Chainfire! Is it dangerous? 

Chain fire is a feature

Once again thank you for a very clear, well articulated presentation.

Blame the 1950's when everyone bought a kepi, rifled musket and cap and ball revolver and took them to the range in huge numbers. I suspect that there was a print campaign to promote safer loading practices that would accommodate every level of knowledge from "dedicated historical researcher" to "bought my kit at Kmart Saturday, does the ball or the powder go on top again?".

I have Colt Dragoon reproduction that I’ve been meaning to get out to the range. The instructions specifically state to use .457 or .458, and this reinforces the reason why. Thank you for the information!

I've been shooting C&B revolvers for over 60 years. In that time, I've had only one multiple discharge, on a 1969 mfg. AMS 2nd Mod. Dragoon. The cause was in the ball size. Normally, .454" balls were loaded in the traditional manner, with no ill effects. However, I was given a mould by a friend, being a conical bullet. The mould was marked as .452" diameter. And yes, one chamber was compromised by flame going past a seated conical bullet. After the incident, the remaining cast bullets were measured at .450". The chamber that this particular event occurred, measured .452". Very obvious that this allowed the incident. The mould that was at fault, was an early Lee single cavity mould. I have been casting and loading my own since a boy in the late 50's. All my moulds are Ideal or Lyman made. To this day, I'm not using Lee moulds, though I've tried a couple of the newer ones. They are not satisfactory, and have been discarded. Ideal, Lyman, and RCBS moulds are the only ones I use. I've accumulated close to 75 iron moulds, and they are without any faults. In closing, in C&B weapons, I always cast bullets to .002" to .004" larger than the largest measured chamber in the weapon's cylinder. No grease, wads, or other substances are used. Simply a properly fitted ball, and powder. And zero issues with multiple discharge in any...

I have a Colt Walker. I wouldn't want to use 60 grains of powder, so I use 30 grains but there would be an air space between the powder and a fully seated ball. In this case, a wad or ground wheat powder over the gunpowder is a must. An air space will cause the cylinder to blow up, possibly even with a small amount of powder.

I've got the 1852 Navy and use balls due to making paper cartridges and dip them in a mix of bees wax and tallow - have yet to have a chainfire with that SOP. Before I found out about that method, I had always smeared bore butter across the tops of the chambers - never had a chainfire, but that was a mess and a half, especially during summer. The wax/tallow mixture doesn't melt and isn't bothered by the heat and humidity in Florida - even firing during days with a 110+ heat index - and while it doesn't do anything for the cylinder, forcing me to give it a brushing every few loads to clean it out, it does wonders for the barrel. If you don't use paper cartridges, you can still roll out pea sized balls of the wax/tallow mix and the smush them into the cylinder after every chamber is loaded to protect against chainfires and keep the barrel clean.

When I was a kid, I came by a replica Remington San Marco Army special. I asked my neighbor, an avid muzzle-loader, to help me load it up and shoot it, and he cautioned me about the dreaded chainfire. I asked what I should do, and he said, "Well, you can stand behind a tree, and wrap your arms around, and fire the gun on the other side, and if you have a chainfire, it will only blow your fingers off, but you will live. Long story short, I did it, and he laughed his behind off as I tried it. Thank goodness there are no photographs. My most embarrassing gun moment.

I used to do reenacting and while I was in Artillery the pre-show orientation stated those with pistols keep one chamber empty as a 'safety'. I am considering purchasing a couple of Traditions revolvers, for collectors purposes but like anything else they will probably be fired at least once. Your videos are extremely informative, I'm delaying my purchase a couple of months now to go through your library and research everything I can. Thanks.

Slight oversized round balls when seated into the chamber shave a tiny ring off. That means there is a tight fit between ball and chamber. I use cornmeal as a filler because its cheap and because I generally load 25 gr of 3F powder, so there WOULD be a loose gap between powder and ball otherwise. Cornmeal filler is also a spark barrier. Using cornmeal filler you can also ensure a tight compacted load. A compact load is good to ensure that chambers don't get rocked loose and mess with burn consistency. Its also proponent for accuracy with every chamber ball seated at the same depth, which also means the ball engages grooves at same distance, etc. Anyway, I never had a chain fire.

An undersized ball could also leave powder in front of the rammed ball. I've never experienced a chain fire, but always just assumed that the were caused by the flash at the gap between the cylinder and barrel and a sloppy loading that left a fuse, so to speak, in the chamber and around the bullet for the other loads to misfire from. Using an undersized ball without a patch would be a good way to see this happen, imo.

