[possum]

Witnessed a small chainfire this weekend with an Uberti 1858 Remington copy.

Involved only one chamber besides the one under the hammer. Left only a small smudge of lead on the frame of the pistol that wiped easily off.

The shooter didn't even really feel the difference, and we didn't discover it until we attempted to recap one nipple and discovered all six chambers had fired.

What happened was the second shot failed to go off.

The recoil of the first shot pushed the cap off the next nipple enough so that the cap got "smeared" when the hammer was cocked back and the cylinder revolved for the second shot.

And yes, every single cap that I put on a BP revolver gets pinched and pressed down twice.

The hammer fell on the second shot, but only hit the wall of the cap and the head of the cap containing the primer compound got "smushed" by the rotation of the cylinder causing that cylinder to not fire.

When that chamber failed to go off, the shooter waited for 10 seconds to check for a hangfire, and then kept firing, intending to just recap that unfired cylinder at the end of the string of shots.

After the fifth shot, we grabbed another cap, and tried to see which cylinder was still loaded.....only none of them were, and then we found the little lead smear on the left side of the frame, near the base of the loading lever.

In all, the chainfire was really no big thing. The shooter didn't even notice when it happened.

And it was caused by sparks getting down the nipple of the loaded chamber.

I use .451 roundballs, which shave nice rings of lead off when I load, and depending on how I'm feeling, between 20 to 40 grains of FFFg.

When I first started shooting BP revolvers, I used to do all that stuff with the chamber mouths.....smearing lube over the chamber ends, or filling in with corn meal atop the powder charge, etc. etc.

But I soon tired of doing all that, and just started loading them with oversized balls that leave shaved lead rings and pinching the caps.

This is my very first chain fire ever, and seems obviously caused by an uncovered nipple during firing, not sparks getting into a chamber's mouth around a tight-fitting lead ball.

It was the only chain fire of the day, and we shot at least 60 more shots out of that Uberti before we called it quits with no problems whatsoever.

As for cleaning, I just disassmble, and wash in hot soapy water, and then use a hair dryer to dry off the parts (gets them good and hot, too) and then reassemble and lightly oil.

possum