Clodwhang, #^%&&@* Crockett rifle anyways!!

[Three Hawks]

I took my new Crockett .32 to the GRMM Monthly shoot this morning (Sat, 5-2-09) and had a good time.  

Until the dang thing wouldn't allow a ball down the bore.

I tried to wipe the bore and got the rammer stuck. I got some help and got it out then had several guys offering sound opinions on the causes and cures of the problem.  Trouble was I had almost no tools or supplies along.

I got home and set up to clean it.  I decided to use the full house cleaning method with HOT water and soap.  I grated soap into the water off a bar of Ivory instead of using synthetic dish detergent.  I started cleaning with a cotton .40 cal bore mop instead of a patch on the jag as I didn't want to have a stuck rammer again.  The mop and soap really got things moving along well enough that I decided to risk sticking the jag again so I put on a patch and began scrubbing.  Until I stuck the GD jag again.  The rammer has a hole across the end for a pulling handle, I like a 3/32" allen wrench.  Got the jag out and noticed some hard, crusty black crap on the patch.  Interesting.  Pulled the nipple and vent plug screw and saw bits of hard carbon debris under both and visible in the breech.   Set up the mop, and went after it again, getting quite a bit of stuff out.  Looked again and junk was still in there.  

So.  While I was pondering on it I stood the barrel breech down in the bucket, leaned it against the porch railing and went to take a well deserved nap.  I discovered long ago that most problems can usually be solved with the aid of a good nap.  (Or the skillful application of high explosives.)

An hour and a half later, I set up a cleaning rod with a well worn .38 cal. nylon bore brush, reheated my bucket of soapy water and went to work.  Lots of garbage out of the breech.   I took rod in hand and once again risked sticking the rammer with a patch oiled with Ballistol.  This time I had a marked lack of failure.  I felt a rough spot in the breech, but the patch came out on the jag this time wihout the puller.   I oiled a fresh patch, loaded it with Bon Ami and went after the goo again. A dozen and a half good rubs later the breech felt smooth and was easily dried with dry patches.  

I reassembled the rifle and ran up to the range.  For an hour I loaded and shot using Ballistol as patch lube and got some interesting results.  .310" balls and 30 gr. 3F repeatedly gave me three shot groups between 4"& 5" with .010 patches.  .285" cast balls with .018" patches and 30 gr 3F did somewhat better, 3" three shot groups over and over again.  Those were the only RB's I had.  I want to find some .300"  RB's and some more lubes to try as well as different powder loads.  I want to start at 10 grains and work up in 5 gr. increments with .285", .300" and .310" with different patch materials and thicknesses.  

The load with .285" RBs loaded so easily I think I could have used a piece of raw spaghetti for a rammer.  It really bears more investigation and testing.

Somewhere there's that perfect .25 MOA load.  I just have to find it now that I have the barrel actually cleaned.

I'm thinking that the barrel had never been properly cleaned since it was new, or that someone had been using one of the fake powders in it.  Well, it's clean now and shooting.

Three Hawks

[Trois Castors]

it's clean now and shooting.

 

[Roaddog]

Glad ya got it shootin good. It sounds like you got it licked.

[Loyalist Dave]

Sounds like what happened to me using "pure" cotton patches that weren't, and the nylon or polyester or whatever it was melted inside the bore.  

Or, somebody could've wiped the bore with a synthetic cloth, and got some fibers left down there, which you melted on your first shot.  

LD

[Captchee]

BP fouling when left in the bore  carbonizes.  that’s the rock hard stuff you saw . Once it starts , it very hard to get out . In fact  a lot of time folks think they have a good clean rifle as their patches come out clean . But if one doesn’t look  but by feel and with a bore light  shined both out of the bore and down so you can see through the clean out ,. The carbonized fouling may still be their  and building up . Its actually so hard that   polishes  producing the clean patches .
 A good soaking and cleaning normally will get it out . Thought I have seen cases where  it  must be scraped out   because its gotten so hard that  water will not penetrate it  completely

[sse]

that’s the rock hard stuff you saw

When the smith guy worked on my rear site, he must have shook/banged some loose, because I swabbed before shooting and out it came.  Glad I swabbed.

