Rammer pulling the ball back up?

B

BerdanSS

New member
Anyone ever have a problem with their revolvers loading lever pulling the ball back out of the cylinder? My '60 army has a habit of doing this once or twice when loading every other cylinder or so. I use .454 swadged balls, and cut a nice ring when ramming them down. I've never had this issue with any of my navys. I'm wondering if the outside edges of the ram are too sharp? And maybe needs ground down/polished?
 
What is "sticking" the ball to the ram, grease? Do balls ever come loose from recoil? You may want to something with the ram face.
 
Bevel the inside of the rammer mouth. I had to do it to a couple of my C&Bs. The straight sides of the inside rammer mouth will grab the ball & pull it out whether you cut a good ring or not.
 
Dave

From what I can tell the end of the rammer is stabbing into the ball itself. Every time it does it the ball has a fairly deep "ring" pressed into the face of it.


Fingers

Did it look like this before you beveled yours?

 
I love the heck out of the pistol though, hope beveling the inside edge of the ram helps. It makes the loading process quite irritating.

Shot this today with it.

 
My ASM '58 will do that with .451 balls. I just use .454 or .457 balls and the rammer doesn't pull them back out.
I may try the beveling though. Good idea.
 
Another possibility is a slight ridge at the chamber mouth that may be sizing the balls a little small. Wouldn't hurt to de-burr the mouths to make sure that's not the case. While you're at it , have you checked the size of the chambers to see if they are under sized anyway?

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
 
I'd round the lip near the bevel on the rammer. Of course, this should be done on a lathe (or drill press if its concentric). I think the rammer is impaling itself on the ball when it presses it down and when the rammer is withdrawn, the ball sometimes gets attached to it.
 
BerdanSS said:
Fingers

Did it look like this before you beveled yours?
Click to expand...

Yes - at least it looks like it - kinda fuzzy.

Ball size didn't seem to be the problem. I use .454s and .380s as it is. I haven't miked the chambers - didn't seem to need to. After beveling the inside of the rammer, the problem went away. Hasn't happened since.

I used a cone shaped grinding tip on a hand drill to do it.
 
I'd go with Gary's "fix". How much undersize is your rammer in comparison to the chamber? Are you getting a good "shear" on the ball when loaded or are you also getting a little swaging to the ball in the area between the O.D. of the rammer and the I.D. of the chamber?

If you can take the rammer end off - chuck it in a drill press and slightly bevel the outside of the cupped edge. That should solve the problem.

Also, check your chambers as mentioned. That ball ought to be tight enough in the chamber not to pull easily. Check the chamber mouth for burrs or inconsistency in concentricity. When it happens - somehow mark that chamber and see if it is doing it not he same one all the time.

The rammer doesn't need to "wrap" the ball with the concave end. It needs to conform to the shape of the top of the ball to seat it. It's no different than a seating stem on a reloading die. The seating stem is contoured to fit the round nose of the bullet and that's what it pushes on - the "nose". From your photo, your rammer stem seems to have a hefty rim to it - ease the outer edge and see what happens.
 
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