1860 problem

[rifle]

Ya Know Flint yer right bout things. I know chambers can and often are fer some reason tapered. I sometimes wonder exactl how the chambers are machined in the cap&ballers.

Accuracy is impproved with the reaming of the chambers since the chambers are undersized fer the grooves of the barrel in most all cap&ball revolvers. There are some that come with chambers the exact size as the barrel grooves. The Uberti 1862 Pocket Police and Navy, the Hedge and Pedersoli Remingtons and their Rodgers and Spencers. The distressed finished Piettas come with matching size chambers and barrel grooves diameters and .003 in. rifling depth. The Pietta Remington Tiro or "Shooters" model has matching grooves and chambers.Some target cap&ballers have shallow grooves in the barrel. I know of one that has rifling depth of .001 inch. Probably to seal better and have less deformation to the ball spinning thru the air. I have a "Shooters" Model Remington by Pietta and itmis very accurate.  The Pietta Remingtons as the standard models come from the factory can be very accurate with the chambers a few .001's under sized and even more accurate with the chambers reamed. They can almost shoot neck and neck with the "Shooters Model "but when reamed in the chambers they can keep up with the "Shooters model " with a slight less accurate accuracy but...negligible considering human error though. Maybe plain ole neck and neck. That means the standard model with the chambers reamed is a better value if.....the barrel is nice and smooth like the "Shooters Model".

I started reaming chambers in my cap&ballers revolvers way way back. Never had any more problem with fouling than I did with the guns with under sized chambers. I was told by Forgett that the Italians use under sized chambers to contend with subsequent shots of the black powder....the fouling.  Under size balls leavw more room in the barrels.

Makes no sense to me since the fouling makes the barrel inside diameters smaller after so many shots anyway.


I first started using end mills to up the diameters of chambers but........Ball Accuracy (Tom Ball) that some older guys may remember was a good gunsmith and improved target type cap&ballers fer people. Badger barrels were used in Remingtons. Those barrels I've read don't foul with blackpowder any where as much as other barrels. Anyway...Tom Ball gave me the hint to use chucking reamers in the chambers and it was good advise. Chucking reams come in more sizes and make a nice smooth chamber walls easily. An end mill has to be dipped slowly into the chambers to not have tool marks.

Telling the truth I like my chambers to be .003 in. bigger than the barrel grooves. Some times even bigger when a barrel has very shallow grooves and there may be stripping thru the rifling of the balls.
Using balls instead of conicals lets a person up the chamber dimension because a ball can swag intoa chamber readily since it moves less lead than a conical. The wide chamber swags the balls with a wide band around them making them kinda like stuby rounded ends conicals. The widder band gives more grip to the balls in the rifling and seals the gas better.

I read where some were joking bout balls always hit head on and don't yaw or key hole. Not true.
Balls have to go straight just like bullets and balls can key hole since once they are swaged into the chamber they ain't actually balls anymore. They are like stubby conicals with rounded ends. They can key hole if the barrel crown is off concentric or other things. Other things like a wide spot in the rifling at the muzzle or a tight spot before the muzzle swagging the balls smaller and then they are loose when they come out the muzzle.
Yawing or key holing balls don't shoot as well as those that don't. It's pretty hard to tell if the balls do key hole. If they do key hole and since they spin really fast the key holing balls with the band round the middle can be resisting the air more and actuall act like a golf ball does when it slices or cuts in the air and curves one way or the other. Curves off the straight line it was going. Like a fast ball curve in baseball too. That's my theory anywhooo.....

When the chambers are reamed to be at least the diameter of the barrel grooves the report of the shot fired is louder and sharper because there is a better seal. An Hombre can hear and feel that the gun is more effective using the powder and having a lil more velosity....abeit more pressure too.

The barrel time of the balls is lowered so the balls come out sooner when the gun is recoiling so they shoot a lil lower too.

I have a Walker(an old one from the mid eighties) with the chambers reamed to .464 which is a few .001's more than the barrels grooves. The balls I use are originally .472 inch before they are swagged into the chambers. That's ,what, .008's over the chamber diameter.

That Walker has a nice report and is very accurate even way out there. When back out on the old homestead farm I've shot ground hogs diggin holes in the fields with that Walker out past a hundred yards and wacked them dead one shot.
When I was a lil younger an eighty yard shot was not an unrealistic thing to peg an ole ground hog with that Walker revolver using 45gr. of FFFg.

I guess what I'm saying is that the cap&ballers tuned with a nice trigger and the right size chambers and the right load and all can be quite effective and efficient.

Measuring the lead slug that is bumped up in the barrel with two dowell rods and all can give the groove diameter of the barrel using a caliper.

There is one small spot on the ball where the seven groove measurment can be taken and be right. You have to get on the rifling land sticking up on the ball on each side and carefully,without squeezing the soft lead, find the wide spot. That is the groove diameter since the lands on the balls are impressions of the barrel grooves. You just have to be careful and find that wide spot that is sorta like having the caliper jaws on the lands on the ball in just the right spot to find the wide spot. You have to turn the ball one way or the other as you gently use the calipers searching for the wide spot that is not very big at all. Gotta find that lil spot.

Six groove barrels are easier to lead slug them to measure the groove diameter. The five groove barrels.....fergit it. It's a whole different ball game doin those.

You have to have a fixture on the side of the barrel that is an exact known width and know the barrel wall width and the depth of the rifling and measure and add and subtract or what ever to get the actual groove diameter. You can do it if yer thunkin clear and well at the time.
It's impossible to measure across a lead slug  bumped up in a five groove barrel and find the groove diameter. You can measure across the lead slug (ball) from a groove on the ball to a land on the ball and find the wide spot there and...add a depth of the rifling to that and get close enough to choose a ball size a few .001's over the groove diameter and get there with a ball sized by the chambers to be a good fit.

Anywhooooo....the high dollar target revolvers in cap&ball have chambers and grooves in the barrel at least equal. That's for a better seal and a good fit of the ball in the rifling.