Excellent instructions! Thank you. I have always thought revolving rifles were a bad idea, but back in the day, I expect chainfires were much less common.

I would imagine that, historically when cowboys casted their own lead and what-not, That the tolerances and safety precautions were not as precise as modern times. And they conceivably used a wide range of projectiles of any size that would work at all. Probably, also, there were not as many liability lawsuits over products and instructions being dangerous to the consumer. Like that movie A Million Ways to Die in the West. It was a dangerous time in history. So maybe old traditional products and instructions are outdated and less effective/efficient then modern technology/techniques. ...Maybe

Ruger Old Army ('84 vintage), .457 Hornady round balls & 30 grains of 3F (when you can find it!)... works every time!

Now I'm curious about how squibs act with undersized bullets

I've heard both camps. Use grease and no grease. The negative camps explanation is that with proper size projectiles, you'll see a shaving of lead. Proving there's a good seal and eliminating the risk of a chain fire. In my limited experience with C&B revolvers, I usually put a smear of crisco sealing the end of each cylinder chamber. I've never used a patch or felt wad. But living in Vermont, I don't have the problem of melting grease like he has in Arizona.

From my understanding, undersized projectiles are the main cause of chain fires; wax wads and "Bore Butter" perfectly seal the cylinder with a material that is able to prevent any ignition sources from getting into the other cylinders by "catching" and extinguishing any flame so it's nearly foolproof. You're correct in saying that using the correct size projectiles will also seal the chamber, but why people are still hesitant about that is because imperfections in the ball casting may leave sprews or uneven spots on the ball that will compromise that seal and could let in an ignition source. With modern casting and rolling methods, however, this is extremely unlikely. You can verify that the cylinder is sealed by looking at the ring of lead that is cut off of the ball when squeezing it into the cylinder; if there's a section of the ring missing, then you know there's a gap in the seal. That said, Wax or lube, in addition to wads, still have viable use cases in black powder firearms. They keep them clean and contain residue within a waxy or oily film that can be easily cleaned and wiped away, as well as providing lubrication and preventing fouling; which is why I still use them.

My one and only chain fire was with a Uberti made .36. I used the recommended no. 11 cap, pinched. I had .375 round ball, almost perfect lead rings. This was the first and last time I used revolver wads, and a grease patch. Upon firing my first round, all six chain fired. I have not used a wad, or grease patch since. I think mine was caused by some how i messed up with the caps, I can't think of anything else. The only damage to the gun was a small spot of bluing missing from the cylinder pin, and i had a ball stuck under the loading lever, my only damage was solved by changing my drawers.

I load in the new-old version, aka "the Oregonian" or "the naval pattern ". Powder, followed by paper wad/paper cartridge body, followed by ball, followed by a hefty plug of homemade Bore Butter, which is paraffin mixed with Crisco and melted while blending. The Crisco falls away in hottest climates, but the wax will remain as a residue. Also, several points you made were incredibly inaccurate. Yes, Colt said that. No, it's not a 'new' method to use wax and wad and wax-cover your caps... that's actually the US NAVY Standard of Arms for the 1861 Colt Navy, which was developed for use on Ironclads and sailing ships with a higher likelihood of powder-fouling due to higher atmospheric moisture content due to the spray of the sea. (Ref. Naval Arms and Operations of the United States, 1800-1900) I carry my Josephine this exact way, and have yet to experience a chainfire (cross my fingers), as that's what DGW (the manufacturer and distributor) suggested in their Manual of Arms, or I'd be shooting smooth-wall hollopoints that I can source which are made from the same soft lead as the swaged round ball. I simply know about the Navy MoA, because I come from a traditional military family, and my Grandad and sister were both in the Navy. It's not a well known or oft repeated piece of historical knowledge. I can say that the first person to make the concept standard in the Navy for all cap-and-ball revolvers, was none other than LtCmdr. Johnston Morgan of the Monitor. Little piece of historical facts for you.

I've been shooting cap and ball revolvers for about 25 years, and I have put thousands of rounds down range with them. I have never had a chain fire, and living in the deserts of Central Oregon, any grease that was available would just melt out in the heat. I have always used .451 round balls until recently. Plus, I have never had a cap jam in my Colt model. I guess that I have just had a good run with my guns. Although I have had caps fall off. I have found that CCI #11 caps fit loose, but if you grind the end of the nipple to shorten then then the caps fit great.

