1860 Army, problems and progress report

[BobJ]

Problem, shot my Uberti 1860 Army. Tried to cock after first shot, jammed. A ball was halfway out of the cylinder! Then I saw the wad in the next chamber, that ball fell all the way out!! Anyone have this problem? I use .457 balls, the one that fell out had a 1/8” band around it, so it seated fine. The revolver was cleaned and loaded the previous week. I wiped the cylinder dry, but didn’t snap a cap, too cheap. I have 300 to 400 shots thru the revolver to date. Maybe fouling the cylinder by snapping a cap might help?

Progress, I cast some .457 balls from pure lead from a Lee mould, fantastic. Bought a big bag of wads, melted more beeswax into Dixie old zip patch grease, I think that’s the name, and soaked the wads. Will try paraffin next time, don’t have any now. My barrel stays shiny clean while shooting now. The “lubed” wads as purchased suck. I ran out of Goex, and bought Shockley’s Gold FFF locally, no choice. Works fine, a lot cleaner, but I miss the sulfur smell of the real thing.

I filed and cleaned up my sight notch per Finger McGee’s recommendation, drastically improved the sight picture. Still shoots high, guess my hold was pretty good with the old crappy sight picture. At shooting range, was shooting 2 ˝ to 3” groups at 25 yd. and bit to right. At home at 50 yd, I can nail a can, Big can, about every time by aiming at the bottom left corner, so shooting about 2-3" high and 2-3" to right at that range. Didn’t try to group, and not tinkering with sights without a lot more practice and research. Very satisfied so far.

At the range, I noticed my 150 year old relic could put the hurt on most of those black plastic handguns everyone else had. I love my C&B revolver.

[mcwoodduck]

What load are you shooting?
The only thing I can think that would unseat a ball is a really heavy load.
when it says use 80% you multiply by .8 not divide by.8

36 grains of black X.8 = 28.8
36 grains of black Divided by .8= 45. (bad!)
You may also check you measure and see that it has not moved or you are not using your rifle measure for your revolver.

[bedbugbilly]

Bob - just curious - you say you were using a .457 ball when the ball jumped forward in the cylinder and I believe one must have fallen out?  When you seated them, were they oversize enough that you sheared a ring of lead as you seated them?  I've never heard of the problem that you are talking about nor have I seen it (which doesn't prove anything     ).  Have you measured your cylinder bores?  As stated, if you had that kind of problem, it would lead you to suspect that you are firing too heavy of a load or something doesn't measure up in regards to ball size and cylinder bore size.  I hope you get it figured out and report back on it as I'd love to know what the problem is - it might help prevent someone else from experiencing the same thing.  Good luck with it and enjoy!  Sincerely, bedbug   

[BobJ]

Am using the 30 grain spout on my measure with the Shockleys Gold powder. I didn't read instructions, just presumed it was volume for volume measure. Anyway, it doesn't seem like a hot load.

And, I shave a good ring of lead with balls in all cylinders. With a 1/8" felt wad, the balls are still seated 1/4" deep into the cylinder. Maybe I had a trace of lube left in the cylinder bore.

[bedbugbilly]

Hmmmmmm . . . . . Bob, ya sure got me scratching my head over this one!  Has it happened since you started shooting the balls that you cast up?  I've used swaged balls (I only shoot .36 caliber) as well as ones that I cast up and never really have seen much of a difference.  I was wondering if it happened with the swaged balls that maybe they could have been mislabeled but that can't be it since you say you shaved lead when you seated the balls.  I hope that others will post if they've ever had the same problem 'cause I'm curious as heck as to what caused it.  I'm not familiar with the powder that you used as I've always used Goex but it doesn't sound like you had a super-hot load.  Like a lot of things in this life, this is going to cause me to wake up in the middle of the night and ponder on it . . . . . .   

[Uncle Howie]

My Ruger Old Army uses .457 balls. I've found that the Hornady balls tend to "walk" out of the cylinder, even though they shave a nice ring of lead when they're seated. Speer balls to not "walk" out as easily, so that's what I use.

This may or may not have been of any help, but good luck, regardless!

[BobJ]

I had a box of Speer .454" balls, then started using the Hornady .457, available locally. The Speer balls seemed a little harder than the Hornady, probably just my imagination. Both brands worked fine. My cast .457 balls are as soft as the Hornady ones. This was the second shooting session with my balls, all previous usage was swaged balls. Quality is excellent, can barely find the tangential sprue cutoff.

I think this weekend if I get bored I will mike my cylinder bores, then try seating balls (to the same depth, but without powder) in clean dry and clean lubed chambers, pulling the nipples, and seeing what it takes to push them out. Will try to duplicate what happened to cause the balls to eject. Will try one chamber first to see if this works, anyway, before I get a bunch of stuff stuck in my cylinder. I think I read about removing stuck balls like this in the archives somewhere.

Will keep you all posted. Thanks to all for help.