Chamfered chamber mouths

[Flint]

I am making a clean start here just to break an ongoing argument between two of our contrtibutors.

I have an older Colt history book published in 1954, second printing 1958,  by James E. Serven.  "Colt Firearms, 1836 - 1958".

In this very thoroughly researched study, reference is made to chamfering chamber mouths, and I find no reference to that feature in any other book on the Colts that I have seen.  The references and detailed descriptions included mention beveled chamber mouths ONLY on Patterson models, and no other.

In reference to the Patterson Colt, this quote:

"Pistols of the earliest type and lowest serial numbers were found to have chamfered cylinder chambers.  It may be deduced that Colt found the advantages of a chamfered chamber muzzle more apparent in theory than in practise, and eliminated this extra operation in manufacture when feasible to do so".

Referring to Colt's patents, the purpose of the chamfer is described:

"The mouth of the chambers and the (rear) end of the barrel have their edges chamfered or beveled.  In all guns of this description there is necessarily a lateral discharge between the receiver and barrel, and this lateral discharge may endanger the ignition of the powder on the loaded chambers not in contact with the barrel; but the ignited matter, by coming in contact with the beveled edges as it crosses said chamber, is effectively reflected off, and does not enter them.  The beveling of the barrel is intended merely to prevent cutting the ball in its passage from the chambers".

This says to me that Samuel Colt's purpose for the chamfered chamber mouth had nothing to do with easing the ball upon loading, cutting lead rings, or anything of the sort.  He was seeking to prevent chain fires, and found the theory not effective in reality, so dropped the feature.  Again, I have found no references to chamfered chamber mouths as a feature on any Colt revolver other than the (early) Patterson.

Now I do hope we can stop the war between Mako and Delmonico.......

Incidently, like Cuts Crooked, I have yet to have a lead ring tie up a gun while shooting.

[Fox Creek Kid]

...

Incidently, like Cuts Crooked, I have yet to have a lead ring tie up a gun while shooting.

Ditto + I have never seen an original with chamfered chambers. Some with wear & corrosion, but never what I would call a factory chamfer. Thank you, Flint.

[Max Doolin]

It would be my guess as I have not studied it, that most if not all C&B shooters used round ball.
I havent done it yet but I have a 3 pair of 62's in .36 cal that I will use conicals in and will have them chamfered

P.S. Howdy Flint, Ya wouldnt know the old HITWG club but we still have a good time.

[Flint]

Howdy Max, yes, I heard there were some changes...................  Seems like they started happening about when I left town  Either I started it, or I got out just in time.

[Max Doolin]

LoL I dont think you had much....errr nothing ? to do with that !!
This 'll be our second annual FIRECRACKER SHOOTOUT its a 3 day shoot at
the HITWG's range July 4th.

[Leo Tanner]

Just saw this, It's what i thought a skipped step in production.

That's a great book you have and answers the question.  I have had lead wrap it's self around the cylinder pin grease grooves.  Didin't stop the thing but made the cylinder much harder to turn at half cock.

Thank you for that info from the book.

[Mako]

Just saw this, It's what i thought a skipped step in production.

That's a great book you have and answers the question.  I have had lead wrap it's self around the cylinder pin grease grooves.  Didin't stop the thing but made the cylinder much harder to turn at half cock.

Thank you for that info from the book.

Champhereing was mentioned an I mentioned that originals had that done as spec.  Once ya know the right size ball fer ya, no reason not ta fix the shaving problem.  The specs I have er fer the 51's.  They were all hand tooled.  No good machinest will leave a sharp edge on any of their work.  When war was eminant, could be things were sped up an maticulousness was passed over, sounds right fer anyone who's worked production.  A lot of good ideas get canned in the innerest of expediency.  I will research further.

I know this has sprouted other threads, an I haven't even looked at em yet, been a busy day an blah blah blah, but I'm startin ta get the feelin that some folks er gonna worry about havin champhered chambers declared incorrect.  I made a mistake when I said "gradual" taper and should have said "graduated".  Makes a difference.  Just enough that ya don't feel nothin when ya run yer finger over it.

Aint gonna run the scanner now, the wife is sleeping next ta me an it's 0030 hours.  Any married folk 'll know that's a good reason an not an excuse

Leo,
I appreciate your efforts. I hope you can tell that this isn't a "spitting" contest for me.