"I can't afford a shotgun" Colt: i got you bro!

I have fired thousands of rounds in a percussion revolvers (Remington) with all six chambers loaded but only 5 capped (for CAS events), never a chainfire with loose powder and balls... I cast my own balls from pure lead at .457" which shaves off a ring of lead on loading, so the fit is perfect, as good or better than a metal cartridge. The .457 balls actually have about a 1/8" bearing area when so shaved. Chambers are slightly chamfered at the mouth and all reamed to be perfectly round and .001" over groove diameter which I measured at a consistent .451". I have never, ever, had a chainfire in over 30 years of shooting, even with uncapped nipples on loaded chambers.....I have never used grease in the chamber mouths, and I imagine that back in the day it would have been a terrible idea as during carriage all sorts of dust and grit would collect and do the bore no good at all. Latterly, I have used paper cartridges with conicals, bullets lubed as for metallic cartridges. The conical mould I have makes .451" bullets, which are a bit marginal, but in the paper cartridges and with the grooves filled with lube in a lube/sizer they work very well. Both balls and conicals are very accurate, with pretty consistent velocities. I have a feeling that some commerically made balls are a) not consistent in size and b) not made of really pure soft lead...

Interesting note; I have a flask that looks exactly like yours. I got mine from CVA in Saybrook CN by mail with my Kentucky style percussion rifle. I initially loaded my Ruger Old Army with the balls I got with that rifle but I had to patch them because they were too small. I latter bought a mold to cast my own conical bullets and even later one to cast the ball for the rifle. This was back in the '70's when you could ship stuff like that through the mail.

Those cactuses are so beautiful in your location. They look so massive as well

You're not just an ally, you're a teacher. Thank you Karl. I need to watch more, learn more.

It's all about using a ball that fits the chamber. You should shave a thin ring when you seat the ball. Conicals go in paper cartridges.

Intriguing, I’ve never fired anything like that, probably never will, but a good thing to know regardless

I’ve shot cap and ball revolvers for decades and never had even two chambers discharge at the same time.

Someone on youtube actually has a slow motion video of a chain-fire that initiated from the nipple end of the gun. Very fascinating to study this video. I do think the more common chain-fire starts at the loading end of the cylinder and that nipple end chainfires are comparatively rare as long as proper fitting percussion caps are used at all times.

I have been on the wrong side of a chain fire. In front of the gun, not behind it. I carried a piece of a .44 cal round ball in my back for many years. I was 16 yrs old and stupid. (Don't judge). In later years, I became very involved with civil war reenacting. Rather than use wonder wads to prevent chain fires. I learned to use cornmeal. Very effective (at least for blanks) and historically accurate.

Using the proper ammo is the safest opition. Who could have tought of that.

With the stocked revolver, with a hand under the barrel, a chain fire is substantially more exciting!

Is it dangerous?! Are the Kennedy's Gun shy?

Properly fitted and seated caps, good ring of lead shed off, no lube.Tens of thousands of rounds over the last 30 years, never had a chain fire. Keep your powder dry👍

I miss my black powder revolver. Theyre so much fun to operate

More than one shot per trigger pull? Say goodbye to your dag!

I have a brass frame Pietta 1851 Colt in .44. I use .454 round ball which is oversize and shaves off a thin ring of lead on each ball I load. I do not use a wad but smear a 50/50 mix of beeswax and coconut lard over the ball and have fired many thousands of rounds over the last 25 years I have had the gun. I have had a chain fire twice in that time. Both times it was in very hot weather (here in Queensland Australia) and was the next chamber to the right and the ball went skipping down the range and was not a big deal. I did not think it could ever be a problem. Then I was shooting one day with another guy who had a Navy Arms 1851 steel frame in .36. He fired a shot which sounded unusual then the revolver jammed. On inspection it was evedent that the lower chamber had chain fired and the frame was visibly bent. I would not have thought this possible but there you go.

I always kept a small can of Crisco to dab the end of the cylinders of my Walker Colt replica after I loaded it. My friends like to make fun of this, until one of them fired his Pepper Box, chainfired every chamber, and watched with horror as the front half of the gun dropped off like in a cartoon. Luckily no one was hurt because he had thrust the gun away from himself when the other chambers started going off, hanging on with only two fingers . No fingers lost though, which I thought was a miracle.

If you load a roundball and don't get a lead ring shaved off when seating the ball your roundball is under sized.

