I am an idiot. Frustrated to the point of wanting to quit.

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The OP brought the rifle by my shop Monday evening. I let it sit in PB Blaster yesterday. He was correct air would not move that ball. Time to get Ye Olde Ball Puller out and it did its thing. The remains of the touch hole liner came right out so just need to get a new line the threads are good. Letting it sit in some soapy water and will clean it this afternoon.
 

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ronaldrothb49 said:
The OP brought the rifle by my shop Monday evening. I let it sit in PB Blaster yesterday. He was correct air would not move that ball. Time to get Ye Olde Ball Puller out and it did its thing. The remains of the touch hole liner came right out so just need to get a new line the threads are good. Letting it sit in some soapy water and will clean it this afternoon.
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Just curious.....is that noose in the upper left corner for rifles that will just never make the cut? :)
 
Tomahawk Taxidermy said:
I know what I did was stupid. I just got so frustrated and sick and tired of never being able to get things to work for me. I’ve tried 3 different powders. Every time I mess with this stupid gun I work my butt off and maybe get it to shoot a handful of times and it goes back to flash and nothing. I can never get the stupid bullet puller to bite into the ball. In desperation the only way I’ve been able to get it unloaded in the past has been to remove the touch hole plug and tediously push as much powder in the hole as I can fit, then try it it again. Well, this time I wallered the touchhole out and even after I tried cleaning up the slot with very small file, I still couldn’t get it to turn. I even strapped the gun down in a lock down rest and tried to get the powder to ignite with a propane pen torch to the point where I quit bc I was afraid of doing irreparable damage to the finish.

Well I decided that touchhole had to come out and my stupid a$$ got to here and I’m just so frustrated I’m ready to just throw this -deleted- gun in a sinkhole. I really enjoy rendezvous and club shoots or I would if I could ever get my rifle to go off more than 5 times.

I realize how stupid I look here. I swear I’m not that clueless. I literally work with my hands and tools every day. Grew up farming and with modern firearms and have always been a born tinkerer. This type of thing is usually right in my wheel house, but I just got frustrated and rage took over.

I’m going to try this one more time. As embarrassing as this is I am coming to the forum. I’m going to try whatever y’all tell me to do, if I can get it to work, then I’ll stick with it. If not, I’m throwing the damn rifle in a sinkhole.
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Does anyone live near this gent that can help? I am in Memphis.
 
Spent most of the day working on the rifle. Started with the remainder of the touch hole liner. It came out no problem and the threads are in good shape so ordered a new liner for it.

Tried to use air to get the ball out. No air going through the barrel so no hole through the ball but it wasn't moving, found out why later. Well got Ye Olde Ball Puller out and only took about 5 minutes and ball was out. Sat it in some soapy water while took better half out to lunch figuring I would clean it when we got home. Trying to clean it there wasn't much water going through it so broke out the scraper and cleaned out the powder, still no water going through. Got an 1/8" drill rod and ground a point thinking I could force that through the flash channel. That's when I noticed brass fibers in the hole for the touch hole liner. The whole flash channel in the breech was packed with brass fiber from a bore brush, switched to a 5/16" rod and spent a couple hours forcing that out where I could pull it out with a hemostat. Finally got that cleaned out and back to cleaning and patches turned from black to brown. The barrel was full of bore butter. Wrapped 0000 steel wool on the jag and polished that out, now bore is nice and shiny.

Still have a couple things to do while I wait for the touch hole liner. Going to go through the lock it is in desperate need of lubrication. Every gun someone brings me to work on looks like it hasn't been oiled since the day it was made. PUT SOME OIL ON YOUR LOCK EVERYTIME YOU CLEAN YOUR GUN PEOPLE. I will spend a day shooting with the OP before I return the rifle to him.
 
ronaldrothb49 said:
Spent most of the day working on the rifle. Started with the remainder of the touch hole liner. It came out no problem and the threads are in good shape so ordered a new liner for it.

