Remington 1858 New Army

[StonewallSharpeson]

So I got a Lee 6-cav .451" mold. I made a few hundred balls, but could not get the mold hot enough to prevent balls from coming out with casting voids, and only got a handful of true spheres. Turns out Curt was right; using callipers, my chambers measured not quite .45"... When loading the balls, no lead rings were produced, only a little lead was scrunched around the edges of the ball. Between this and loading with a wide-mouthed powder measure, I experienced one chain-fire, which fortunately only set off the chamber next to the one in the barrel, causing no harm to me or the weapon. Accuracy was good, at 25 feet.
So the question now is, do I load the gun with patches, which I don't want to do, or do I switch to a larger ball? .454" or .457"? I hope Track of the Wolf will take the mold back... if not, anyone want to buy a slightly-used Lee .451" round-ball mold?

[Eggman]

Forget the six cavity mould. Aluminum moulds cool too fast to get consistent results from all six. I think two cavity moulds are one cavity too many. Use single cavity moulds only - steel moulds like Lyman by far the best. Yes you need a larger ball.

[Mike McDaniel]

Agree with all. I've never seen an aluminium mould that could be kept hot enough to cast good bullets.

[Curt]

Hallo!

First, I am curious about the "chain fire?" A .451 ball in a .450 chamber let alone one under .450 should have 'sealed' off the powder beneath it.

Just a passing thought, measure some of your cast balls. I would be curious as to whether a too cold mold might just be casting slightly undersized balls.

IMHO...

If you plan on doing a higher volume of shooting, or competing for that matter, go with a single cavity steel block mold in .454.
I hate to say this, cliché and pun warning....but... just "bite the bullet."

While I personally do recommend a cheap alumimum mold for the lad who is going to the range, just one time, to shoot a few dozen rounds from a low-end brass frame revolver... but still wants the experience of casting his own rounds... good enough.

If you are in the "middle" here, you may want to think about skipping casting and just buying some commercial swaged round balls. Hornady makes a .454 that comes in a box of hundred (100) for something like $15 or $16. (While I do not recommend them, there is also the sprued, sometimes wrinkled, mass produced 'poly bag' balls for the buckskinner community. Of course one can cut and file off the sprues and reject the few that come flawed, but....)

[jonk]

Agree with all. I've never seen an aluminum mould that could be kept hot enough to cast good bullets.

Well, a lot of guys are winning a lot of medals shooting Moose, Rapine, and yes, even Lees.

Not only can I keep my Lee molds hot enough, but when casting anything but dead soft pure, they get SO hot that I have to let them cool, or hardening takes 20-30 seconds, and the bullets are badly frosted and sprues tear rather than cut.

This using a Lee 10 pound pot set on 8, lead temp around 800ish.

I have no preference as to the material a mould is made out of; they a ll require a little different approach, that's all.

As to durability, I have heard stories of people wearing out molds... never had it happen to me. Probably the ones I have that have seen the most use are some Lee molds I started with 20 years ago, that probably have a good 100,000 bullets cast out of them, and work just as well as when I got them.

This isn't a slam; it's just intended to point out that, as with so many things in this sport, your mileage may vary and what works for me might or might not work for you.

[Eggman]

I kinda had the same thought as Curt on too cool of ball being also undersized viz a multiple discharge. As said above you got to shave off some lead to verify a proper seal. One other paricular fly stuck in my craw (mixed metaphor), I had a Patterson repro chain fire one time using good oversized balls and lots of Crisco on top. The only explantion is I was shooting one cylinder at a time - the other nipples uncapped. I think it was a reacharound.

[Maillemaker]

I agree with Jonk - I use Lee molds for round ball, both .454 and .457, they are 2-cavity, and they got so hot that I usually switch off between two molds, letting one solidify on the bench while I'm pouring the other.

I find the Lee molds make very, very nice round balls with hardly any sprue. Wrinkles go away when the mold is up to temp and I have no problem keeping it at temp.

I'm no great shot but I shot a 45 with Lee .457 balls out of my Uberti Walker at 25 yards at the last skirmish.

It was good enough for second place. Of course, only two of us were shootin'.

Steve

[Curt]

Hallo!

Our personal experiences can set our preferences and likes and dislikes.

I have a mix of aluminum and steel. Aluminum (Rapine and Lee) for lower production, less used guns.

In my experience, when I started out Skirmishing... I was going through an aluminum mold every second or third year , based on say a hundred rounds of musket and carbine per Skirmish, typically 12-14-16 Skirmishes a year in and across a region or two. Not exactly high volume. Lead was heated on a Coleman stove in a smallish crucible.

What happened was, that the molds all got out of "alignment" meaning that the two halves of the blocks did not line up perfectly at first. then it worsened so that they got mechanically out of whack, and "loose" so that the automatic or fixed base plug was jamming and not closing properly.

I don't know. A Coleman should not have heated the aluminum blocks hot enough to warp. And I don't think whacking on a sprue cutter with a heavy dowel should have damaged things as I kept track of the screw tightness holding it down keeping it loose and freely swinging.

Anyways, I figured a steel mold that was good 'forever' was a more sound financial investment than buying a new aluminimum mold every 3-4 years since, at the time, I figured I would be Skirmishing for the next 60 years or so.



It was a "False Economy" in the end. Having started out with a Navy Arms/Miroku mixed model M1863/64 and then four years later a Parker-Hale "'Naval Rifle" and then the Slippery Slope gave way to getting into custom building... the one steel mold mushroomed to over a two dozen or more in different bullet configs and diameters.



Curt

[Muley Gil]

I read lately that instead of flash igniting the powder from the front of the cylinder, chainfires are caused by loose caps on the nipples.

I had a chainfire about 45 years ago, shooting a brass framed Navy Arms Model 60 .44. One of the balls hit a friend of mine on the leg. We were sitting together on the bank of an old quarry. Quite an exciting time! Just left a bruise, nothing serious.

[Maillemaker]

What happened was, that the molds all got out of "alignment" meaning that the two halves of the blocks did not line up perfectly at first. then it worsened so that they got mechanically out of whack, and "loose" so that the automatic or fixed base plug was jamming and not closing properly.

Oh, I agree - the Lee Aluminum minie-ball molds with core pins are not very good. The aluminum-on-aluminum rubbing as the mold opens and closes causes galling.

But for the simple two-half round ball molds, I have not had any problems yet. There is some galling from the sprue plate and the top of the mold, but this can be addressed with a diamond paddle file and by painting the wear surfaces with Moose Juice.

I read lately that instead of flash igniting the powder from the front of the cylinder, chainfires are caused by loose caps on the nipples.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne4VgCdAy7Y

The above video shows intentional chain fires caused by under-sized balls.

I believe that a chain fire can happen from either end of the gun, and if you watch slow-motion videos of cap and ball revolvers firing you can see there is a significant venting on the rear of the cylinder.

But clearly the bulk of the blow-by happens at the front of the cylinder, and as the video shows, under-size balls will cause a chain fire.

It would be interesting to see the above test done with no caps on adjacent nipples to see what happens.

Steve