Traditional Muzzleloading Association
Shooting Traditional Firearms and Weapons => General Interest => Topic started by: RobD on August 31, 2018, 08:12:44 PM
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Some flinters just don't need much fouling control, if any. That's purty much my JB .62 smoothbore. It's a "load, fire, load" kinda gun, with gato feo greased patching either via a ball board or cut at the muzzle. Which means I don't need to mess with patched jags down the bore for fouling control. Loading becomes a breeze immediately after a shot is taken ...
1. blow down the barrel with moist breath to keep the bp residue soft
2. measure out the 3f bp powder charge and pour down the tube, thump the stock to settle the powder column
3. align the ball board and thumb down the patched ball (or patch strip over the muzzle, thumb down the ball, cut off the patch excess)
4. extract the ramrod straight up out of the pipes, then straight down, seating the ball (no rod flipping required)
5. bounce the rod to compact seat the patched ball on the powder charge, lift up and replace the rod straight down into the pipes
6. address the lock if it needs cleaning and the touch hole if it needs picking
7. prime the pan with 3f
My JG .40 flinter is whole 'nother story. It builds up chamber crud fast and is most reliable when I run a dried moose milk patch down its tube between shots. This means I've got a slight juggling act to contend with on a woods walk trail after a shot is taken ...
1. grab a dry lube patch from the shooting bag, lift up the ramrod, flip it around so the jagged end can push down the patch, extract the patch and put it in the dirty patch bag on my belt, and hold the rod in my left hand (I'm a righty)
2. grab the fixed charge powder measure hanging off my pouch strap with my left hand whilst still holding the rod in that hand, grab the powder horn with my right hand and pull out the stopper with my teeth, measure out the 3f bp powder charge, replace the horn stopper still held in my teeth and let it go, move the filled powder measure from my left hand to my now free right hand and pour down the tube, thump the stock to settle the powder column (i've still got the rod clutched in my left hand)
3. move the rod to my right hand, grab and align the ball board to the muzzle with my left hand, hold the board with my right hand (still clutching the rod) and left hand thumb down the patched ball, release the ball board
4. use both hands to mate the rod with the patched ball in the muzzle and seat it on the powder column
5. bounce the rod to compact seat the patched ball on the powder charge, the rod is flipped around and goes back down the pipes
6. address the lock if it needs cleaning and the touch hole if it needs picking
7. prime the pan with 3f
ain't all dis stuff fun? :applaud :wave :*:
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It sure is fun, Rob! :bl th up
All my flinters I've built over the years - the touch hole's are located approximately 1/8th to 5/32nds ahead of the face of the breech plug. It makes for great/sure ignition. Yes sir, the flintlock - greatest invention ever! :bl th up
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blow down the barrel with moist breath to keep the bp residue soft
DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!
Blowing down the barrel has resulted in injuries and loss of life.
I know this is controversial but it is true
IronHand
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blow down the barrel with moist breath to keep the bp residue soft
DO NOT DO THIS!!!!!!!!!
Blowing down the barrel has resulted in injuries and loss of life.
I know this is controversial but it is true
IronHand
if you are a sane and common sense person, blowing down the barrel immediately after firing is not only safe, it's a safety measure. this was done and condoned by the NMLRA until it became politically insurance incorrect, and then the centuries old practice was banned.
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QUESTION -
What do the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and New York’s Mayor Bloomberg all agree on??
ANSWER -
They all know what’s good for you, better than you do yourself!
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It’s A Libertarian Thing
An article by B'wana Bob ...
The bedrock rule of firearms safety that we all follow is - ‘Always treat a gun as being loaded’. I am a buckskinner and re-enactor with the ‘persona’ of a revolutionary war farmer and, although I like to shoot and hunt, ‘paper punching’ at a match has always been viewed more as a duty to support my club than as a fun activity in its own right. I recently moved to a new town and, not having been involved with organized muzzle loading for years, I decided to join a local muzzle loading club. On my first shoot day, after laying out all my shooting gear and loading up my rifle, I approached the firing line with just a little anxiety. Happily, all went well and, after my rifle fired, with only the usual little delay of an out-of-practice flint lock, standing on the firing line I blew down the barrel. I was immediately startled by a bellowed “Never do that again!” from a by-stander. A little annoyed at the forwardness of the individual, but not wanting to make a scene at my first match, I thanked him for his concern and went to the bench to reload. It was then that I learned that this club has a safety rule forbidding blowing down the gun barrel and a range officer whose job it is to enforce it.