I am in pursuit of any and all information pertaining to the production and manufacturing techniques used by Colt's Manufacturing prior to 1864 when they had the big fire. You may be making a mistake in confusing good machinist's  principles with the manufacturing practices that Samuel Colt instituted at his Hartford plant.  If you recall your Colt's Mfg. history you will remember the contract manufacturing of the Walker revolvers at the Whitney Armory headed at the time by Eli Whitney Blake (Whitney Junior's nephew).  Sam remembering his failure at Paterson and was determined to adopt modern manufacturing methods and philosophies which didn't require skilled craftsmen.  The manufacturing methods became rote processes and no additional steps were allowed or even tolerated.  He studied the Whitney methods and instituted them with even newer "innovations" at his new arsenal in Hartford.

Today most machinists would consider the workers at the plant from 1855 to 1862 as being skilled.  Most bench skilled "craftsmen" at the time considered them industrial workers.  The same distinctions exist today, most high skill positions such as Tool Makers, or Class A machinists consider a job shop CNC operator to be a small step above an assembly line worker.  That is neither here, nor there...What is important to me is the specifications, those would be the rote processes that all weapons leaving the arsenal  would undergo.  That is the standard we now judge the pistols of the middle 19th century produced by Colt's, not the "happen chance" tweaking by the armorers assembling the revolvers.  The assembly armorers had quotas to meet and were evaluated by their adherence to the posted methods and throughput .

I'd love to have a high resolution copy of anything you have.  Just what all do you have and where did you get it?  If you scan can you make sure it is at least 1200 dpi on the least of the two ( i.e. 1200 X 2400)?   A PDF file would be best but any format would be wonderful.  Instead of just posting it can I get an emailed version to assure the highest resolution?

Thank you again for sharing and adding to the knowledge base.

Best Regards,
Mako

P.S. about the "skipped" step... Flint reported they abondoned the chamfer, not for expediency, but because it didn't accomplish the intended effect. It didn't help in the prevention of flash overs, which is what it was designed to do.  It wasn't skipped, it wasn't needed.  In Samual Colt's world that was an expense to be cut unless it provided an intrinsic payback. Whatever the case may be it only ever existed as a production step on the Patterson revolvers.  I wonder if the lack of help in the flash over reduction was the only reason it was abandoned?  Samuel was a shrewd business man and anything that could be construed as a "feature" probably wouldn't have been abandoned on his later models.  But as Flint pointed out, it was, so it begs the question as to why...

[Leo Tanner]

Fergot I had ta pay fer them.  Terms of agreement say that I'd be breaking the law if I posted them.  Don't know about emails but I have the link to the website I originaly got them from in high resolution PDF.  Have reformatted the confuser since then and don't have them on the drive anymore, just on paper.  You may want to go ahead and order them yourself to add to your data base.  They are very inexpensive.

http://www.e-gunparts.com/schematics.asp

[Mako]

Fergot I had ta pay fer them.  Terms of agreement say that I'd be breaking the law if I posted them.  Don't know about emails but I have the link to the website I originaly got them from in high resolution PDF.  Have reformatted the confuser since then and don't have them on the drive anymore, just on paper.  You may want to go ahead and order them yourself to add to your data base.  They are very inexpensive.

http://www.e-gunparts.com/schematics.asp

Leo,
Are you talking about these schematics?

http://www.e-gunparts.com/product.asp?chrProductSKU=PDF0071B

Please look at the site using the link I provided before confirming it.

Regards,
Mako

[Delmonico]

Since you only break te edge if done right you can't see it, only feel it, was taught that when I learned to run a lathe in High School, sorry, doubt ol Sam colt was that shoddy at his factory, remeber you can only "feel" it if done right.

Some may not have trouble with lead shavings, some do, if they don't good, if they do it's a damned easy quick fix.  Myself a had trouble back in 79 the first time out with a new Remmy, a talk with a freind who'd done it a whil;e told me the fix, never had that problem again.

Been tellin' folks 'bout it on and off for years when they said they had the problem, cured all of them, never had anyone before tell me it wasn't a good idea, or at least anyone who tried it. 

Don't use no stand, never have, never will, got enough gear to drag along with out it, never seen the need for it, most of these already have a tool on them to load the dang thing, seems to work fine for me.

Guess Leo is happy with what I tolt him, others it's up to you, beyond that I could care less, no skin off my butt.