Tried to use air to get the ball out. No air going through the barrel so no hole through the ball but it wasn't moving, found out why later. Well got Ye Olde Ball Puller out and only took about 5 minutes and ball was out. Sat it in some soapy water while took better half out to lunch figuring I would clean it when we got home. Trying to clean it there wasn't much water going through it so broke out the scraper and cleaned out the powder, still no water going through. Got an 1/8" drill rod and ground a point thinking I could force that through the flash channel. That's when I noticed brass fibers in the hole for the touch hole liner. The whole flash channel in the breech was packed with brass fiber from a bore brush, switched to a 5/16" rod and spent a couple hours forcing that out where I could pull it out with a hemostat. Finally got that cleaned out and back to cleaning and patches turned from black to brown. The barrel was full of bore butter. Wrapped 0000 steel wool on the jag and polished that out, now bore is nice and shiny.

Still have a couple things to do while I wait for the touch hole liner. Going to go through the lock it is in desperate need of lubrication. Every gun someone brings me to work on looks like it hasn't been oiled since the day it was made. PUT SOME OIL ON YOUR LOCK EVERYTIME YOU CLEAN YOUR GUN PEOPLE. I will spend a day shooting with the OP before I return the rifle to him.
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Thank you for helping this feller out.
 
I can't thank @ronaldrothb49 enough for helping me out. Nobody ever told me that bore butter was bad. A tube of it was included with my gun when I bought it. Why make a product and market it for muzzleloader shooters if its bad for muzzleloaders? I never claimed to be an expert or to even know what I was doing, before I started shooting a muzzleloader I didnt know anyone who shot them much really, except modern inlines.... I have just been figuring this out as I go.
 
Tomahawk Taxidermy said:
I can't thank @ronaldrothb49 enough for helping me out. Nobody ever told me that bore butter was bad. A tube of it was included with my gun when I bought it. Why make a product and market it for muzzleloader shooters if its bad for muzzleloaders? I never claimed to be an expert or to even know what I was doing, before I started shooting a muzzleloader I didnt know anyone who shot them much really, except modern inlines.... I have just been figuring this out as I go.
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Well we were all new at some point. You came to the right place. I've been doing this BP thing for thirty years and still learn something from these guys all the time. And occasionally somebody learns something from me. Hang in there and enjoy it. Black powder will get in your blood if you ain't careful. Welcome to the addiction...
 
@Tomahawk Taxidermy, it's not as if Bore Butter is bad for your muzzleloader, it's just not even close to being able to meet the manufacturer's claims. It's not all that bad as an oily patch lube or as a grease to fill the grooves in a conical. Bore Butter is not a rust inhibiting product and seems to promote rust during storage. As a grease, it will oxidize to a brown substance that has the appearance of crusted on rust as well as actual rust. To protect the bore use a proven rust inhibitor such as Barricade.

Do keep coming back to all us grumpy crumudgeons. We can be harsh at times, but we really mean well.
 
I'm glad the problem is solved, and everything is working out. We all started without knowing anything about shooting black powder. If I told anyone about the stupid things I did when first learning, everyone would laugh me off the forum. At that time, at age 18, I didn't know of anyone shooting black powder, in my area, so I had to learn it from trial and error, with more than my share of error. Sometimes, information was gleaned from magazines, no internet in the late 1960s, so a LOT of stupid mistakes were made, but I, somehow, survived, and later thrived after learning many of the ins and outs of shooting these old guns. After 53 years of messing with these old "relics," I'm still learning. Never stop learning.

As to using brass bristle brushes in ML guns, it depends on it's use. I use an undersize brush, smaller in diameter of the cavity in the breech, to prevent losing the cleaning patch when cleaning the patent breech, in an old Pedersoli Frontier rifle. In that use, it works like a charm. Otherwise, IMHO, it's a bad idea to use brushes in traditional ML barrels.

Now Tomahawk Taxidermy, get out there and have some fun with that old "relic" of a rifle. These old guns are a Hoot.
 

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