Ok, reloading and returning to the firing line again, I was frustrated that my rifle, a good flint lock and usually very reliable, could not be induced to discharge. After multiple attempts, I finally noticed a little wisp of cloth coming from the touch hole at my breech. My vent was plugged solidly by a fragment of patching. As I left the firing line to pull the ball, I recalled that on blowing down the barrel I had noticed increased resistance to my effort. Distracted by the range officer’s outburst, this had gone right by me, and as a result, I now had some unnecessary and potentially hazardous work to do - removing a charged ball, that I feel could have been easily avoided.
Gun safety with me is very important. Is muzzleloading shooting unsafe? Potentially, yes. Among many other things, it only takes someone carelessly pointing the muzzle of their gun after a misfire or a hang fire, or a yahoo firing a ‘duplex load’ of black and smokeless powder, or someone firing with the ball stuck half-way down the barrel, to immediately generate extremely unsafe conditions for nearby shooters and, frequently, themselves. I simply do not participate in an activity where I feel unsafe, and yet I regularly blow down the barrel of my gun.
I define blowing down the barrel as, immediately after discharging a muzzle loading firearm firing black powder and while still at the firing position, blowing down the barrel to initiate the process of reloading the gun. Is this an exception to our bedrock rule of always treating a gun as if it’s loaded? You betcha. I just fired the gun, I know it’s unloaded. Furthermore, after experiencing the heat and pressures of discharge, it’s utterly impossible that it still could be loaded - and ‘impossible’ is a word that I use very, very rarely. Could there be a spark, a glowing ember, still burning down there in the gook of black powder residue? Well, yes, that’s exactly why I do it, but the ember can’t hurt the blower as long as there is no added powder thrown down the bore.
The cardinal rule of safe gun handling is - “Always treat a gun as if it is loaded”, but every rule has exceptions or we couldn’t clean our guns. A blanket policy forbidding the blowing down of a gun’s barrel immediately after discharge, raises this otherwise essential rule of shooting to the level of a fetish. “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, …”
Blowing down the barrel is not, as some say, a mindless ritual. While blowing, watch the plume of powder smoke coming from the touch hole or nipple. It should blossom and then disappear while you continue to blow. If it persists, you have a problem. If there is no plume, as happened with me at that range, then your vent or nipple is plugged, or even your breech and, again, you have a problem.
Blowing down the barrel of a firearm before loading has been practiced for hundreds of years. Audubon in 1805 describes a coon hunter loading his rifle, preparing to set out on a night’s hunt.
“He blows through his rifle to clear it, ….”
We can only speculate where this practice originated, but several hundred years ago, black powder was not the uniform, cleanly burning product with which we are familiar now. Reportedly, E. I. DuPont got into the black powder business because he saw that the quality of the available powders was so poor. Additionally, wet or poorly stored black powder cakes and the clumps must then be broken up before firing. It is reasonable to me that blowing down the barrel was a natural and effective response to this problem of inconsistent black powder; the blast furnace-like effect of the oxygen forced down the barrel extinguishing any last lingering embers in the clumps of partially burned powder residue while simultaneously clearing any remaining debris from the touch hole and softening the black powder residue.
Do unexpected ignitions occur with today’s powders? Danged right! In an article in the February 2002 issue of ‘Muzzleblasts’ entitled “The Other Guy”, the author describes firing his rifle at a target. He then poured powder down the barrel, used short starter to place a patched ball in the muzzle, and then, as he pushed the ball down the muzzle with his ramrod, having the firearm discharge. His conclusion, stated to me orally, was that there was an ember somewhere down the barrel that had ignited the powder prematurely. Would blowing down the barrel have prevented this? Of course I don’t know, but it surely wouldn’t have hurt and I strongly suspect that it would have prevented the unexpected discharge. How about my own situation at that new club, where a fragment of patching somehow had remained in my barrel, actually plugging the touch hole at the second shot? It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envision that cloth patching smoldering away, needing only the arrival of the next powder charge to initiate an unexpected and possibly fatal discharge of the firearm, a discharge that I feel would have been avoided if the blockage was discovered on my blowing down the barrel.
