Ah Ha my Good Perfesser
Quite correct-a-mundo. I myself utilize the push Ball in > > > push Ball out >>> measure shiny spot when I am real real curious. Other wise, I just rattle de de da drill bit. Now, in all honesty, I have just a slight CAVEAT when one reaches the "Push Ball Out" step.
DO NOT USE a steel push rod of any sort to push the ball out. If a steel rod is off axis, and comes into contact with the chamber walls, it WILL dig a divot right out of the chamber wall (Do NOT ask how I know this FACT). If this divot is in the same area one normally seats the ball too, therein lies the perfect channel for Chain Fire Aluminum or Brass rods ONLY please
Hey Coffinmaker
Just read your first post on this - dunno how I missed it really - wanna disagree with ya - (just fer fun of course)
First the caveat, I reckon they made the chambers of cap guns the size the are so we could fill em up with powder and put a chunk of lead in the end - I like roundy chunks of lead for cap gunz and full charge of proper powder. So - semolina - creme o wheat - that stuff is FOOD - we sposed ta eat it fer breakfast not go sprayin it over the landscape from our sixshooters - got no place in a gun. (You dont like rugers an remys I dont like cereal in me gunz ok?)
So with that outa the way me an the boy (they both his actually) had a coupla cap gunz that would shoot ok if ya did the breakfast food thing but not ok with a full charge --an 1860army and a walker - both old - both a little tired - so I started in to measure stuff (this after similar discussion here some time back) Cylinder wuz .451 we used .454 balls - that bit was ok - slugged the bore - .450 - should work - just ? - maybe ? hah! bottom of grooves is .462 an it dont work!
I hate deep rifling like this in any BP gun - reckon its one of the great myths of the whole movement - gives the fouling someplace to go is the story - dumb story I reckon!
Lots of blokes believe that story tho - not this little black duck mate!
Made me a .458 reamer from an old bolt I found in the workshop - like ya said in tother post reaming the cylinder is a hand job - swaqed some 490 round ball down usin a .460 size die I made for the 45/75 Uberti
Loaded and shot the walker, full cylinder much better, much much better
Did some phone calls and found a pedersoli ball mold .464 (they make .458,.462,.464 an I reckon that says there more than just me doin this stuff) -- anyway made another reamer from another bolt
Heres a tip on old bolts - for other scroungers like me - a grade 3 (or maybe its a grade 5?) High tensile bolt with the three bars on the head of him is carbon steel, it turns nice and hardens real nice with heat and an oil quench - simple!! a Grade 8 High Tensile bolt has got six bars on the head and its some kind of alloy steel - still can turn it with ordinary tools but it dont like my simple farmer style heat treatment. I thought I was bein clever when I bought a better bolt but the reamer I made didnt end up near as good - didnt harden as nice Yep I reamed both those cylinders out to .462 (same as bottom of groove size) and we use the .464 ball - and we fill the cylinder with powder -
the Walker runs 65 grains of FFG, gets a lube soaked egg carton wad under the ball and a smidge of lube over the ball (just enough to fill the recess around the outside of the ball and then wipe as much off as ya can with yr finger
The army loads full too but FFFg and no wad, just lube over the top - more lube than the walker
I had a lot of fun figuring out these loads proly shot a couple hundred up by the workshop doing it - both those guns loaded thusly will do close to ten ring size groups at 25 meters - IF - I can find a good enough rest position - if I can see good enough that day etc etc
So whats the point ? none really - We can tell Coffin maker is gettin bored in lockdown - I wuz sposed to go on tour with my work soon and thats off. plenty here to do but taint the same as on the road.
The verdict is (I think) CM's rattly drill idea and half engaged balls works ok with some filler or wads to take up the space but with 6 or 8 thou airspace in the grooves and a proper dose of powder we likely getting quite a bit of blast up around that ball enough to turn that nice group into ten inches or so -------if you shootin foot square plates at ten yards ? who cares?
Stay safe (and sane) out there