dry balled

[necchi]

i still haven't found the ball in my shop mess. want to see how the rifling engraves at that point.

It is a learning point when you find one of those (a dry-ball ejection). You might be surprised at when you see what's left imparted to the PRB from just pokin it in the bore an blowing it out.

 

[deerstalkert]

It is a learning point when you find one of those (a dry-ball ejection). You might be surprised at when you see what's left imparted to the PRB from just pokin it in the bore an blowing it out.

that's why i was looking. had to move half the shop but found it. nice engraving all around. .535 with a .010 patch.

 

[necchi]

Cool, you found it!
Interesting that it's the fabric that makes the imprint,, huh?
P.R.B., who'd a figured,,

 

[Rum River]

Once Upon A Time - after a number of consecutive and really stupid decisions on my part - I ended up with a bronze brush twisted off all the way down into the breech of a 50 caliber.

My Co2 discharger was useless of course so pulled the nipple and worked 4f powder in behind it and shot it out.

I keep the twisted, bristly, greenish, mangled thing on one of the gun racks as a reminder to not break my personal rule #2. "Try not to be any more stupid than I can help."

 

[LME]

You know you can go to hell for lying!

And other things!

 

[Joemolf]

only if you point it at the TV.
which i don't have! won't have! and further more i HATE!

i still haven't found the ball in my shop mess. want to see how the rifling engraves at that point.
maybe i should clean the shop more and shoot less?

NAW! ain't in me.

I have 2 TVs never watch them except for documentary stuff if the War Department let’s me and the kids are not occupied with the other. Greatest waste of time until cell phones came along

 

[brotherlloyd]

during the shooting session Tuesday with my neighbors, i got distracted and short started a .54 ball in my Ardesa.
160pounds of air pressure will eject the above with enough force to dent drywall.
that is all.

next time try your My Pillow

 

[BigCity]

As long as you clear it safely, no harm no foul. When we used to do club shoots, we'd require people using a compressor or those little CO2 chargers to clear the bore down range. They can pop the ball out with surprising force. They worked well with the percussion guns though.

With the flinters, we had to manually pull the ball using the ballscrew and a metal range rod. After a few times, you get used to that way as well. The worst we had was a guy who had a reproduction Charleville musket and ran a bunch of paper cartridge military loads through it without watering or wiping the bore. Then one of the balls got stuck half-way down the bore in heavy, very hard fouling. It took hot water and two people pulling in opposite directions to clear that ball.

That is how I got my first hernia....

 

[earlwb]

This has me thinking that maybe someone ought to come up with a airgun conversion for a muzzleloader. A large caliber airgun is quite potent in its own right. So there might be something to it. But maybe it’s the crazy ramblings of a old guy that hadn’t had enough coffee yet.

 

[Ray-Vigo]

There is the Girandoni air rifle, which was supposedly like .46-.51 cal. range.

 

[deerstalkert]

No doubt it would eject. I don't know if you have an acreage and were close to the compressor, but why didn't you just seat the ball and pull it? Then you could keep shooting. Just curious.
Larry

I don't have the upper body strength anymore to wrestle with a ball via rod and screw. with me the operative word here is "Screw" as in screw things up. if it can be screwed up I'm your man
the ball was only about 4 inches down the gullet so i figured it would be easiest to just air blast it out. in the field i would have trickled in as much powder as i could have via the drum and then seated the thing and hoped for the best.

 

[Spikefrb]

There are worse things than dry balling.
Spike

 

[waksupi]

If you have made a hole through the ball, you can put another patched ball down on top of the first to make a seal.

 

[nhmoose]

There is a reason why ramrod ends need to be pinned!

 

[Spikefrb]

Apparently T/C didn't feel it was necessary in the mid-70's.

 

[nhmoose]

Nope they really had no clue about it.

 

[flntlokr]

during the shooting session Tuesday with my neighbors, i got distracted and short started a .54 ball in my Ardesa.
160pounds of air pressure will eject the above with enough force to dent drywall.
that is all.

I hang an old towel over the muzzle to catch those; they do spit out, don't they?

 

[deerstalkert]

bloooop!

 

[The Crisco Kid]

All this makes me wonder what the Mountain Men did when they dry balled during a disagreement with the Blackfoot. Probably lost some hair and that was the last we heard of them. Probably weren't too many who lived by the handle "Ol' Dry Ball".

 

[Idaho Ron]

I dry balled my .54 last month , too busy talking . I got out my trusty wood screw ball puller and no go It would not budge , so I tried my faithful now faithless CO2 discharger and got a nice cloud of CO2 out the muzzle . I had driven the screw puller clean through the ball . So it was back to the workshop and take the barrel out of the stock and remove the breach plug . A little heat and the plug was out , then out came the ball or more correctly the lead donut . I cleaned it all and put it back together , all in all it took about 45 minutes and a quick trip to the hardware store for some copper grease . And as a bonus I got to look down the bore from the other end for a change .

I try to tell guys all the time. If you try a screw and put a hole through the projectile you have made the job hundreds of times harder.