In my opinion, far from being a safety hazard, blowing down the barrel at a range immediately after firing is actually the time-tested mandatory first step in reloading a traditional muzzle loader shooting black powder, ensuring that it is now safe to proceed with pouring powder down the bore. Swabbing the bore with a wet patch is certainly a suitable alternative, but it takes more time and effort and, especially with patent breeches, unless a second, smaller diameter swab is used, the entire breech may not be reached. Why not just use a tube to blow down the barrel? Because it’s a clumsy solution to a nonexistent problem.
Where did this ban on blowing down the barrel originate? In a Presidential Message written by Tom Schiffer of the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (NMLRA) in February 1992, he described blowing down the barrel as a harmless ‘ritual’, but still a bad habit that can lead shooters to be distracted “when the shooter is concentrating on the alignment hold and release” and make some undefined hazardous mistake. The NMLRA has never held that blowing down the barrel, as I have defined it, is dangerous in itself.
President Schiffer made two basic arguments in supporting their position:
First, a person might be blowing down the fired barrel of a double barrel gun with the other barrel still loaded. This argument is absurd. You never put your face in front of even a potentially loaded gun, double barrel or not. If you are prone to being so absent minded, you also shouldn’t be permitted to go out alone or have things like a driver’s license.
The second argument was that a shooter may not notice that the gun they thought they had just fired actually had experienced only a severe hang fire, and it may then fire as the shooter blows down the barrel. This tragedy apparently actually happened with a woman who was new to muzzleloading. It’s hard for me to understand how anybody could fail to realize, after shooting the firearm even once, what a real discharge feels like. The smallest muzzleloading rifle I am aware of, a .25 caliber caplock, leaves no doubt when it has fired. I feel that if you cannot tell if a gun has discharged or not, you simply aren’t ready to be out there shooting, unsupervised. Several years ago there was a dreadful death in the state of West Virginia when a father, thinking the gun unloaded, blew down the barrel of his son’s gun which had actually experienced only a hangfire. A marked ramrod is always used to determine if a gun is loaded or not. The common denominator in both these terrible incidents is that the cardinal rule, ‘Always treat a gun as being loaded’ was ignored.
Not mentioned by the NMLRA, I have also read the argument that on blowing down the barrel you may accidentally burn your lips. I don’t know what firearm you use, but I don’t shoot a flame thrower.
It seems to me that in eliminating this time-tested method for extinguishing residual embers in a muzzleloader firing black powder, the NMLRA has, quite arbitrarily, actually inadvertently increased the hazards of firing muzzle loading firearms, not decreased them. Handling firearms is inherently dangerous. Arbitrarily, why not have a rule requiring an ‘expert’ range officer to confirm that all balls are fully resting on the powder before that gun can be discharged? An airspace below the ball is infinitely more dangerous then blowing down the barrel of a just-discharged gun.
In summary, I feel that blowing down the barrel of a muzzle loader using black powder immediately after discharge actually INCREASES firearms safety, and the NMLRA, while agreeing that it is not a dangerous practice in itself, has arbitrarily decided that the threat of setting a dangerous example for others overrules this value. As an analogy, semi-automatic rifles mechanically all work the same way, but they can be ‘dressed up’ to look quite different. Senator Feinstein notoriously has wanted to outlaw mililtary-style semi-automatic rifles because they look scary. It appears to me that the NMLRA has actually banned blowing down the barrel immediately after discharge primarily because it looks scary.
Would I object to a NMLRA rule stating something like;
“In a firearm using black powder, blowing down the barrel of the gun immediately after discharge and before moving from the firing line is strongly discouraged as being a practice that may result in harm under certain situations, but is not actually forbidden”?
