for traditions owners

[jasontn]

yesterday at our club shoot my buddy dry balled his shenandoah rilfe. its a .50 caliber. he tried pulling the ball with a large t/c style ball puller and it yanked out the center of the ball. in the process of trying top seat the ball screw he pushed the ball further down the barrel into the powder chamber. there was no way to get the ball out aside from pulling the breech plug. i know pulling the breech is a last ditch no other way choice and this was it. he pulled the drum first and found out the breech screws in past the drum and the drum passes thru both the breech plug and barrel wall. once it was out the ball had formed a doughnut of sorts smashed down into the powder chamber. i know where he went wrong, aside from no powder, and it was using the wrong sized ball puller and pushing it down too hard. if you ever, and im saying in absolute bad need, have to pull the breech on a traditions barrel be sure to pull the drum or vent liner first or the breech wont come out and you may break something. once he got it out i can see why these rifles have had some ignition problems. theres a small pocket there that the ball smahed into that makes a fine crud depository. he threaded his drum into his plug and did some work to the powder chamber and it should fire better now.

[Captchee]

the traditions breech blug is of the improved type . he must have really been pounding on it to get it smashed into there ..

 abll pullers are great for  show and even grater when they work . but a simple C02 discharger  is worth  the price

[jasontn]

hes gonna buy one soon as he can find it.  he loads hard, like he wants a severly compressed  charge. then he tried a lot to pull it and i guess the repeated attempts shoved it in.

[Wyoming Mike]

The Traditions style drum is designed, you should be able to get three or four grains of 4F powder into the drum itself through the cleanout screw hole.   That should be enough to pop the ball out.  The only time I have resorted to pulling the ball is when I have dryballed a flinter and the ball is resting on the breechplug face and you can't get any powder behind it.

The best thing is what Captchee mentioned.  A CO2 discharger.  I had to use one once when a mainspring broke on a loaded Hawken.  The discharger popped the ball right out.

[Captchee]

some folks dont know this but the Co2 discargers also have a flinlock attachment  that works very well  and will most times blow the ball even when set to the face of the breech

[Spotted Bull]

Seems my boy gets to talkin' evry time we go shoot and dry balls at least twice.  Glad to know about the breech, he has a Traditions Hawken.  I'm gonna buy him a CO2 discharger real soon.

[Voyageur]

[Minnesota Mike]

Another great help with routine dryballers is a Dryball Award - whoever dryballs, gets this very obvious, very big Dry Ball Award. Last one to win it must bring it to next shoot - then passes it on to any poor sap who makes the same mistake he did.

Needless to say since starting this tradition, there have been greater efforts not to screw up.

r/
Mike

[Three Hawks]

I have left the firing line a couple of times when shooters get to chewing the fat while they're loading.  

I watched one drooling mouth breather put three loads down the barrel of a  .54 Lyman GPR  'cause he was more interested in telling jokes than tending to business.  

When I mentioned it to him, he told me he damned well  knew how to shoot a muzzleloader and to butt out.  I stepped back about 20 yards and got behind a tree.  When he pulled the trigger, the recoil knocked him on his butt.  He lost his grip on the rifle and the stock broke at the wrist when it landed.  He injured his shoulder, too, but he was far too manly to let anyone have a look at it.  He had to carry his rifle in his other hand.    Pretty much put him out of business the rest of the day. The hammer on his rifle kicked back so hard it  was jammed open.

Too many guys seem to see muzzleloaders as toys.

Three Hawks.

[Sir Michael]

From what Jasontn stated at the start of this discussion, cap versions of the Traditions guns are a bit easier to deal with than flint versions.  In the flint versions they insert a plug into the breach hole and then drill and tap it for their funky vent liner.  Before trying to remove the breach plug this plug must also be removed.  FYI here is crude sketch of the Traditions breach.



I find it interesting that in the .50 cal the longitudinal channel between the false breach and the breach is large enough to drive a ball through into the breach.  In their .36 cal this channel is barely large enough to get the shaft of Q-tip through. <img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_cry.gif" alt=":cry:" title="Crying or Very sad" />