I had it happen to me many years ago. 4 out of the 6 fired at once. It was definitely eye opening, but it caused no damage to either me or the gun.

I have limited practical knowledge, but a lot of youtube knowledge since I have always wanted a cap and ball revolver. What is not being discussed are the lesser quality of the modern replicas compared to original colts. Most if they want to use conicals last I heard must elongate the loading slot that is just in front of the lower cylinder. It is my understanding that often other tolerances are out of spec in these modern guns. Many replace the nipples on their replicas with those provide a more secure grip or hold on the caps. And a better seal on the front end of the cylinder is the more obvious solution that one can readily understand vs flame around and between the nipple and the cap is not so obvious.

Any unintentional fire(chain fire included) is potentially dangerous. Usually not, but the possibility exists.

Wonder Seals….never had a chainfire using these wax seals.

atf says its a machine gun... (checks notes) oh black powder, its ok

When loading 45 Colt with blackpowder i have a piece of glansy paper (slightly oversized and 1mm thick) on the powder, the some lube suited for blackpowder and last the bullet. It should be fine in a cap ´n ball revolver too to prevent the lube to melt and mess up your holster. Anyhow, i have not had a single chain fire in my guns, and i have been shooting cap ´n ball guns since 1997.

Hey InRange. I couldn't tell from the vid, do the original colts have the half notch safety in the cylinder like the Pieta repros i have or is that a modern addition? Shout out to Blunderbuss in Denver Colorado for walking me through my early days of Black Powder

Beautiful revolver. It’s a very nice piece and you must be proud to own it. It’s certainly in the right hands in my opinion. Is that patina on the surface, was it russeted for that period, or both?

Thank you for the info Carl

Anonymous internet armchair experts are always going to mouth off with arrogant condescension. These type of people will almost never watch this and admit they were wrong/full of shit, they'll just ignore it. Keep on keepin' on, man. Good work!

Very good information.

This is a very cool video.

As mentioned in a reply below I use a large enough ball to cut a ring off. No chain fire yet in around 30 years of black powder shooting. Knock on wood. 😉

I have never had it happen with properly sized balls

The felt wad does keep the bore cleaner.

I always thought it was kinda impossible to get chain-fires with right size ball in a right size chamber.......... My issue is cap jams on 1851 Navy, ever since Rem #10 has discontinued. Was there problems with cap jams with Colts in the 1860s or is this also a 21st thing..........

I don't know anything about these guns but I consider this guy a firearms expert so I'm inclined to believe what he says here. Also I understand mechanical things pretty well and everything he said made total sense. I wonder how fast the chain fire balls leave the cylinder. I would think they would have almost no velocity on them. That is really cool that he has a revolver from the 1800s that you can actually shoot. I would like to shoot a real one like that. Shooters back then really had it rough with their guns. That would have been a huge hassle to have to deal with that every time you want to shoot. And then if it starts raining you probably end up with a loaded gun that won't even fire. Those guys back then would be so impressed with what we have now. I love studying the technological progression of firearms.

For your dog's sake, I hope the ATF doesn't consider that a machine gun.

Im just going to add a caveat 457-459 with 60 grains is way too much recoil for accuracy and almost seemed gun damaging 45-50 imo much bettet

I used to hear from my great grandfather ( who's grandfather fought in the Civil war) they only used grease for water protection which would make more sense to me

Brilliant

ATF: that's a machine gun.

No, it's how you manage the heat of your weapon. It is always more preferable to group fire in most sittuation.

When pressing in my round balls, I usually get a miniscule amount of lead shaved off....I always thought this was a good thing. Am I off base?....I also usually put a bit of heavy grease up front.

Can it occur without pulling the trigger? Asking for Alec Baldwin…

My son's did chain fire quite a bit

Never had it happen. If you use the proper balls its impossible. Then for extra safety use bore butter. It takes a huge amount of errors to make a chain fire happen.

I never see ancient shotgun revolver...

Could do a chain fire with the slo mo guys.

If it's modified in 38 special and only 38 special could chanfiring still happen with a modified 1851 Colt navy ? ...

Did they possibly wax over the cylinder to seal it up?

Add barrels to all 6 chambers, then you have bonus damage rng

@InrangeTv >>> Great video...👍

saw a guy at the range using corn starch to prevent chainfire

The big worry with chainfire historically was the military attempting to adopt Revolver Rifles. Chainfires aren't great with a revolver but it's not going to blow your hand off like it will if your off hand is braced in front of it.