Not at all, I think that this would actually be a good idea, pointing out the possible dangers of this practice for careless, inexperienced, or ignorant people.
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"It Finally Happened To Me"
An article by Mike Nesbitt in his featured "Shooting the Bull" November/December 2013 Muzzleloader Magazine column.
Mike took a fouling shot with his .54 flintlock. The ignition was a bit slow, but it went off anyway. Without any fouling control administered, Mike began pouring down a charge of 50 grains of 2FG black powder. As it trickled down the tube, the few grains of powder in the tube blew up and ignited the contents of his fixed powder measure. Fortunately, Mike was only shaken up and had some very numb and sooty fingers that were quenched in cool water. The measure was blown far away and he was lucky his head wasn't over the muzzle.
THIS IS WHY WE BLOW DOWN THE BARREL ... get it?
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I'm one of those who blow down the barrel after the shot. I know once the gun has fired that it won't fire again until it's loaded again. I think it helps keep the vent hole clear.
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I'm one of those who blow down the barrel after the shot. I know once the gun has fired that it won't fire again until it's loaded again. I think it helps keep the vent hole clear.
Same here, be it a flint or cap lock ignition, I want to know those port's are open,,, and if there would by chance be a small ember still smoldering in the breach (such happened with Mike N. by not blowing down the barrel) by the time you finished blowing down the barrel - set the rifle down - charged your charger - pour your charge into the muzzle - well that ember would be long gone.
There's no way IMHO anyone could mistake their muzzle loading firearm going off or not going off... If they don't know the difference, then they are the biggest danger on any firing line - not the person who blows down their barrel after their shot.
:shake
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Getting back to the original topic,
Woods walk flintlock management:
Flintlocks are each and every one a law unto themselves. Some need more TLC than others. The point of the woods walk in my opinion, is to work all that out. A woods walk will get you away from your tool box and teach you what you need to carry in your shooters bag and most importantly, what you do not need to carry in it.
I just came home from a rendezvous where we had a 21 target woods walk. If your flinter is going to give you any problems it will show up there. Everyone has a slightly different procedure for loading and maintaining their flint locks according to what their gun likes. Most of the shooters had no issues completing their 21 shots. A few had some hang fires and miss-fires with new to them firearms and a couple of shooters had to retire and make repairs.
I enjoy woods walks and events with 20 to 100 shots. It exposes any issues you might have with your equipment of procedures so you can correct them.
BTW- I don't blow into or suck on any part of a firearm.
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Steve, what kind of event has 100 shots? At my age, I don't think I would have enough time to shoot it. ::)
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"Steve, what kind of event has 100 shots? At my age, I don't think I would have enough time to shoot it."
Saturday before last, our gun club youth event. I loaded one of my 50 cal percussion rifles 100 + times for the kids to shoot metal silhouettes. There were three other gentlemen (one with a flintlock) who did the same. I do this once a year now, in Dallas I did it twice a year with the safari club.
You will discover any weakness in your equipment.
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Sounds like a lot of fun and work at the same time. I'm afraid I'd be the weakness you're talking about.
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MORE than a few times i've had to keep blowing down the tube because there WAS an ember in the chamber that needed to get extinguished,
HOW do you know there is a chamber ember? as you blow, smoke continues to pour out the touch hole or nipple. your breath is "fanning the fire".
normally it takes only one short breath and a quick puff of smoke is expelled, and the mandatory subsequent breath pushes only air, signifying the barrel and chamber and touch hole/nipple are clear and SAFE.
HOW do you know when the smoldering ember is no longer? when the continued force of your breath stops the smoke from coming out the touch hole or nipple, and only air streams out.
the olde tymers knew a thing or two about their long arm muzzleloaders.
while the act of sticking yer head and mouth over the muzzle to blow down it is forbidden at NMLRA and most local club ranges and matches, a short length of neoprene tubing allows the practice to both abide by the rules and allow the safety check to be effected.
yes, a by-product of blowing down the barrel is that moist breath keeps the bp fouling residue soft, for an easier reload.
