Saturday I went to the range and took a number of centerfire pistols and a Pietta 1858 I had picked up a few months back at a gun show. I went to load the 1858 and apparently got a slightly over-sized ball. It came from a box of Hornady .44 caliber balls I had used with at least 5 other bp revolvers. It would only go about half way into the cylinder as seen below, no matter how hard I tried..
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I pulled the cyinder out and when I got home I hammered a pocket knife into it with rubber mallet. It pried out easy ..

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I have since tried loading more balls and it loaded as expected. I did not get to shoot it Saturday because the cylinder would not rotate with that ball sticking half way out. I had 4 friends with me at the range and I just put it away and shot other stuff.

eta: the suspect ball below..
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I have 10 bp guns and have never encountered that kind of thing before, but I guess if you shoot enough you'll eventually encounter everything.

When shooting BP Hawken I would take out the nipple, pour a SMALL amount of powder in the chamber, replace nipple and cap, and fire.

Way too large of a ball. Measure the chamber diameter and size .010 over for the ball. Most 44 pistols come in near .444 and .451 balls work well.

I have tried loading more balls since I got home and it worked as expected. Looks like I just pulled an over-size ball out of the box when at the range. It was cool weather out at the range that morning and I suppose that could have had an effect but I doubt it. Just appears to be an over-size ball maybe got past Honardy's quality control, if they have any on that.