song. I paid about 60 dollars for it (About five years ago) and it is a sweet looking revolver in excellent condition. It was a surprising find in a pistol purchase, one of those deals you brag about.

As I said....The pistol was deadly accurate. I am not a very good shot but using this pistol, the first shots I fired from it all went into a four inch diameter tree at fifteen yards, hand held. I can't do that with any other revolver I own (about 35 cap and ball revolvers). It was as though the pistol and my hands were just right for each other.

It is the first and only chainfire event I ever had.

It was as though the purchase and introduction to the pistol were a "sentence" and the chainfire event was the "period" at the end of the "sentence". I started to wonder if the pistol was haunted. I even checked the serial number to make sure it was NOT 666.

I hold a Ph.D., I am being paid by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do research and am a published author. Many would call me a scientist. I don't accept anything I can't prove or at least see proof of.

But this pistol scared me. I vowed to keep it, never shoot it and give it a place of honor on the wall of my den. It is there to this day, shiny and proud next to some of my other 51 Sheriff's Model revolvers. Just in case it is listening or is somehow conscious of my thoughts, It is not for sale.
 
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Really like the story Doc, glad you weren't hurt though.
Last calculation I spotted gave the Number of the Beast as 616... sure it wasn't that in the serial No.?
A haunted gun... love that concept...
A black powder "Christine" gun that would clean its self would be neat though.

Best bit of the story for me is this bit....
"Just in case it is listening or is somehow conscious of my thoughts, It is not for sale. "

Cheers Doc
Gaz
 
Gaz

Of course, the story is totally B.S.

The part about how the pistol chainfired, including my belief that the chairfire occurred because of the pinched caps is true and the part about how I just seem to be able to shoot this revolver with pinpoint accuracy, It just seems to point right for me.

But all the rest is "horsepucky". I am an unabashed liar.

BTW, You have the pleasure of living in one of the most beautiful points of the entire globe. I envy you.
 
Gaz -

You have a good point about the difficulty of a spark getting past all that 'stuff' at the front end of the chamber and causing a chain fire.

But...

It's not a spark that causes chain fires - it's hot combustion gas, and hot gas under pressure can easily get through the smallest and most convoluted path from the front of the chamber to the powder in the rear. All it takes is a ball with a small void that gets uncovered when the ball is swaged into the chamber; adding filler and wads provides additional protection, but even those can have slight imperfections...

The same is true about the back of the chamber and pinched caps, etc.

Use high quality components and load carefully using good fitting caps and overpowder wads and you've done all you can to make the odds of a chain fire very unlikely. Think hot gas, not sparks.
 
When I first started shooting cap and ball revolvers I tried using balls cast with the mold that was in the cased set. The balls were undersized resulting in chain fires, unless the chamber was sealed with Crisco.
A few years ago I had an issue with a nipple that was a little too long and it would set off the cap from recoil and striking the recoil shield, took a few tries to figure what was happening. Only one nipple and it would strike when just left of the barrel.
One time the ball struck the target just left of the one I hit with the shot out of the barrel!
Yes a lot more smoke and mess a little more recoil but not much danger, unless you loosen the arbor on a brasser open top.
 
I've been shooting C&B revolvers for twenty years. I have been pinching caps for twenty years. I have had exactly one chain fire when I used undersized balls. So take it for what it's worth.
 
It is against the common wisdom and eccentric enough to upset a Foremost! Authority!, but we've found that even the goops especially made to put over balls don't do much (anything) to reduce or soften barrel fouling and actually entices fouling to stick to every part of the revolver. Mike Gemind, who used to post as Bear Tracker said that he had shot hundreds of rounds of good-fitting balls with no over-powder grease with no chain fires at all. We've had the exact same experience with the only chain-fire being an eleven-o'clock with a ball that had been loaded and then drive out of a revolver chamber. When shooting either bare balls or those covered with grease, I run moist patch through the barrel after each six shots and this maintains accuracy. I stop short of guaranteeing or even recommending such a practice as multiple ignitions do occur and to disparage the accepted practice in ref: grease is to invite a sermon.
The beeswax/tallow wads as made by Easter Main shooters supply or Gatofeo actually prevent visible fouling in the barrel.
 
This might be of interest, Col Samuel Colt gave a lecture at the London Institution of Civil Engineers, 25 Nov 1851

These are his words:

Fig 11, plate 1, represents a firearm made by the author, in 1836, to rotate and fire by the continued action of the lever, or by the use of a trigger.

The arms so constructed, consisting of a large number of pieces, and assemble in a complicated manner, were to found to possess many practical disadvantages, arising chiefly from the wish of the Author to construct compact and good looking weapons. His original experiments all been made on the skeleton arms, solely with a view to utility, and in them there was not the liability of premature explosion, from the escape of fire at the mouth of the chamber, or by inter-communication of the ignited detonating camps, but when he enclosed the rear, and the mouths of the rotating chambers, the fire, being confined beneath the shield and the cap, was communicated successfully to the percussion caps, and in front was conveyed into the chambers, so that premature and simultaneous explosion of the charges necessarily took place.

In consequence of these premature explosions it became necessary to remove the shield, from over the base of the chambers, and to introduce partitions, between the nipples, or cones, to prevent the fire from spreading to and exploding the adjoining caps; but this only partially accomplished the object There still remained risk of explosion from the spreading of the fire laterally between the base of the barrel and the face of the chamber. To meet this danger, the metal plate which was attached to the barrel, and projected over the chambers, was removed; this obviated to a certain extent, but did not altogether prevent the simultaneous explosion of the charges for during a trial of the arm, by order of the American Government, an accident occurred, from the simultaneous explosion of two chambers, which induced the Author, after much reflection to give a slight chamfer, or bevel to the orifice of each chamber, so as to deflect, or throw off at an outward angle, the fire which expanded laterally across their mouths. The reason for this alteration was, that when the lateral fire met the rectangular edge of the orifice of the chambers, the angle of incidence being equal to the angle of reflection, the fire was conducted downwards, or inwards to the charge’ but when the flame struck the chamfered edge, it was directed outward away from the charge. Unimportant as this alteration may appear, it has proved so effectual, that if loose powder is placed over the charge, in the adjoining chambers, it is not now ignited when the pistol is discharged. These and other improvements have brought the fire-arm to its present safe and effective condition and the Author believes, that no causality can occur, nor that more than on charge can be fired at one time, if the metal is sound and the arm is properly handled.
 
A spark of burning powder likely isn't the problem... It's the wash of superheated, relatively high pressure gas that is released as the gun is fired.
 
On my "Quest for knowledge" on the subject of Chain detonation and its cause I came across this : -

http://www.geojohn.org/BlackPowder/bps2.html

Which I found very interesting indeed.

I'd be interested in peoples comments, gut feelings and experiences with any of this.

One thing that seems logical to me is an ill-fitting or worn cylinder that moves back with the recoil and the caps strike the recoil shield or other part of the frame to the rear of the cylinder and set the cap off and consequently that chamber will also fire which is why any video of a chain detonation the chained chambers appear to fire after the main fired chamber does. Sound thinking or BS?

Cheers
Gaz
 
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I admit I hadn't thought about the effects of left-over crisco trapping BP grains on the cylinder walls when re-loading.
The throat chamfering concept was also a nifty idea.

Good find (+1) :D
 
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