Nice to see someone adressing this correctly! To add to the problem, the chambers on original Colt percussion revolvers are not cylindrical, they are slightly conical, larger at the mouth than deeper down. With too small balls, they are more easibly able to ”roll forward” in the chamber under revolvers (since they were too small to befinner with). As they roll forward they are now even more undersized then when they were (loosely) seated further down in the chamber. Thus, there is nothing stopping the flame from igniting the gunpowder. Anders Olsson

I now want Slow Mo Guys to film a chain fire.

2:21 Some certain tall tankman may coin the phrase "a significant emotional event"

I was always taught that if you weren't shaving a ring of lead off of your ball when you rammed it home, you weren't getting a proper seal and you needed to use a bigger projectile. Glad to know I haven't been doing it wrong all these years. I have balls sized to each of my revolvers, and all of my nominally .44 revolvers take a slightly differently sized projectile.

@Inrange - Thanks Karl. It's been you and duelist1954 that got me into black powder shooting, and this is one wives tale that will never die. The video was great, informative, to the point, and showed the problem and explanation, perfect as far as I'm concerned.

I've always heard to either use projectiles big enough where a circular ring is cut off by the chamber, use grease otherwise.

I always enjoy your historical videos Carl. You have a way of explaining the information that is easily digested by the layman.

There is so much missing knowledge of historical black powder loading. I bought a reproduction musket and went to a black powder store to get musket balls for it. They got me all spun up on needing patches, ball starters, and such like that. I actually asked the proprietor if this is how they did it back in the day, because I couldn't imagine getting off more than one shot every three minutes with the loading ordeal being described. Then I did my research and found that all I needed was to paper-wrap my cartridges, haha.

That slow motion footage was dope 👍🔥...🔥🔥

I’ve probably fired a cap n ball revolver around 500-1000 times in my life so far and that probably puts me in the top 1 percent of people who have actually shot these guns in the modern era. I’ve never had a chain fire using .454 round balls and Remington caps. I also have a Kerr bullet mold and never had issues with those projectiles

Your theory of undersized projectiles makes sense, and the practical replication of chainfire by changing solely the projectile size variable is compelling. It's fascinating seeing how the manual of arms has changed over time - reminds me of the weird ritualistic stuff that modern black-powder shooters do; the manual of arms in ye olde days is significantly more cavalier with regards to all kinds of things that the typical modern black-powder aficionado insists must be done.

Really enjoyed this one. As a young man I had a chain fire once on an Italian repro .36. Yes I was using round balls and usually they cut a small ring or part of one. I’d used some sort of grease/lube in the past and probably did this day on at least the first cylinder orr two. I was shooting with a friend and we’d both taken several turns with the pistol when the accident happened. I thought at the time I’d gotten a little sloppy or too casual in my reloading etc. but perhaps there was an off sized or damaged ball in the mix. Fortunately it was just one extra chamber & no one was hurt nor was the pistol damaged. It did give us a good scare and I think we called it a day and I gave the pistol a good cleaning. Thankfully it never happened again.

as someone not well versed in black powder firearms this was very educational

What if you sealed the bullets into their chambers by dripping melted wax crayons into them, and applied a little around each cap? Could that prevent chain fire even in the heat, make the gun a lot more water-resistant _and_ finally explain why Marines like having crayons around?

I have personally experienced a chain fire. It was *NOT* caused by not having grease over the chamber mouths. It happened because a couple caps fell away from the cones on some unfired chambers on a Pietta Navy LeMat reproduction. It tore off the loading lever and sent it downrange. It was one of the scariest range mishaps I have directly experienced, and ended my day of shooting, though with no injuries. I had fired the center grapeshot bore first before I fired the regular charges, and I think this contributed to the accident. Pietta LeMats have a known issue where no. 11 size caps fit rather loose on the cones.

I have been shooting muzzle loading revolvers for over 40 years. I have seen another thing that will cause a chain fire. Some competitive shooters want the ball to be close to the muzzle of the chamber to improve accuracy by limiting the amount of travel a bullet has in the chamber before entering the breach of the barrel. They are also shooting light loads so put a filler like corn meal (wads are not allowed with my group) to fill or almost fill the chamber. Because corn meal is fairly compressible, they compress the corn meal when loading. After applying grease to the end of the chamber, this can cause the bullet to back out of the chamber during recoil. I believe this is due to the pressure the corn meal exerts to push the bullet back out. Also, the mouth grease makes it easier for round to back out and an undersized ball makes this even worse. So if you ever notice you have trouble cocking your revolver because the next ball won't clear the cylinder/barrel gap, you are a chain fire waiting to happen. Don't put it down to failure to seat the ball in the chamber deep enough, consider that the ball is working loose due to recoil. Chain fires can happen because of caps falling off. It was is said that it happened more often with revolvers with large areas around the nipples rather than Colts, Remingtons, etc. with a smaller clearance.