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Of the millions of times we have blown down the barrel, how many actual documented discharges have occured? I bet not enough to be statistically relevant. Someone talked to a lawyer at one time, to get this stupid idea of not blowing down the bore. I'd wager this has caused more accidents than blowing down the tube.
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James Audubon, circa 1810
"… He blows through his rifle to ascertain that it is clear, examines his flint, and thrusts a feather into the touch-hole. To a leathern bag swung at his side is attached a powder-horn; his sheath-knife is there also; below hangs a narrow strip of homespun linen."
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As some of you might have noticed over the years, I do have a leaning towards larger than average caliber firearms. For example, it is pretty difficult to wonder if the rifle went off when it is burning 200 grains of powder and pushing out a 555 grain round ball. If nothing else, the cloud of smoke in front of you is a definite tell tale sign.
I could really care less about what the NMLRA says, as I seriously doubt if I will ever be shooting at Friendship again.
But, it does seem kinda stupid to go sticking the muzzle of a rifle into your mouth unless you are contemplating suicide. So, I just don't do it. If any of you want to, well just go ahead and puff on that puppy, but myself, I think I will refrain.
I recall several years ago, Butler Creek Products brought out a blow tube for muzzleloaders. I did give it a try and it did feel better than having the rifle barrel in my mouth, but it was kind of a pain in the patutty using it.
So, I think I will just go ahead and continue wiping with a slightly damp patch, if at all.
John
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if you wipe with a damp or dry lube patch there is no need for barrel blowing and will better care for fouling.
however, for those who don't administer any form of fouling control between shots, you are at risk of a hot spot in the chamber when you pour down a measured charge, just exactly as happened to mr. nesbitt. you should consider yer options for safeties sake.
the business of individual ownership of control of our lives has been muddied if not watered down or totally removed as the encroaching modern decades and their thinking have pervaded everything in our lives. we are taught things that make us rely on the opinions and herd mentality of others rather than allowing individual common sense to rule. just look at all these regulations and outright laws one must contend with in this 21st century as compared the to early 20th century and prior. today, we are considered just not smart enuf to live a safe life without gobs of control by literally everyone. we are at the mercy of those whose foremost goal is to protect the stupid at the expense of the smart. and all at the cost of individual freedoms. this goes against the laws of nature where the weak and stupid are allowed to be culled out of the genetic strain, to allow the strong and smart to best survive and become dominant.
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I do not feel comfortable pointing a gun at ANYTHING that I do not specifically intend to shoot at. My father taught me that as did his father taught him... Dangerous muzzle direction is a bad habit that is universally the cause for every single accidental death by firearm that ever was. I also avoid (as best I can) the leaving any body part over the muzzle of any gun I am cleaning or loading (including my hand on top of the ramrod) be it 18thC or 21stC. You that blow down the muzzle of your gun can huff and puff and call it historically correct, or look at me and call me the result of modern herd mentality or political correctness or whatever you want. You obviously dont know me... and I dont know you so it means exactly nothing either way, but safe barrel direction guarantees that I will never ever shoot anything that I do not specifically intend to... I like experiencing "life" in the 18th C. not death... When I see some shooter sticking a muzzle in their mouth at an event or in the woods, I simply walk away and do my shooting on the line as far away from them as possible. I don't begrudge any man his bad or stupidly arrogant habit (God knows I have plenty), I just have no desire to be a part of, or witness any but my own. That's personal freedom too.
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this is roaddogs wife carol and I am trying to get ahold of riley roaddog has passed away and I need help, so if someone could let riley know that I need to talk to him I would deeply appreciate it. mrs. roaddog
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Carol,...... I'll send Riley a message and tell him what you said. :hairy
Very best regards,
rollingb/Rondo
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this is roaddogs wife carol and I am trying to get ahold of riley roaddog has passed away and I need help, so if someone could let riley know that I need to talk to him I would deeply appreciate it. mrs. roaddog
Carol, if you see this, I have been trying to reach you. Don's email address is not working for me, and I have tried calling multiple times. I will continue trying.
