Have you had a chain fire with?

[Tater John]

The answer I'm looking for I couldn't find in the search function, so here we go again, no doubt.

Who has had a chain fire after they shaved lead and lubed the cylinder face? That's the only procedure I care about. The only references I can locate reguarding CF's is "The one time I didn't lube" or This shooter next to me didn't lube..."

Unless the gun handler is sloppy with powder I'm not sure I believe the ignition occurs from the cylinder face. I've not shot 100 rounds total in my life through a C&B, have always lubed and don't like the mess it makes. Playing safe is important to me and when it comes to my gun in someone else hands the concern is even more important

Rusty

Thanks :thumbsup:

 

[user 20224]

1851 Navy .36 cal. used Crisco and had a chain fire on the first shot. I was using #11 caps and give them credit as they were a little loose. When we switched to #10 caps there were no repeats.

 

[Matt85]

lube over the front doesnt prevent chain fires. from all the chain fire stories ive heard, ive pretty much decided that chain fires take place at the back of the cylinders. im well over 600 rounds with no lube over the balls and ive never had a chain fire. i use properly fitting caps, which in my case are remington #10s.

loose caps or improper shielding between caps will cause chain fires.

 

[Mike 56]

Last week i shot next to a guy that would load six chambers and one cap one chamber at a time to show me you can't get a chain fire from nipple end of the cylinder. He did this for two hours and had no chain fires. I still think you can get chain fires from the nipple end of the cylinder with the help of worn out nipples or a week hammer spring. I have had one chain fire one extra cylinder went off. It was the first cylinder of the day i did not fire caps to dry the oil out of the cylinder. I brought the wrong balls .451 that did not fit the gun as good as they should have and i used homemade wads that were 1/16 thick. When i shot two cylinders went off the guy next to me was laughing he told me my gun looked like a Elmer Fudd gun a ball came out two feet and fell to the ground. I shot with those balls the rest of the day with no more chain fires i just used a little crisco over the balls. If your gun is in good condition, use good fitting balls and are neat with your powder you would be pressed to get a chain fire. I think that it can take few tings to cause a chain fire in my case ill fitting balls and not firing caps to dry the oil out of the cylinder before shooting. I have shot with just balls and powder many times without any trouble what i don't like about it is my gun fouls out fast but if i spit on a loaded cylinder once in a while it seams to clean some of the fouling out.
Mike

 

[user 20224]

lube over the front doesnt prevent chain fires. from all the chain fire stories ive heard, ive pretty much decided that chain fires take place at the back of the cylinders. im well over 600 rounds with no lube over the balls and ive never had a chain fire. i use properly fitting caps, which in my case are remington #10s.

loose caps or improper shielding between caps will cause chain fires.

My opinion is cap problems or nipple problems but there is much discussion for the use of grease to prevent chain fires.

 

[Poor Private]

I third or fourth that-- cap problems.

 

[crockett]

Mike56- thanks for your detailed account as we are all trying to figure out the cause or causes of a chain firing. The last time we did this I noticed right away that say 90% of the time the chain firing occurred on the first cylinder of the day. Why? That's the big question.
It seems that in the situations mentioned the shooter did not burn off any oil by dry firing caps on empty chambers before loading up. There may well be some correlation. One thought was that the nipples were slippery and the caps slid off. Maybe the oil itself acts as a wick and sucks fire-flame-heat into a chamber to chain fire it.
For years I used Crisco but never checked the end of the cylinder after shooting a few rounds- I am told the Crisco melts off after a shot or two and there is nothing left for the remaining shots. I too didn't like all the mess of putting grease over the ends of the chambers so I switched to lubed wads and to date all is well.
The last time we talked about this we all sort of agreed that there may be several ways a chain firing can occur but that the majority (if not all) seem to be from loose caps.
One question- you said the ball from the wrong chamber that fired "dropped" on the ground a few feet away? Last time one of the contributors (WV Hillbilly?) thought that loose balls may be a cause- that the recoil of shooting one chamber might cause a loose ball from the adjoining chamber to pop out of the chamber and the exposed end has its powder ignite. It seems that the ball from a chain firing ought to exit as fast as the proper chamber. If the ball did just drop- tell us more. Thanks. Maybe a cold cylinder or a chamber with oil in it is causing a ball to slide forward from recoil.
Next time I shoot I think I will look at the position of the balls after a shot or two has been fired to see if there is any movement.