[Springfield Slim]

There seems to be a reason to chamfer the cylinders, ease of use and no lead bits in the works. Is there any reason to NOT chamfer the edges? Anything that makes my life easier is a good thing.

[Mako]

There seems to be a reason to chamfer the cylinders, ease of use and no lead bits in the works. Is there any reason to NOT chamfer the edges? Anything that makes my life easier is a good thing.

Mark,
I'll email you offline...
Have a great day,
Mako

[Delmonico]

Mark,
I'll email you offline...
Have a great day,
Mako

Oh come on tell us all so we all know.  Been waiting for this for days, don't hold us in suspense any longer, although I have my ideas why.  Cause you never thought of it. 

[Leo Tanner]

This is gettin odd  (yes I meant ta say odd, not old).  By now we've gone beyond period correctness and are talking about something that helps a shooter.  One school of thought is that champhering reduces the chance of chain fires in Sam's original plan.  That school of thought says it proved not to be of consequence.  Another is that it reduces the lead ring bind ups.  Whatever his original intention was, it DOES reduce excess lead when the balls er swaged and not cut.  It also increases pressure because the material is still all there, just compressed.  No I haven't set up a fancy clock fer fps er any of that, it's just science.  I love history first, but minor in science. 
     It would be just as PC to have the smiths modification, if that's what it is on later models, because I'm sure many folks realized how handy it was.  That's the way things were done.  We do know it is in the Patterson specs and we do know that Sam eliminated anything he could when production demands went through the roof.  We are now dealing with a word called MOOT.   

[Mako]

Del,
Chamfering a chamber and breaking the dead sharp burr on a machined edge is not the same thing.  You should have learned that when taking the lathe portion of your machine shop classes back in high school.

None of my percussion revolvers whether they're Colts or Italian modern has a chamfer on it.  None of them have a burr left from facing the cylinder to length on a lathe as the last step either.  The burrs have either been worn off or wiped off with a blunt tool (in some cases it's called burnishing, others call it blunt edged burr removal).  In 1996 Colt's was chambering the cylinders of their modern pistols after they had been cut to length, so there wouldn't be a facing burr, and the finishing reamer following the drilling operation wouldn't leave much of a burr even on the front face of the cylinder where the reamer came through.  They had no following edge break operation.

Read this carefully...I was just holding in my hand, the very instant before I typed this, a 147 year old Colt 1860 (mfd. 1862) cylinder.  It has no chamfer.  I know what an edge break is and it has no machined edge break.  If it had a burr it has been erased by time and usage.

You keep telling me that if I ever held an original in my hand I could feel the edge break.  So wait a second... Okay I have picked up two more Colt cylinders one is 148 years old (mfd. 1861) and the other is 156 years old (mfd. 1853).  I have run my finger across the surface of 11 more chambers...Nope, no chamfer...  Are they razor sharp? Nope. Have they had the edges broken with a chamfering tool?  Wait one more second while I look at them using my stereoscope in my office.  Nope, not that I can tell, there is no uniform witness line that would be left from a chamfer tool centered on the chamber.  Do they cut a lead ring when a ball is seated?  Yep...

You've heard from other people on this forum who are respected for their adherence to the requirements of proof in establishing whether or not something is a historical fact.  Flint is the only one who has any evidence that Samuel Colt ever added a chamfered feature to any of his percussion revolvers and that preceded the existence of Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company.  Flint even stated that the book says, "Pistols of the earliest type (referring to low number Patterson revolvers) and lowest serial numbers were found to have chamfered cylinder chambers."  He then goes on to say that no further mention of chamfers being applied to the front edge of the cylinders exists after it was determined the chamfer had no effect on decreasing cross over ignition as the feature was designed to prevent.

I will say this one more time, I have said it in many of my responses to your posts concerning this.  "I have never said that chamfering will NOT help in the elimination or reduction in shaving lead as a ball is inserted."  You may quote me on that.  I still would like to see some correlation between performance and not cutting a ring upon insertion.

I will tell you my biggest argument in favor of cutting a lead ring.  I then know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have the right sized ball in my chamber.  Furthermore I know I have full and complete sealing of the front of the chamber to the powder behind the ball.  Short of that, how will I know that I don't have a Ø.451 ball that snuck into my box of Ø.454 balls or a Ø.375 in my box of Ø.380 balls?  In either case they would be undersized and I could not be assured I had complete sealing of my chambers.  I also know that during a match my cylinders warm up and they get liberally coated with ball lube at the front section of the chambers.  I find the balls seat easier than when I started.  If I am going by feel alone I cannot be assured that I have a "swaged fit" or complete contact with the chamber walls.  Even when the cylinder warms up it still cuts a ring which is my "proof" that I am getting a good chamber wall to ball contact patch.

