cannonball1 said:
I have three that I have been using. None of the holes seem overly big. Is it obvious when they are?
In the future I will be ordering a platinum one.
Uh-oh! This easily could be part of your problem.
For accurate shooting, it is best to replace the nipple every year at the beginning of the shooting season and verify it will produce the same groups as the last nipple in your rifle. It does not happen very often, but sometimes a new nipple may be a bit larger in hole size and still open up your group. You will most likely not be able to shoot enough to seriously affect a nipple every year, but it is still best to start with a fresh one every year to ensure the rifle will shoot to top performance. Besides, nipples are not that expensive. I also strongly suggest you get rid of the used nipple/s so they don't find their way back into the rifle later on and always have a couple of new nipples on hand. Now this advice is for Ampco Bronze Nipples and they wear out sooner than Platinum Lined Nipples. Not sure how often you need to automatically replace the Platinum lined ones. Maybe others more familiar with that will chime in?
Now as an example of this, I was the Team Armourer for the U.S. International Muzzle Loading Team the mid/late 90's and we had a Team meeting in the winter or spring before going to the 1998 World Championships at the NRA Headquarters. I had already been to the 1996 World Championships as the Team Armorer and had a number of years experience at being a Military Armorer for National Competition and Championships (though with unmentionable rifles), so I had a number of suggestions to be passed on to the Team Members. One of the most important ones was about putting a new nipple in each percussion gun and ensuring it would keep good accuracy at the beginning of the year or at least well enough ahead of the World Championships, so a bad nipple would not hurt their scores. One Team Member Lady, who was at that meeting, did not take my advice.
Fast forward to August of 1998 and we are at the initial practice days at the Range in Wedgnock, UK, for the World Championships. I had some tools laid out on the picnic bench I had to work on and that including all kinds of repro and original nipple wrenches. In the Mid Afternoon and after those hours of practice shooting, none of my Team Members were having any problems. I wanted to go to the "Arms Faire" Huge Tent, but was not going to leave my Team Members while they were shooting. Well, finally a few Team Members finished up, went to the Arms Faire and came back. Two Team Members offered to stay by my tools in case another Team Member had problems and one would come get me should any problems come up. Sure enough I had only been in the Arms Faire Tent for 10 minutes or so, and one of the Team Members told me the same Lady was having problems and was in a bit of a panic.
Now, this Lady was an experienced Team Member and she had won Gold Medals at earlier competitions, so I raced back to the "work bench." She and her husband both were long time friends of mine, so the first thing I did was calm her down and asked questions to see what was wrong. She was shooting an original Under Hammer Percussion Rifle for practice in the 100 Meter Prone Women's Match. She had already won Gold at least once or twice with that rifle and in that event in earlier World Championships.
OK, so I looked at the nipple and was frankly surprised how bad of condition it was in. She had no idea what size nipple it took and did not have a spare nipple. I was afraid it was an original thread that I would have to size to fit, if possible, but fortunately someone had already rethreaded it for a common 1/4 x 28 TPI Nipple. OK, so I replaced the nipple and checked the rifle over thoroughly and found nothing else wrong.
Now while I was working/checking the rifle, she was still in a bit of a tither and put her glass/plastic vials of gun powder with weighed individual charges on a support board for the Tarp flap behind me, to count how many vials she had remaining. VERY fortunately the sun came out behind those vials and it was easy to see those vials did not all contain the exact same powder charge. So I asked her if she might have grabbed some of the vials for one of her or her husbands' other guns? She did not know. OK, so I used an adjustable measure to see what the charges were and at least she knew how much powder was supposed to be in the vials. She could not say if she had shot some of the different powder charge vials or not. So I took the vials that were not correct away from her, told her I would keep them until she finished firing and said we most likely identified her problems. She had a very good practice session after that.
OK, so after she finished practice and had her confidence restored with good shooting, I asked her when was the last time she had replaced the nipple in that rifle? She told me another Team Mate had looked over the rifle the summer before and said the nipple was still good, so she had not replaced it since. (I talked to him about it that night and he had suggested she change the nipple after that practice session the year before.) Anyway, because we were such long time and good friends, I asked her if she remembered me bringing the subject of a new nipple up at the meeting at NRA HQ? She said she did remember, but just did not think it was that important........ I told her the NEXT meeting we held, the first point I was going to make was "Listen to your Armourer!!!!"
Gus
