copyright William Marion 2008
Black Powder Revolver
The Online Magazine and Resource for Black Powder Revolvers
August 2007 Edition
Page 5
Mail Bag
Hi there,
I recently bought a new Uberti 1860 Army. The first time I used it, it worked fine. However, on its second outing all five of the loaded chambers would not fire first time around. Most did ignite on the second attempt. I was using exactly the same items as previously - Speer .454 balls, Ox-yoke wads, Pyrodex and CCI # 10 caps. I have used all of these items with no problems in my other Uberti (Dragoon). I thought it may be the CCI caps but I was putting them on the nipples exactly as I have done many times. Uberti suggest # 11 caps but these are too long and I use # 10 in all my black powder revolvers. I checked to make sure there was no debris etc preventing the hammer from falling fully. Also, it doesn't feel as thought the spring is weak (it's brand new). The weird thing is my colleague was having a similar problem with his Ruger Old Army- also using CCI # 10 caps! The caps look fine but could we have got a bad batch? Any ideas would be most appreciated.
Rob
Rob;
Very interesting. I had a similar experience with a Traditions 1860 Army that I reviewed in April http://www.blackpowderrevolver.net/page104a.html I thought that it might be due to the fact I didn't clean it before rushing to the range with my new toy. I had a few slow fires and a no fire. I changed caps and had a bit better success, but the debris from the caps was falling down and wedging between the hammer and the frame. After reading your e-mail I did a bit of research and found the following. http://www.smoke-thunder.com/tricks/hangfire.html It seems this person suspects that the combination of Pyrodex and CCI caps
under certain conditions can cause a misfires. I've never had this problem before to any great degree. Once and a while a bad cap but nothing like you experienced. While it appears that this is a rifle shooter, there may be something to his theory. Most of my shooting has been in hot dry climates (Arizona, Nevada, Calif) Any chance you were shooting on a damp day? Sounds like I need to take a few trips to the range and conduct a very unscientific test.. Anyone else had a similar experience ?
NOTE: We contacted CCI with this question, but as of 8/01/2007 we had not received a response
"The second potential cause of hang fires and misfires is a combination of products, typically using Pyrodex and regular CCI #11 caps. Please understand that I am not throwing rocks at any particular product, but that combination just doesn't seem to work well together. Pyrodex has a higher combustion point than black powder and regular CCI #11's just don't have enough fire to consistently ignite it, especially on cold, wet days. Fortunately, there are several cures for this problem. The first is pretty obvious, use regular black powder. But black powder is often not available for a number of reasons, and Pyrodex is all that is around.
So, what are you going to do? Switching caps is the first line of defense that works pretty good. Instead of the regular CCI #11, the next step would be the CCI Magnum #11 percussion cap. Much hotter."
from http://www.smoke-thunder.com/tricks/hangfire.html
