I thought I would pass this information on for those that may have been experiencing misfires on their percussion rifles. Mine is a custom built Hawken with a Green Mt. barrel. The information I am passing on was gleaned from some previous threads that I researched. I learned a lot from these threads. Mind you, I have been shooting percussion rifles going back to the 80s with a few years in between that I switched over to blackpowder cartridge and came back to muzzle loaders during the pandemic.
I started having problems last year with an occaisonal misfire on this rifle. I pulled the rifle out last week to make sure my load and sights were good so I could take advantage of some late season deer hunting. I got off 3 shots then a misfire. I poured a little powder below the nipple and it went off. Then it did it again, This time I could not get the powder charge to go off. I went through several caps and powder under the nipple. Luckily I have compressed air in my hangar so walked in there and shot air through the nipple and out popped the charge. My first thought was bad primers that I had for 20 years that were not hot enought. I switched to new CCIs. No go on them either. They would go off but not set off the powder charge. I thought maybe bad Hot Shot nipple. Again, no good results. I then swabbed the barrel with a very wet patch and ran a fine piece of safety wire down the powder channel then blew compressed air through it. That did the trick for 4 shots. Light bulb went on that the powder channel would get fouled after just a few shots. I take blame on this because I have not been running soapy water through the barrel in a long time. I would just take bore cleaner and clean thorougly, so I thought. Lesson learned. I have never had this problem with my Lymans or TC. I would occaisonally flush the barrels on them and I guess that was good enough for awhile.
Anyway, I had bought a borescope on Amazon for an automotive project and decided to use it on the barrel. You can see how bad the fouling was even after using a brass scraper. The scraper does not go down into the breech which some posts eluded to. I then modified one and it still did not get deep enough for a good fouling scrape. It needs to be kind of rounded shape to conform the the breech. The best results I got was taking a brass .54 cal. bore brush and cutting off the end where it is twisted and ran that down a damp bore. That almost got all of it. The rest came out with warm soap and water soak in a bucket for an hour. Well at least that is how long it took me to eat supper and relax for a bit. A good drying with patches and a blow with compressed air did the trick. You can see this in the last photo.
My laziness caused this plus a finicky barrel. No rust issues at all. I have shot about 100 rounds through this rifle and I don't think the barrel has settled down yet. Because it is hard to load by the 3rd shot no matter what powder brand I shoot. Someone suggested to use a jag that is .030" smaller than the bore and stepped down .010" per ring. I did that and it works better. I also coned the barrel and that helps with loading but it is finicky about patch thickness.
Now, what I am going to do with my Kibler SMR that I can't be taking the barrel off each time I clean it? I guess I will have to figure that out too.
If you want to see something scary, use a bore scope to look down your barrel.
I started having problems last year with an occaisonal misfire on this rifle. I pulled the rifle out last week to make sure my load and sights were good so I could take advantage of some late season deer hunting. I got off 3 shots then a misfire. I poured a little powder below the nipple and it went off. Then it did it again, This time I could not get the powder charge to go off. I went through several caps and powder under the nipple. Luckily I have compressed air in my hangar so walked in there and shot air through the nipple and out popped the charge. My first thought was bad primers that I had for 20 years that were not hot enought. I switched to new CCIs. No go on them either. They would go off but not set off the powder charge. I thought maybe bad Hot Shot nipple. Again, no good results. I then swabbed the barrel with a very wet patch and ran a fine piece of safety wire down the powder channel then blew compressed air through it. That did the trick for 4 shots. Light bulb went on that the powder channel would get fouled after just a few shots. I take blame on this because I have not been running soapy water through the barrel in a long time. I would just take bore cleaner and clean thorougly, so I thought. Lesson learned. I have never had this problem with my Lymans or TC. I would occaisonally flush the barrels on them and I guess that was good enough for awhile.
Anyway, I had bought a borescope on Amazon for an automotive project and decided to use it on the barrel. You can see how bad the fouling was even after using a brass scraper. The scraper does not go down into the breech which some posts eluded to. I then modified one and it still did not get deep enough for a good fouling scrape. It needs to be kind of rounded shape to conform the the breech. The best results I got was taking a brass .54 cal. bore brush and cutting off the end where it is twisted and ran that down a damp bore. That almost got all of it. The rest came out with warm soap and water soak in a bucket for an hour. Well at least that is how long it took me to eat supper and relax for a bit. A good drying with patches and a blow with compressed air did the trick. You can see this in the last photo.
My laziness caused this plus a finicky barrel. No rust issues at all. I have shot about 100 rounds through this rifle and I don't think the barrel has settled down yet. Because it is hard to load by the 3rd shot no matter what powder brand I shoot. Someone suggested to use a jag that is .030" smaller than the bore and stepped down .010" per ring. I did that and it works better. I also coned the barrel and that helps with loading but it is finicky about patch thickness.
Now, what I am going to do with my Kibler SMR that I can't be taking the barrel off each time I clean it? I guess I will have to figure that out too.
If you want to see something scary, use a bore scope to look down your barrel.
