Recovered Revolver Balls

[arcticap]

I fired off an old loaded cylinder full of balls from an ASM 1851 Sheriff's Model at the range.
The target backing was thick foam so I was able to recover 5 balls. Since the loads were weak they didn't deform much, but they did lose some of their roundness from the rifling.
The ball diameters across the engraved portions which represent the barrel lands measure .443, .4435, .445.
Measured from top to bottom they're ~.4625.

 

[Rikeman]

That is cool. The first time I have seen pictures of recovered revolver bolls :thumbsup: Thanks for sharing!

 

[Coot]

Good work on both the recovery and the photography! :thumbsup: I assume that the rings seen on some balls are from the loading lever & that the loading lever marks are present on the others, just that that end is turned away from the camera?

 

[mazo kid]

Very interesting; thanks for sharing!

 

[Sham66]

Well done!

Back to the melting pot I say.

James

 

[rafterob]

Cool! Just like CSI.

 

[jtmattison]

I'm kind of surprised at the amount of deformation from loading.

What size balls are they?

When I load my 1851 Navy with .454's they don't deform.

HD

 

[LeMat1856]

.
. nov 8 / 03:35


outstanding !

ditto everything coot posted.. while on the subject, just what did you use for lighting and lens and camera ? and, if it's not too much to ask, the exposure ? i too am an old shutterbug but pretty much dropped out when digital took over.

 

[arcticap]

The pictures were taken set on the "simple" or auto setting and then cropped. The fairly inexpensive 5 megapixel Panasonic Luminex camera with stabilization (anti-shake) deserves all of the credit. I simply try to hold the camera extra steady when I snapped the pictures as if I was shooting a pistol! :wink:
I didn't load the round balls so I'm not sure what size they were. But I would guess extra oversized.
The dimension at the chamber mouths are uniformly .4505, but one was undersized at .4485.
There's striations on the rifling lands in the barrel that are visible in the engraving on the balls. Maybe that's an indication that the bore could be smoothed out some by lapping with bore paste.
Thanks for the compliments!

 

[Juggernaut]

Excellent pictures youcane see the grooves from the rifling as well. Very interesting.

Juggernaut