 

[Matt85]

My opinion is cap problems or nipple problems but there is much discussion for the use of grease to prevent chain fires.

ya have to remember that if your using a proper fitting ball and wad, the sparks/fire from the fired chamber would have to get past a lead seal and a wad to get to the powder from the front. if your chain fire starts from the front of the chamber then its 100% your fault and you need to make some serious changes to how you load your gun.

while from the rear of the cylinder all that would need to happen is some stray hot gas from one cap would need to make it to another cap. this would cause the second cap to ignite and fire another cylinder.

 

[garandman]

In my estiamtion, with a proper fitting wad, and proper fitting ball, its is nigh impossible to get a chain fire started from the muzzle end of the cylinder.


If you want to get all messy with Crisco, do it because you want ease of cleanup later - not to prevent chainfires.

 

[Mike 56]

I am thinking that if you don't don't fire caps to dry out the oil from cleaning the oil can make a flash channel that could cause a chain fire and in my case i helped it along with a poor fitting ball. For years i have used #11 CCI caps with a little squeeze.To be honest i had never seen Remington caps until Bass Pro Shops opened up in town. I mean i shot thousands of #11 CCI caps in seven revolvers and have had only had one chain fire. I think a loose caps need a little help from a week hammer spring or worn out nipples.

The ball did not fall out of my revolver it shot out. I have always heard about cap and ball revolvers coming apart from a chain fire. If you have a colt cap and ball revolver load one cylinder put the cylinder on the frame and shoot it wit out the barrel. The ball won't shoot very far without the barrel.
51

 

[t.l.a.r. eng]

I noticed one of the chain fires mentioned was from a 51 Navy .36 cal.
I built one of Dixie Gun Works "kit" guns and found the cylinder bores drilled way undersized.

However, I noticed something else, all the bores were .002 out of round. :hmm: My best guess is Pietta drills the cylinders, then does the rolled engraving on the outside. This forces the realatively thin cylinder bores out of round.

Take an out of round bore, too much cylinder to barrel gap, too small of ball, ball cold cast with wrinkles, etc it is very plausable that a chain fire may happen from the front.

On my .36 the solution was to ream the bores to 3/8 inch = .373 and load .380 balls with the front of the cylinder chamfered. Allthough this gun has never chain fired in 300 rounds, I doubt it ever will. :v

 

[garandman]

Take an out of round bore, too much cylinder to barrel gap, too small of ball, ball cold cast with wrinkles, etc it is very plausable that a chain fire may happen from the front.

Makes sense to me. With enuf stuff out of spec, any BP revolver could chain fire. But I don't think the inherent design, in spec and properly used, is prone to chain fire.

 

[crockett]

Not much is said about wads versus lubes but if the lube can burn off or run out of the front of the cylinder then it is not doing its job. Wads seem to me to offer a better seal between the powder charge and any flames at the front of the cylinder...so....the question becomes: has anyone ever had a chain fire using wads? :hmm:

 

[LRB]

I've experienced two chain fires in my life. Both times I forgot to put grease over the balls. Both times the problem never occured again, and I continued using the same caps. I don't forget grease anymore, but I can understand how loose caps could cause the same effect. Could coincidental because one would think a ball seated tight enough to shave lead would be a tight seal. However, thinking about it, a swaged tight ball loaded through a slightly chamfered chamber mouth with no shaving should be even more sealed. Have never had a problem when using wads over the powder, with no grease over the ball. That is my prefered load as it is not as messy.

 

[Tater John]

The conversation and comments have been welcomed and helpful. I'll be carefully watching my loading procedures and eliminating the grease off step. I've not spent an appreciable amount of time working up the best load combination with my ROA, yet. And as I mentioned I haven't shot C&B's much.

Good info, Thanks friends :thumbsup:

Rusty

 

[Blizzard of '93]

quite a lot of fire flying there eh compadre?

knock on wood no chainfires for me after K's of rounds fired
tight caps are absolutely necassary

 

[sffone]

Wow! Quite an impressive photo. Thanks for sharing it with us.

 

[Tater John]

That photo tells or shows it like it is.

I intentionally mentioned the Ruger in my post because I think everyone knows the quality that went into their manufacturing and thats the only reason I feel I can skip the grease. I'm referring to the tolerances of the cylinder, mine at least. Not familiar with any other revolvers

Rusty

 

[.36navy]

I bought a brass frame .36 navy. the first 50 or so rounds I didn't have any problems then it started chain firing on a regular basis. the lead just goes out the cylinder beside the barrel it's not a big deal until something were to happen. I had properly fitting balls and caps with lube so i'm not sure what was causing the problem. I bought a new pietta and haven't had any problem with chain fires and I never use lube. I only use the brass frame as a single shooter now.

 

[garandman]

Weird....in that pic it looks like the hammer is back while the gun is firing. Which is not possible, I don't beleive...