[Three Hawks]

That crap was the color and consistency of the carbon layers on my favorite cast iron frying pan.  About every five years the missus gets all rowdy and makes me clean the outside of all my iron with Easy-Off oven cleaner.  An hour of soaking with that stuff on warmed iron gets rid of it all with no scrubbing, only a good wash afterward with good ol' soap and water to get all the chemicals off.  I think the active ingredient is caustic lye with some sort of bubbly compound to keep it wet and in place for a while.  I'm seriously contemplating using it to loosen and dissolve whatever bits and encrustations might still be in the barrel, then go the tight, wet patch and fine valve grinding compound route.  

But first I have to go back to the range and do some serious shooting from the bench.  I don't want to fix what ain't broke.

I checked my Lee dipper chart for BP and found that the dippers are quite close to five grain increments starting at 11.1 grains at .7 cc's and going to 58.9 gr. at 3.7 cc's.  

What fun it would be to be a fly on the wall while a country gunmaker was regulating the charge for a new rifle somewhere in backwoods  America in say, 1815 or 1820.   Would he have a set of measures?  Who made 'em and how were they regulated?  How about powder quality, consistency, and strength?  

One other thing.  I took the barrel downstairs yesterday, pulled the nipple and blew 120 psi compressed air through the bore with my soft nosed air nozzle.   That got some more bits of fouling out and dried the breech area.  I think compressed air will be part of my cleaning regimen from now on, at least with the small bores.

Three Hawks

[Sir Michael]

It sounds like before getting stuck you may have been loading down to the ring of stuff which was essentially creating a "patent breach" until you started knocking the front edge off and chipping away at it.  At least you didn't have to pull the breach and re-machine it like we talked about.  :clap

It's amazing what some people do to guns.  

[Three Hawks]

I went up to Kenmore this morning again, and have decided that 25 grains of 3F with either a .285 ball and an .020" patch or a .310 ball and an .010 patch is a good load.  I got both to shoot to center at 50  yards and make one raggedy hole about 2" in across.   At 100 if I hold at the top of the 12" bull both hit more or less center and make a 5" cluster.  I was using pure extra virgin olive oil as patch lube.  I'm gonna stick with it for this rifle.  Cheap and smells good.  

Since I'll probably never shoot at 100 yards again, I think I have the load I want.  Now to make a 25 grain measure to put on a string so I don't lose it.    

Cleaning this time was dead easy.   And using the compressed air
is a giant step forward in breech drying.  

Three Hawks

[IronDawg]

I just finished cleaning a 45 hawken a fella was shooting pyrodex in. I don't think the rifle had ever been cleaned. Dang wadda chore!

[mario]

A .285" round ball??

You shoot those one at a time?

 


Mario

[Three Hawks]

A .285" round ball??

You shoot those one at a time?

Mario

Yeppers, I do.  And yes, they're itty bitty lil' guys.    It took me nearly three years of searching, asking, sending letters and e-mails to find a .285" Lyman RB mold.  I wanted a .290, but settled for the smaller one before I got too old to care.

I'm trying to remember the formula for computing the weight of a lead roundball.   I think it is the dia. in thousandths of an inch cubed times 1502.6.  That makes a .285 RB weigh 34.8 grains, 5.2 grains lighter than the average .22LR bullet.  

If I was as smart and bulletproof as I was at 17, I could just slap 'em out of the way if I wanted to.  But I'm not and I can't.

Three Hawks

[Mike R]

An empty .38 special brass case holds 24 gr fffg and is what measure I use in my .32.  I made an antler measure ,but think I'll solder a loop to tbe .38 back and use it...hung from my bag strap.