Oh come on tell us all so we all know.  Been waiting for this for days, don't hold us in suspense any longer, although I have my ideas why.  Cause you never thought of it. 

So Del, it seems that you have been spoiling for a fight instead of being a historian.  Your references to loading stands and pump action shotguns have not gone unnoticed.  You seem to have a burr under your saddle.  I started with a question about performance variation, something which Cowboys like Springfield Slim are asking.  You never really addressed it but further stated original Colt pistols came from the factory with chamfered chambers.  I didn't jump up and tell you that you were wrong; I simply asked what proof you had.  I mean what I am about to say in the truest sense of the word, I am continually learning things and am constantly searching for tidbits of information that fill in the narrative of history.  I simply asked you what proof you had.  You lamented Re: What size are your balls?  « Reply #17 on: May 05, 2009, 11:35:07 PM » "Don't know where some of these folks get their information and ideas, got my ideas some of it is pulled out of ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,'s.  I'm not one of those people Del, I only state for fact what I have documented or empirical evidence of.


Del, I'm not going to respond to any more of your posts if you are going to treat me or others in this fashion.  It's not fair to me or anyone else who reads it.  If you want to be treated as a respected and knowledgeable member of this community then please act accordingly.  And yes, I am aware that you have been a member since '04, have over 19 thousand posts and have the title of "Deputy Marshal."  None of that means "spit" if you don't respect others.


My momma taught me that, and to her memory I bid everyone a nice day,
Mako

[Mako]

This is gettin odd  (yes I meant ta say odd, not old).  By now we've gone beyond period correctness and are talking about something that helps a shooter.  One school of thought is that champhering reduces the chance of chain fires in Sam's original plan.  That school of thought says it proved not to be of consequence.  Another is that it reduces the lead ring bind ups.  Whatever his original intention was, it DOES reduce excess lead when the balls er swaged and not cut.  It also increases pressure because the material is still all there, just compressed.  No I haven't set up a fancy clock fer fps er any of that, it's just science.  I love history first, but minor in science. 
     It would be just as PC to have the smiths modification, if that's what it is on later models, because I'm sure many folks realized how handy it was.  That's the way things were done.  We do know it is in the Patterson specs and we do know that Sam eliminated anything he could when production demands went through the roof.  We are now dealing with a word called MOOT.   

Leo,
You never answered me about the link you sent me, or the follow-up I directed you to.  Was that the schematic you were speaking of as being the "engineering specs from earlier days?"
Regards,
Mako

[Delmonico]

It's getting deep here Mako, it's the same, just the degree of it is different.  Sorry I ain't that easy to fool and long flowery BS don't impress me, never has, never will.

[Mako]

It's getting deep here Mako, it's the same, just the degree of it is different.  Sorry I ain't that easy to fool and long flowery BS don't impress me, never has, never will.

I lied...I guess I will say one more thing.

Bullys when faced with truth usually ignore it or try to act like it is nonsense.

Peace out Mongrel Historian...

[Delmonico]

You don't like what I do and offer to others fine, but others do, heck I could say the same about you but I don't delete a post if I'm proven wrong, we or rather several of us know you do.  The g in FFg and others stands for glazed, remember that one.

What ever, I wasted more time on this than needs be, you do what you want, I'll keep offering this advice because everyone I've told about it and tried it had better luck after it.  You ain't proved nothing, sorry, you may think so, but Iand others don't think so, I'm done with this tread, but won't delete any thing I said, I'm not that kind.

[Leo Tanner]

Yes Mako, that was the link.  The link I gave ya leads ya right to it.  Fer 99 cents it's definately worth a roll of the dice.  Even I can afford that, an that's sayin alot.

Feel bad this all went sideways.  I just told a guy in another thread that he would know he had a good seal on a modern gun if it cut a ring. 
After that, fix er up an make er right.  Avoid possible complications.  When you are used to pressing balls in you know when they seal as long as there is not a burr ta cut a open channel in one.  We all know most chain fires come from the back end of the cylinder.

Good luck to all, see ya down the line.