Have heard Karl talking about over size projectile countless time before explaining why it won't cause a chainfire in his previous video already. Wish people pay attention when watching.

One of my grandpa’s neighbors lost most of his fingers to a BP revolver blowing up. That was, however, because he’d loaded smokeless powder. He didn’t really know anything about guns and this was in the mid 60’s

Use an oversize ball, I used .457" balls in my Uberti Remington 1858. Never had one chain fire in I don't know how many rounds

Ive only dabbled a little bit in black powder, but I jave always assumed that a .45 ball was actually like 5 thousandths or so over, just so it would scrape off any excess diameter of lead, and thus sealing the chamber. Now my dabbling in black powder i blame specifically on Carl for showing that blunderbuss and when I stumbled on one (seems to be french 1922? Entienne) i had to get it and been cleaning her and fixing her and reading about her. Cant wait to see if she works.

I was introducing a friend to cap and ball revolver shooting after he bought a Pietta . 44 1858 Remington. He had read online about chain fires and was ready to fill the chamber mouths with lube. I began shooting C&B revolvers when I was 15 and was in my mid 40's at the time. I had shot so much that I completely shot loose several repro revolvers. At the time I had a few 1858's, 1860 Army, EMF Texas Dragoon, and a few Pietta 1851 .44's (I know, not historically correct). I had fired C&B revolvers thousands of times and, like you, had never experienced a chain fire. I expressed this to him and he proceeded to load like I did with no grease. I cast my own balls in a .457 mould and he was using swaged .454 balls. To my absolute amazement, the very first time he pulls the trigger on his C&B wheelguns, he has a chain fire. Lighting off the top 3 chambers! I'm not going to say it changed my way of loading at all, but I found it funny! He didn't, but I did!

Appling grease/lube to the chamber mouth will not prevent chain fire if the projectile is undersize, if you fire a fully loaded percussion revolver then look at the front of the cylinder you will see that there is no lube left, it has all been blown away by the first shot, but if a correct size projectile is loaded,( as you do), leaving a ring of lead, there is no chance of chain fire from the front, unless the chamber is in some way damaged leaving a flame path, the problem with a lot of todays shooters is that they have a very casual sloppy attitude when shooting C&B, so use oversize caps, or worst still squeeze them to stay on the nipple, and use bought in undersize projectiles, if you look at a slow motion video of a C&B being fired you will see the rear of the cylinder is engulfed with flame at chamber pressure, given a loose, or missing cap that is where chain fires occur, the problem is made worst by the mainspring being weak, allowing the hammer to blow back from the nipple, bang bang! This is an excellent video made by someone that knows the subject! Stay safe! Chris B.

I mean that makes sense; what else prevents it from happening in modern revolvers? Propellant is sealed off by the brass case and a properly sized projectile

I have shot pound after pound of powder through thirty six caliber navy I received the pistol with a mold that was just shy of enough diameter to shave the ring Of lead So I used to patch With crisco Because it was 36 caliber.I would use more than one projectile I'd never had a chain fire from there on out So do what they did way back then.Never use greece and never use watting 😂

forget the grease crap they never used it nor ran around with the tin of it,and a looly pop stick now required on a range NO they used the correct size ball ,that when loaded leaves a ring of lead ,ball seated correctly will not chain fire have been using a .44 cal Remington for yonks and never have i had one ,to be doubly sure make a disc of 50/50 bees wax and paraffin wax cut discs with a 44.40 cartridge with the end removed makes a cookie cutter a small amount of baby powder to stop sticking together and just push into the end of the chamber ,but correct size balls o it will never happen,i make the discs about 1/8-3/16ths of n inch in thickness ,just pour the heated wax into a shallow tray cool and start cutting with the 44.40 shell for a 44 cal ,other cals check what works.

Extremely informative and factual and presented with repeatable evidence, thanks, Karl. I was not expecting a purposefully induced chain fire but that's exactly what this type of video and discussion needed. I'll know what's best to do when I get my own 1860 or Starr one of these days now.