New Gun, A Little Disappointed

I recently got an Uberti 1861 Navy. It turned out to be a well executed reproduction of the original. It joins an Uberti 1851 Navy; both guns being .36 cal. Several days ago I took the '61 to the range. I had not measured the chambers, but it became obvious very quickly that the same size ball the '51 uses would not work well with the '61. The former uses a .375. That ball in the '61 may shave the slightest bit of lead on two chambers, but the others are just about a roll down to seat. Obviously the gun needs bigger balls... .380 I suppose?? Looking at TOW I saw that they have .380's, but evidently Hornady does not make them. My excitement of having identical caliber guns, using the same everything, has been tempered. You would think that Uberti would be standardized on what size to make a chamber of similar caliber guns. Has anyone ever heard of the original Colts having a similar problem?

The Uberti cylinder I just got for my 1851 build is sized for the .375 at .364". The Uberti G&G I have is sized for the .380 ball, at .375 chamber diameter. I bought some .380 cast balls from a company called Stonewall Creek. The price was good, and they mailed them out quickly. My Dart also uses the .375 ball, but the loading lever is way too short to try the .380 in that one (5" barrel) They all perform well with the same powder charge, however...

Open up the chambers on your '51 just enough to give you .002 over groove diameter and shoot .380 round ball through both sixguns.

Seen an Uberti '61 Navy with chambers so large that .380s drop right to the bottom.

Reckon about the only thing standardized with these shooters is fun.

I guess Uberti's quality control is not as good as it should be. As the machine that bores the chambers wears, the chambers will be subject to getting a few thousandths smaller until the boring bar is replaced. I suppose your gun having the smaller chambers may have been one that was bored out with a worn boring bar.

If you want theme to match, I'm going with Swathdiver and suggest possibly having the smaller chambers opened up to the same size as your other revolver. I have no idea what a gunsmith may charge for doing this. However, as an alternative, you could sell one gun and then when you go shopping for a new revolver to replace it, take your micrometer and measure the chambers to see if they match the gun that you kept.

I am only working from memory (so could be wrong) but if I recall correctly there were variances with the original Colts as far a bores- chambers likely as well.

I have an older (1980) London Model Navy. The paper work that came with it recommended a .380 ball. I purchased a Lyman .380 round ball mold and cast my own. The .380 balls are tight and very accurate. Some 36 years later it's still my favorite firearm to shoot.

crockett said:

I am only working from memory (so could be wrong) but if I recall correctly there were variances with the original Colts as far a bores- chambers likely as well.

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That would present quite a problem in battle. When I was in school I did a paper on the problems caused by non-standardized ammunition in a later war than the time periods we look to on this forum. If that were a problem during the Civil War, you would think that chain fires would have been quite evident. I know I had a fear of that and only fired six shots at the range.

Chain-fires take place due to worn nipples/loose caps and the flash carrying around them to the next one, not from the front of a swaged-into-the-chamber ball.

I thought that we had settled this myth long ago?

tac

tac said:

Chain-fires take place due to worn nipples/loose caps and the flash carrying around them to the next one, not from the front of a swaged-into-the-chamber ball.

I thought that we had settled this myth long ago?

tac

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No argument there. But would you feel comfortable shooting a gun with an undersized ball, ie., no shaved lead at all ( as alluded to in the posts prior to yours ). There is a real possibility of fire entering an improperly sealed chamber...even with a proper fitting cap. Wouldn't you agree?

tac said:

Chain-fires take place due to worn nipples/loose caps and the flash carrying around them to the next one, not from the front of a swaged-into-the-chamber ball.

I thought that we had settled this myth long ago?

tac

Click to expand...

Wow, think of all the valve companies that have missed the boat by not using lead seats!
:rotf:
That incandescent mass making the transitions from solids to liquids to vapors is no respecter of opinions pushes through where ever it can. Enough of the front versus back already.

Loose balls in the chamber also present a possible problem with the ball moving off the powder or even moving far enough forward and jamming the action. And a chain fire would be a possibility if there is a gap.

Seems like it would be easier to just buy another cylinder, sucks I admit but it is an option.

I would slug the bore then decide on what to ream the chambers to, making them all the same.
The factory gang reams cylinders and they have tolerance specs for wear. That is the reason they are almost always a bit different from each other and often times not perfectly round.
If the barrel groove diameter is say .379-.380 then go ahead and ream all the chambers out to no more than .379 and use a greased wad under the ball to seal off any flame.
I feel shaving lead at loading is not really necessary as long as the balls have enough tension on them to keep them in place in the chamber mouth against recoil and a greased over sized wad is used.
I also believe loading the balls with the rammer swages them out from the front into the chamber walls even if they are a slip fit before hand.

When one thinks about it why would shaving lead make the ball tight in cylinder mouth. Lead has no spring back once it is sheared off.
All one has is a perfect slip fit but the rammer is what swages out the ball from the front end against the powder charge obturating it into the chamber wall at the mouth.

I have two Uberti Navy caliber pistols. My Navy Arms "Reb" revolver and a Navy caliber Remington New Army. At the time the Uberti guns were the best of the reproduction pistols. Both of the cylinders are 0.375" and require a 0.380 ball.

It is a lot easier to have just one size set of components for use at the range. Perhaps your most economical approach is to get one of the revolver loading presses and load the 0.380 balls in the smaller cylinder. The optimal solution is to ream out the cylinders to 0.375 and open the barrel for use with the 0.380 ball. The forcing cone will swedge the ball to the proper size for the barrel. Just remember to only use soft lead. No wheel weights.

Why would a forcing cone swage anything when it is much larger than the groove diameter of the barrel from a chamber throat that is .005 smaller.
The forcing cone is merely a funnel to aid cylinder/barrel misalignment and keep lead from shearing off as the ball transitions the gap.
Obuturation from acceleration inertia is what expands the ball to fill the barrel grooves as it clears the chamber mouth.
That is why undersized balls in smaller than groove diameter chambers can work in a revolver and soft lead is preferred to hard.
Also soft lead is easier on the loading lever.

Well, a lot of time has passed since I started this thread. The Uberti '61 has just sat there, not shot again. Then I did something I should have done long ago, I bought a vernier caliper. One thing I learned is that size does indeed matter. Every chamber of the revolver was around .365, every last one of them. Therefore, the .375 should be fine....but it wasn't, or at least so I thought. Then I measured the balls I had taken to the range that day. They varied from .355 to .367, every one of them. I opened another box and they were all +/- .375. So my problem was the balls, not quality control at Uberti. I was very impressed with every aspect of the '61 when I unboxed it. Now I have what I wanted, two Navys, one '51 and one '61.

.012 spread, on ball size is a lot. I'm glad you solved the problem, but were these all out of the same box? Were they Hornady?

Maybe I need to do some checking on the one's that I have.

Yes, out of the same box, but not sure about origen.