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I know there are a lot of rugged, independent minded individuals in our sport, but as a Hunter Safety instructor, I just have to reiterate that blowing down the barrel violates a couple of the primary rules of gun safety: Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction, and Always assume the gun is loaded. Some will claim:"But I know I just fired it and it's empty", but it is an unsafe practice and a terrible example to demonstrate to young shooters. Please, don't reply with "It's only 'cause it's P/C" ......I've heard that one before.
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it's all good, not a problem for me ... some of us are simply more libertarian individualistic than others. :*:
however ...
if you wipe between shots, no harm and no foul.
if you do not wipe or blow between shots, you are an accomplice to an unsafe firearm operation.
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Just out of curiosity,.... has anyone ever seen, heard, or read, any historical accounting of anyone being killed "due to" blowing down the bore of a muzzleloader, I mean during the 300 years "prior to" the (20th. century) event claimed by the NMLRA?
Another question,.... what was the person's name that had the accident the NMLRA based their "no blowing" rule on? Where are ALL the pertinent details regarding such a tragic event? (I've never seen any)
If there are/were historical incidents of someone being killed while blowing down the barrel of their muzzleloader, why are we not seeing/finding lots of historical references stating such,... after all, based on several historical accounts, blowing down the bore WAS considered a common practice for more than 300 years?
Since most organizations putting on muzzleloading shooting events, buy their liability insurance through the NMLRA,.... can someone tell me what other liability insurance provider has made a "rule" based upon a singular incident?
I've been blowing down the bores of my muzzleloaders for the last 49 years (ever since 1969) and I haven't blown my head off,.... is it just a matter of time until I do, what are the odds of it happening, and where can I place my bet of it NOT happening????
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i totally get it with folks having a serious issue with this mouth-over-a-fired-barrel practice. it can set a very Very VERY bad example for youth and newbies alike, specifically for the overall regard to all firearm safety practices.
with kids, they don't have the focus of maturity, and newbies of all ages just don't have the experience of the trad ml shooting process. but kids can mature and newbies can become enlightened and acclimated.
personally, all of this ballyhoo over muzzle blowing is just another compromise of life in these very socialist and litigious times, where the lifestyles of smart people are constantly under the control of the need to assist and perpetuate people who can't seem to overcome their lack of thought process or ability.
the upshot for me is, if i want to shoot at any of my clubs' ranges, i must abide by their rules, so i blow tube.
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but back to the topic at hand ...
did some more out-of-pocket testing with the .40 jack garner and it's just easier to sheath the rod between cleaning and loading. i also added some tube pouches to the shooting bag, one for clean patches and t'other for the dirty ones.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
* fire
* pull out the rod, flip it around, run a dry lube patch down the tube for fouling control, pull out the rod, flip around and down into the pipes
* measure out the 3f and charge the tube
* patched ball pushed into the muzzle
* rod out (no need for flipping) and push down the patched ball, rod up and back down into the pipes
* clean the lock, pick the touch hole, prime the pan
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Should work just fine. :bl th up
Usually if loading gets difficult I just slather up a cleaning patch with spit, but there's been times I don't have enough spit to do it in the heat of the day as I spit patch when I load, so I have to dip into my small cleaning fluid container I carry in my pouch to substitute the spit. :shake
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i pre-lube the 2" round arsenal patches with 1:6 moose milk. the water evaporates and leaves a dry patch that's impregnated with ballistol. i can use the patch as is, or add some spit as the bore's bp residue dictates.
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Gun Ranges can be a distraction in themselves... I have seen quite intelligent and very gun savvy folks get distracted and make mistakes on the line. The idea that someone can be "too smart or too experienced" to make these kinds of mistakes is nonsensical, extremely ignorant and reckless. Like RobD stated so well, a "cook-off" can happen even without blowing down the barrel and stirring up an ember.
I usually do not wipe with a wet patch after every shot because that can push wet fouling into the breach and vent, causing ignition problems and more. What I do is shoot with a tightly patched load, and keep anything precious to me away from the muzzle end at all times, and I don't rush to re-load. I have never had premature ignition occur, but I am not going to push my luck and stick my mouth over the muzzle even if I did choose to swab the bore with a wet patch.
