Hey everyboy, I am here, alive... I got on and read everyones advice and decided to take a short break from the muzzleloader, and over the last few days I had a kids birthday party and moved 144 round bales from one farm to the other 8miles away.... On top of that, unlike most of my generation I just dont spend a lot of time online/my phone and whatnot, sorry if it seemed like I ghosted everyone.
I want to start by thanking everyone for both the practical advice and words of encouragement. I am usually patient and good about problem solving and meticulous tasks but something about this rifle just made me break character and throw a little tantrum. But its out of my system now.
I am going to try and answer all the questions and give more details about how I got to where I am.
First, as one member skillfully noticed, the gun is a Cabelas Invest Arms Hawken, not a Traditions or TC.
As to the trying 3 different Powders, the three powders I was talking about were , 1 Goex FFg.... when I was in college my fraternity had a cannon that we would dry fire at home football games, and I brought it home and shot i a few times at a pig roast we had at the farm, when I did I had about four pounds left over.... The can had never been opened until recently and in the 10 years since it was purchased it has been stored in a dehumidified gunsafe so I assumed it would be fine, I dont know if the age has anything to do with it.... I also thought that maybe it was too course to prime with so I ground smaller amounts of it in a mortar and pestle to a finer grade to use for priming but that didnt help.
I also tried using Hogdon Pyrodex Muzzleloading propellant "P The FFFFg Equivalent", but was advised by someone in the club I am in that it wasnt what I wanted for a flint gun.... that it would be good for a cap gun but not flint
And the third powder i tried was some either FFFg or FFFFg (not sure which) that another club member gave me when I was having trouble and I said I wasnt sure if my powder was suspect or not. It worked fine in his gun that day but I only had about a medicine bottles worth and it did shoot some with the gifted powder but not perfectly.
The liner has been drilled out by me when i was trynig to get the easy out to bite, but all it did was bore the hole out more.
There is still a load in the barrel. I have tried using an air compressor (after boring out the liner hole) nothing. Tried the propane torch again after boring out the holeand putting the barrel into the loader bucket of a tractor, squirting lighter fluid into the touch hole and lighting it off by dropping a burning rag soaked in oil onto the touch hole while crouching behind/below the bucket for safety.
I believe another correct observation is the presence of brass brush bristles... looking into the hole I thought i saw some too. I know I didnt lose a whole cleaning jag (or whatever they are called) in there but some must have came off one my cleaning brushes.
The ball puller i have is just one of the basic ones that screws into a cleaning rod.... I have tried it both on my cleaning rod and my ramrod (the regular one that fits under the gun, I dont have one of the nice range rods with heavy weighted handles it seems everyone else has. I understand the concept of getting it to bite/take threads.... I have some 25" drill bits that are just a bit too short to reach the ball so I wast able to pre drill it with the tools I had available, and like I said I havent had a chance to acquire the means to make a jig or whatever to get one down there that far. How would I know havent wallered too big a hole in my ball for the puller to bite ?
I should also disclose, not sure if its relevant or not, but the patch I used is pretty big and pretty thick, possibly hindering the puller... I will post a picture of the patched and the puller in the next comment from my phone. I am typing this out on my computer because I hate having to type out long stuff on my little phone screen.
Also, Ronaldroth 59 I am replying to your pm... I will likely take you up on your offer
