loading prb with cleaning jag

[Tumblernotch]

If you shorten the nub on your shortstarter down to about 1/8", that will be enough to get the ball just below the muzzle and not have too much patch.

When I wipe the barrels on my percussion guns, I leave the hammer at half-cock. You can hear air escape and see smoke (if it's still in the barrel). That'll give you a pretty good sign that the bolster/drum and nipple is clear.

I have been shooting these things for years and I still learn something new here from time to time and some of the things I've learned have been very useful. The topic that has been discussed on this thread and the other one apparently is one new to most of us, including those who have been loading with the above named appendage for years without mishap. One member has experimented and found that it can happen, but only in a situation that would require either carelessness or a novice shooter who hasn't been shown the importance of matching the ammo to the gun.

It may be a good thing that this topic has come up, at least for the newer shooters here. Just remember the advice given here. Match your ammo to your weapon, use marks on your ramrod to verify, and take your time and concentrate on your loading.

I still can't see, even if it is possible, how someone couldn't feel the resistance given by even a loose ball/patch being pulled out.

 

[huntman58]

It may be a good thing that this topic has come up, at least for the newer shooters here. Just remember the advice given here. Match your ammo to your weapon, use marks on your ramrod to verify, and take your time and concentrate on your loading.

Very good info is right and by reading all of this I am not new to the sport but I have pick up a thing or two that I plan to change. by the way the 1/8 inch thingy worked great .I happened to be working on it with a loading block and when I hit the sweet spot it was were you posted !/8 I just wish I had read it first and not after would have saved some time LOL

 

[scroggwe]

I agree 100% with Coyote Joe's post. In my previous post I stated that I felt the resistance of the ball/patch moving up with the rangerod. I knew something was wrong. When I reseated the ball/patch and jerked the rod loose, I checked again to make sure that the ball/patch was still seated. As I stated, I normally use a short starter when shooting at the range. This one time I didn't. I don't believe this would have happened if I had already fired the fowler once or more. I also don't believe this would have happened in a rifled bore. I will for sure be alert for this in the future, but I will not stop using my cleaning/loading jag for loading. I don't see how someone could pull the ball/patch all the way up to the muzzle and not know it. I only pulled the ball/patch up 3 or 4 inches and instantly knew something was amiss!

 

[Claude Mathis]

If you shorten the nub on your shortstarter down to about 1/8", that will be enough to get the ball just below the muzzle and not have too much patch.

And, if you cone your muzzle, you won't need a short starter. IMHO

 

[54mountain]

Ditto! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
I have learned however that my jag will catch on larger patches, So I got in the habit of folding the extra materal over the ball before I ram it down.

 

[Tumblernotch]

That's true! But nobody in my club has ever bothered to cone their muzzles, including me. Actually, I've never seen a coned muzzle except for on a couple of bench guns that didn't have false muzzles. I've never seen one on an old original either.

I have thought about doing it sometime on my .40, but when I'm hunting I can use a .390 instead of a .395 and thumb it in enough to not even need a shortstarter. If I decide to go with a .400 ball, it may pay off.
:thumbsup:

 

[Swampman]

If you ever shoot a coned muzzle gun, you'll be ruined. I love mine. The tools to do it are cheap, and you can make money with them.

 

[Claude Mathis]

That's true! But nobody in my club has ever bothered to cone their muzzles, including me. Actually, I've never seen a coned muzzle except for on a couple of bench guns that didn't have false muzzles. I've never seen one on an old original either.

I've never seen an original coned muzzle either, but I am told that many exist.

 

[Mulebrain]

Yes!

I usually keep a jag on the my range rod full time.

 

[Swampman]

I've seen coned muzzles on many old original rifles. They are the norm IMO.

 

This thread has been a hoot ta read. :rotf: :rotf:

BTW, Mark broke his promise. :shocked2: :rotf:

 

[Claude Mathis]

This thread has been a hoot ta read. :rotf: :rotf:

BTW, Mark broke his promise. :shocked2: :rotf:

Actually, I think his last two comments were about coned muzzles, not the original topic. (my fault for going off-topic too)

 

[Tumblernotch]

There may be some originals like that, but rare around here. I'm sure that many that have been called coned were actually worn out muzzles. :hmm:

 

[Claude Mathis]

There may be some originals like that, but rare around here. I'm sure that many that have been called coned were actually worn out muzzles. :hmm:

I can only assume that an expert could tell the difference in a muzzle that had even "coning" or was worn down, irregularly, from loading.

