First firing of Flintlock?

[Jaeger]

Mr. Flint: If you're hardcore, you put the patch that you had in your mouth back in your mouth after swabbing and use it again.

 

[DUSTY 14]

did you clean it before you shot it. black powder sticks to petroleum and as you shoot and season your barrel it gets better and better. i use the moose milk for a patch lube and cleaner. that way i am cleaning each time i push the new ball into the barrel. this would not work on my hunting load. i would only use my bore butter for in case the load stays in a day or so

 

[brubincam]

-----SEASON THE BARREL ?-----

 

[paulvallandigham]

Dusty: Welcome to the forum. YOU SEASON cast iron, not steel. Clean the bore with both soap and water, and if you ever shoot bare lead balls or bullets in it, then use a modern lead solvent to clean the barrel, too. Clean the bore down to bare metal, then oil or lube it to protect it during storage. Do NOT allow anything to build up in the grooves, or on the lands.

Forget that old booklet that came with T/C rifles. The guys knew how to make good guns, but had no clue how to shoot and maintain them.

 

[buzz]

after reading this thread an older shooting mate said he just taps the rammer with a small mallet
(hammer) lightly
I have not done tis and wondered what folks thought
the other thing i do is mark my rammer so i know for sure itsdown tight

 

[paulvallandigham]

Deforming the ball is the usual result of hitting the Ramrod, or "bouncing the ramrod" on the ball to seat it. It makes little difference when shooting at 25 yds. You can see the groups open up at 50 yds, and at 100 yds, you begin to ask, "what group"? A good friend of mine bragged about bouncing the RR off the ball to seat it to his ' mark" rather than clean the barrel of his .45 between shots. He liked to slam the rod down hard enough that it bounced Out of his 44" barrel. Even from a bench rest, he could not get a group at 50 yds, and rarely hit the 12 x 12" target out at 100 yds.

What you are doing now,- lowering the ball by hand over hand to your mark, works much better to get accuracy, IMHO. Other opinions will vary, of course. :surrender: :thumbsup:

 

[kurt groepler]

Yup......great post.

 

[dthompson1334]

I use one of those "tornado" brushes between each shot (sorta like a wire brush but has loops of wire spirreling (sp?)around the wire core). My shooter is one of those Pedersoli .36 cal so it has it's own issues, but I shot around 40 rounds this weekend using this method and didn't have any problems seating the rounds. They don't load as easily as if I had cleaned the bore with a wet solvent, but by using the tornado brush, I didn't have any problems with it firing either. After each shot i'd tap the brush on the shooting bench and was surprised the amount of crud the brush picks up.

Regards,
Booner