chain fire

I put greese over the ball only after 4-5 cylinders of firing.Just to lube things up a bit.
The only chain fire I ever had was when shooting with an un capped charged chamber.
For those who think a chain fire can happen from the front of the cylinder with proper fitting balls,,, I wonder if you put greese on your cartridge firing guns too?

proper sized caps are critical. squeezeing 11's a bit to keep them on a #10 nipple is asking for trouble.
I carefully push the #10 caps onto the nipples w/a short piece of dowel to snug them up.
I've always thought chainfire is more likely to occur due to nipple leakage but as evidenced by the foto there's lots of fire at the rear of the cylinder.

That Italian-made walker chamber was probably blown up by someone using smokeless powder instead of black.I don't see how a chain-fire could damage a cylinder since tests have shown the velocity of the balls leaving the chain-firing cylinders to be in the 140 to 175 feet-per-second range.Not exactly a high-pressure situation.I have had good results over thousands of shots using only lubed wads over the powder. No chain fires,and many cylinders full of shots without cylinder pin gumming up on Colt type reproductions.The most likely cause of chain fires are from loose fitting or fallen-off caps_ Smoothshooter

CORRECTION:In my previous post I should have typed "chain-firing chambers" instead of "chain-firing cylinders"

I notice in the picture of the revolver firing that the hammer has been blown back but because of trigger depression does not catch the hammer on half or full cock giving the impression it was not lifted from back blast.
The cap and hammer should stay down on each nipple during discharge. If this is not happening and they are routinely blown off chain fire should happen much more often.
Never had one personally and have three C&b revolvers that have been shot hundreds of times over many years so am pretty well convinced chain fire only happens from the rear especially when cylinder mouths are lubed.
Hammer blow back is caused by burned out nipples or to lighten hammer spring tension often in an attempt to get a better trigger. MD

Great photo Blizzard, with response to M.D.s posting,the trigger wasn't "blown back" this is a time exposure photo and when the flash went off the trigger wasn't depressed(at the time of the flash) and the time lasped exposure captured the fantastic explosion.Hope this makes sense!

Blizzard of 93 said:

proper sized caps are critical. squeezeing 11's a bit to keep them on a #10 nipple is asking for trouble.
I carefully push the #10 caps onto the nipples w/a short piece of dowel to snug them up.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Blizzard. Was wondering if anyone else was doing this. I'm new to C&B and have only had one session shooting my Remmy. Being new I bought the CCI #10 caps, which I found later were prone to misfires from being too tight/incompletely seated.

I loaded each cylinder out of the gun using the much maligned Cabela's ball seating tool and forced the CCI caps down on the nipples using a dowel. Once seated they showed no sign of falling off or loosening.

Had a good session with the Remmy, no misfires or chain fires, and am looking forward to more. I was using cornmeal between the powder and the ball, but no grease or wads.

All I know is I had a chain fire ONCE. It was the one time I did not use a grease or wad. It could have been from all sorts of reasons BUT the only difference I can see is the lack of grease or wad. Up until that time I had used crisco on every cylinder.

As for the "crisco" melting away due to weather or heat from earlier chambers fired... well the crisco even when melted and run will have left a bit of residue behind. IF the mess is an issue I suggest some beeswax mixed in to stiffen the grease and play about with the mix putting some in an auto out in the sun during summer with windows rolled up for a bit and use a mix that wont melt in such conditions.

Would one of you proponents, of grease over the ball to prevent chain fires, please example to me the physics of how the flame from a firing chamber gets pass a tightly swaged ball in the adjacent chamber to set off the powder. Anyone? Anyone at all?

I don’t really care if you wad, patch, and grease over the ball or what you believe it does for you. But if you make blanket statements about it I feel I need to challenge those statements by asking you to provide empirical data to support you your view. Otherwise, clearly state you are expressing an opinion without due diligence.

Well gee, see there is the rub, you claim a tightly swaged ball. Perhaps the balls I was using weren't all that tight. As I recall I was using .451 ball as called for in the manual but later I learned I might should have been using .454 ball or even .457.

Possibly I had an out of round chamber or two. Possibly a scratch.

As I have said I have no real clue what caused it. All I KNOW is that the single time I have had a chain fire I did not use grease or wad or filler in an attempt to prevent it.

There is also the issue of clean chamber vs fouled chamber. I can see fouling notching the ball in a heavily fouled chamber.

I still thing 90%+ of chain fires are loose caps.

I guess I should qualify my challenge by adding, in a revolver in good repair, well maintained, and within specifications of the manufacturer. Now if you choose to fire a weapon that you know is out of spec. or not in good repair, well, then you deserve to have happen whatever the disrepair will allow.

After my first chain fire I dismantled the gun and measured everything. Found nothing out of spec. After the second occurrence I measured the cylinder and all the cones again. Found one that was a little small. I replaced it. On the third occurrence I found everything was good. I couldn’t figure out why it occurred. So I started using wads under the ball. On the fourth chain fire, I finally realized that I still had some oil on the cones. So now I wipe down the cones with alcohol before firing caps through it. I got rid of the wads too. And yes, all these chain fires happen on the first cylinder full of the day and always on the cylinder second in battery.

I disagree, the hammer has definitely been blown back from the discharge which allows the flame to hit the recoil shield and bathe the back of the cylinder with flame. If the hammer stays down the cap will be often split out the side from impact and not necessarily back blast and flame leak but will remain in place. This helps to seal off the chamber to the rear if the cap has stayed in place under the hammer fully at rest on the nipple after discharge.The discharge in the photo has not been blocked to the rear by the hammer fall or the spent cap.
A hammer at rest on a spent cap on a discharging chamber is what corks the bottle so to speak and prevents or limits the flame to the rear.
Two things cause the hammer to be blown off the nipple. Burned out nipples and/or to light a main spring.
I have had many caps come off adjacent cylinders under recoil, over the years and have not to this point ever had a multiple chamber fire. The reason is because the hammer has stayed down on the nipple and the cap has not been blown off.
I believe if your caps are routinely blown off the nipples of the firing chamber, even if the hammer comes back to rest on the bare nipple after discharge, a chain fire is eminent. The cap should remain in place on the nipple even if split under the hammer after discharge in my opinion,if the revolver is properly adjusted for maximum safety. MD

In response to M.D.
(I disagree, the hammer has definitely been blown back from the discharge)

I was comenting on the technical aspect of the way the photo was taken,to be boring for a moment this is a good example of a delayed flash exposure,which means the flash went of first capturing the hammer before it was triggered and then the time exposure captured the flame.Nothing to do with the hammer being "blown back",when the flash part of the exposure started the hammer hasn't moved.Hope this helps.

Mike

I'm pretty sure that "back in the day" shooters just loaded the gun with balls that were slightly over sized and left a "ring" of lead after being seated. This will,in my eperience, totally seal the chamber if the "ring" is a complete circle and unbroken. Caps that seal tight on the nipples,that are in good condition, will not let any flash ignite other caps. Maybe I've just been blessed but I have NEVER had any problems with chain fires. When I go out to the range I shoot my Remmy at least 100 times because I like to shoot and "get my moneys worth" from my range membership. Anyway, just my 2 cents on the subject.
Nilo52

Don't forget that at least for the military combustible cartridges were very common. These had no wad between powder and conical and the soldiers were not issued any grease to fill up the ends of the chambers.