anyone use a plain dowel as a ramrod?

[Black Hand]

Wear a glove? And take it off to shoot?

Just get a good ramrod...

 

[Gene L]

I thought I had one until it broke and punctured the heel of my hand. I've got a steel range rod, which is good for loading and cleaning. Wouldn't want to take it in the woods, though.

 

[Black Hand]

I suggest making your own. I bought a board of Hickory at my local lumber store - picked one with the grain relatively parallel to the face and sides - cut a 3/4 x 3/4 inch blank and shaped the rod with a plane, rasp, scraper and sandpaper. Took about an hour...and I was making a tapered rod.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Wear a glove? And take it off to shoot?

:haha: No silly....a glove not a mitten...preferably fingerless... :wink:

 

[Gene L]

I suggest making your own. I bought a board of Hickory at my local lumber store - picked one with the grain relatively parallel to the face and sides - cut a 3/4 x 3/4 inch blank and shaped the rod with a plane, rasp, scraper and sandpaper. Took about an hour...and I was making a tapered rod.

Got plenty of hickory in my garage, a stave I can knock off a suitable RR piece is at hand. What I don't have is a place to work it down. Just not set up for that, although I wish I did. Got two bows partially worked down. I have the planes, scrapers, spoke-shaves, and rasps. For $2.50 a hickory RR, it just ain't worth it to me. Shipping is something else, however.

I need to make a bench in my garage to work down the bow staves. Thanks for reminding me.

 

[Black Hand]

I built guns in my living room at a vice screwed to a cheap desk, Where there is a will, there is a way....

 

[coloradoclyde]

Brittsmoothy takes a range rod with him hunting...and it sure doesn't affect his ability any....Maybe he could give you some pointers on how to carry it........

 

[Gene L]

I built guns in my living room at a vice screwed to a cheap desk, Where there is a will, there is a way....

I guess I could except I don't have a cheap desk, live in a small house, and I don't build guns. Bows, however, waste a lot of wood and I'd hate to clean that up.

I had a cheap mass-market bench in my garage when I lived in Raleigh, bolted to the wall. It worked out pretty well, actually...I had to build a vise extension so I could rasp/plane off wood. Made quite a mess. I spent a lot of nights in that small space in my garage.

I've got a yew stave, about 6' and about 2/3 finished. Needs to be finished. It's the best yew bow stave I've personally ever seen. I need to finish it down to a "War Bow." If I had a way of working it down, I'd have a way of working down a ramrod, too...got plenty of wood, just not a solid surface to work down a thin ramrod.

 

[Black Hand]

Do you not have an "outside"?

 

[Gene L]

I've got an "inside," as a garage. Just don't have a bench. I made a bow once by clamping the stave on the rail of a deck. Worked out fine, but I don't have a deck where I live now.

 

[Black Hand]

If you have a garage, then you have all the space you need to make a rammer. A vice or bench is not really necessary...

 

[coloradoclyde]

All he really needs is a round toit..... :wink:

 

[pondoro]

I suggest making your own. I bought a board of Hickory at my local lumber store - picked one with the grain relatively parallel to the face and sides - cut a 3/4 x 3/4 inch blank and shaped the rod with a plane, rasp, scraper and sandpaper. Took about an hour...and I was making a tapered rod.

If you use a plane and rasp what stops you from creating runout? I thought the old timers split green hickory and were careful never to cut the grain? Not arguing, I really want to know.

 

[Black Hand]

There may be a little along the edges, but the vast majority of the grain runs parallel to the rod end to end. The grain should never run at a bias to the rod length - creates a weak area that can shear.

Commercial rods are cut with little regard to grain orientation, merely to maximized the number of rods made from a piece of wood.

 

[Gene L]

I would think you'd have a bent rod if you make it from a stave, which would make it difficult to bring round. Not like a plank where you're dealing in square dimensions. Hickory is very bendable with heat so you could straighten it out easily, but making it round would be challenging.

I think, BH, we're talking apples and oranges here. You're seeing hickory planks that can be cut into square billets, I'm seeing a home-split hickory stave from large trees for making a bow. It has to be split with a hand axe. What you're left with is an axe-split billet that has no fixed dimensions.

I have quite a bit of split hickory, a couple of inches wide and six feet long. Hickory here isn't available in planks in stores around here as it's not useful in lumber. It's just too common. What I have to work with isn't a nice square piece 1" x 1" but a split 1" x whatever. Can't rasp that and definitely can't plane that as is. Needs a lot of spokeshave work held in a clamp. I could, I guess, cut out a 1" square billet if I had a table saw, which I don't.

Pecan is, I'm told, virtually identical to hickory and may be available in planks. Maybe not around here, though.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Forget bow making....think arrows...

 

[Black Hand]

Cut or split (from board or log) to follow the grain and round the blank to fit in the thimbles (all the shaping could easily be accomplished with a pocketknife). Do not make it more difficult than it really is...

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Well if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. . .

So I am satisfied with the answers to my original question, thanks to those who took the time. But now I am curious about purchasing ramrod blanks.

Is there a good way to buy rods without runout? My original thinking was to go to a store where I can actually inspect before I buy. It seems that people who mail order just buy 6 hoping to get one good one.

Or is it better to buy a premade rod? Does TOW make sure there is no runout before they finish the rod? It seems that the gun manufacturers pay no attention to this as just about every factory original rod I have seen has runout.

Or perhaps the best way is to split your own? I don't have hickory logs around here. Lots of oak though.

 

[Flint62Smoothie]

IMO, a solid brass ramrod isn't PC but it would work fine if you don't mind the added weight.

May not be PC, but I did use one on my brass actioned Mowrey caplock when I was running winter primitive biathlons on snowshoes with it.

I used 2-pieces of tubing at each end for strength, w/ a wooden dowel insert for added rigidity, but my design worked well! Recall that compared to a solid shaft, a hollow one will have 95% of the strength at a greatly reduced portion of the weight.

Here's my take on a hollow brass ramrod, see: http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/...tid/201478/post/351238/hl/Hollow/fromsearch/1/

 

[coloradoclyde]

Or is it better to buy a premade rod?

Hard question for me to answer.....I've seen purchased rods that failed and I've ruined my own installing the last rod end.... :cursing:

Either way I would buy or make several as an insurance policy...or backup.