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Gun Ranges can be a distraction in themselves... I have seen quite intelligent and very gun savvy folks get distracted and make mistakes on the line. The idea that someone can be "too smart or too experienced" to make these kinds of mistakes is nonsensical, extremely ignorant and reckless. Like RobD stated so well, a "cook-off" can happen even without blowing down the barrel and stirring up an ember.
i respect your opinions with this matter, and i'd trust you'd do the same with mine.
yes, who's been in this game for decades and hasn't dry balled (yet!)? smart people do make boo-boo's.
i would never teach mouth blowing down the barrel to kids or newbies, and have never done so in trad muzzleloader presentations or articles i've written. using a 12" neoprene blow tube that's sized just under the bore diameter makes the practice safe and sane if you're not wiping for fouling control.
if you've fired a muzzleloader and immediately pour a new charge down the tube, that is a huge mistake of epic proportions. either wipe or blow, and both will shut down any glowing embers. lest you wind up like the unlucky, but lucky, mr. nesbitt.
the bottom line for me is that i see no need for anyone to dictate how i live my life or how i address a trad muzzleloader's fouling control. i will abide by the rules of the range/club/whatever while i'm at their venue, but otherwise i absolutely will continue to mouth blow down the tube at wherever venue i can do so. if done immediately after firing, there is no safety issue other than a made up one that has zero real world relevance. i guess it's a libertarian thing.
I usually do not wipe with a wet patch after every shot because that can push wet fouling into the breach and vent, causing ignition problems and more. What I do is shoot with a tightly patched load, and keep anything precious to me away from the muzzle end at all times, and I don't rush to re-load. I have never had premature ignition occur, but I am not going to push my luck and stick my mouth over the muzzle even if I did choose to swab the bore with a wet patch.
if you properly swab a barrel with a specific type of chamber, there can be no glowing ember left in the touch hole, or nipple, or bolster, or chamber, or tube.
if you use a patched jag - wet, moist or dry - the compression of that piston going down the tube will send a rush of compressed air down and out whatever orifice yer gun is fitted with, and you should see a quick plume of smoke exit and end. anything hot within any of those barrel/ignition chambers will get extinguished because the patch jag duplicates lung air. to be sure, pull up a few inches on the rod and pump down again - no smoke should emanate out the ignition hole as the acid test.
when i use a wet patch, it's always followed by a dry patch - this is crucial. but this is unnecessary with a dry lube or dry patch. it's usually also unnecessary, for me, with a barely moist patch.
*LOTS* will depend on the chamber yer cleaning out. if you have a classic traditional flat faced breech plug, the patch will take care of business. if you have an offshore gun it will more than likely have a patent breech, so you first run down the patched jag which will push crud into the ante-chamber that will require a patched brush to clean out. for all the offshore guns i've had, all have been capable of reloading without fouling control, once the gun in question has been sorted out for reliable ignition. all breeches can also be scraped for any baked on crud. easy for a flat faced breech plug, not easy for an ante-chamber breech plug.
i have yet to read or hear about both glowing embers and unburned black powder existing anywhere in the chamber or barrel of a just fired trad muzzleloader. that's literally an oxymoron.
but let's look at what is possible, and has been recorded to have happened to more than a few trad ml shooters who do not employ any manner of fouling control prior to pouring down that measure of powder into the tube, when there is a hot ember lurking somewhere .... yep, the big bang.
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The brothers Johnston trained me to swab with a damp patch. Jim Sawyer explained it a little more thoroughly as we went. I dont have a problem in the world blowing down the barrel after you fire. But I'm not gonna. Surprisingly, I made it around the Friendship woods walk with only minor incidents last week.
Black Powder Maniac has a nice video out of his group.
It really is a good shakedown cruise for both your rifle and your technique.
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tested it all out last friday and the process worked very well, offhand out-of-the-bag, moist and dry patches for fouling control.
post about that here ...
http://tradmla.org/tmaf/index.php?topic=22888.msg214825#msg214825