In any case, we know some originals were coned and it still works great today.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Frankly, Kanawa, I think it is more likely the other way around, with people looking at coned barrels and believing they are worn down at the muzzle. That happened to my brother and me when he bought an old gun, and decided to restore it. At the muzzle, it seemed to be about 38 caliber, but a .36 cal. jag would not go downt he barrel more than about 5 inches. When he sent the barrel to Bobby Hoyt, and the breech was removed, the bore was either ,33 or .34 caliber( I don't remember exactly now,) and had some serious pitting in it. Bobby opened the bore up, eventually to 42 caliber and re-rifled it. He did such a fine job, that the new caliber shot to the same POA as the original sights were set for. Those sights consist of a thin silver front sight blade, and a brass rear sight that looks like someone took an axe, and a sledge hammer, and gave the axe a good whack, to put a " V " notch in the brass to serve as a rear sight. Pete's first five shots off-hand with the new barrel at a 25 yard target scored 48-2X, using only 40 grains of FFFg powder. He later found that the barrel shot even better using 45 grains and a slightly thicker patch. The barrel was originally on a flintlock rifle, and dates to about 1800, while the rest of the gun was made 70 years later. Unfortunately, there is no indicator of either of the makers who first used the barrel and then built the percussion gun out of it.

 

[Swampman]

I believe the almost total lack (of examples) of period short starters tells us something.

 

[Tumblernotch]

Paul, I'm sure that there are some out there, I just believe that the majority weren't. But, I've not seen all the originals that are out there, though I've seen many and so far 0 coned.

By the way, I talked to Bob Hoyt today and ordered a new chunk gun barrel and while discussing the specs, I asked him if he recommended coning the muzzle. He said NO. It's okay for an offhand or hunting rifle, but if I'm looking for dime sized groups at 60 yds. not to do it. So I ain't. :grin:

 

[Tumblernotch]

Tells me that they were mostly made of wood, were small and were easily lost and rotted. And on the other hand, were possibly not needed by some shooters because they used ridiculously loose loads. When hunting deer and other large game, the ranges were short so accuracy wasn't as big a deal. And when fighting Injuns, again, range was usually short and the need for a quick reload precluded even the use of a patch in some cases.

As I said earlier, whether or not you use a shortstarter, if you get the ball no more than 1/8" or so below the muzzle and cut the patch at the muzzle (no precuts), there is no way you can snag the patch and pull the ball out. (No matter how loose the ball is). And you will see an improvement in accuracy.

 

[Swampman]

You should talk to Jim Chambers. They used correct patch ball combinations. Driving balls down the barrel is a completely modern concept. None of this has anything to do with using a cleaning jag for sometihng it wasn't designed for(loading) and creating a very dangerous situation.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Mr. Hoyt makes barrels for target shooters, who will pay him premium prices for the quality barrels he can produce. I would not have a target barrel coned, either.

Everyone who knows anything about coning understand that this was done for hunting rifles, to aid in loading the guns fast. You don't need a short starter to load a coned muzzle. Because the cone acts like a funnet, it helps to center both the patch and ball in the barrel, and reduce them down using the inclined plane principal, to give a good fit and seal of the patch and ball in the rifle. YOu get less tearing of the patches, and less distortion of the round ball using a coned barrel, rather than a short starter.

Accuracy is fine for off-hand shooters. The bench rest shooters will probably best you on group size with a flat crown, and tight bore to the muzzle. But those rifles will take 3 times as long to reload as do the coned hunting guns.

The coned barrels also allowed the guns to be reloaded quickly for that rare instance when a hunter came under attack, either by hostile Indians, or crooked, hostile white men. Men who had been trained to shoot a smoothbore, either shotgun or smoothrifle, in military service found a find compromise with the coned rifle barrels, so they could use their earlier training in colonial militias, and army when they returned to civilian life and acquired their first rifled guns.

The absence of evidence of short starters much before the 1860s is not based on the wood starters rotting away, but on the LACK OF POUCHES sewn into early possible bags, TO HOLD A SHORT STARTER, as is found in later bags. It is this absense, combined with an examination of the rifle that went with the bag, and other gear, showing the barrel was coned, that led people to conclude that short starters were not common in the early period, and that coning barrels was very common. Examinations of museum pieces from the 18th and first half of the 19th century show a predominance of coned barrels, where even the curators were mistakenly believing that the cone at the muzzle was from wear, rather than by design.

I don't care what other people believe, but some of this has come to light in the past 30 years through very careful research and documentation of existing guns in collections all over the country. Some curators didn't even know what coning was! This is what is so nice about the saving of our history through the proliferation of museums. In many small museums we constantly find the clues that make all the rest of the collected firearms make sense.

If you want to think that coning was rare, Hey, its your dime. Believe what you want. I used to think that, too. I am not easily swayed to change my mind, but when I see the evidence, and read the research of others, who have NO REASON to lie, or fabricate information or theories, I am forced to re-thing past beliefs and understandings. In fact, the man who found out about the short starters being a rare item was actually researching a book, since published, on possible bags. He wasn't even interested in this information, until he could not ignore it, and wrote an article published in Muzzle Blasts about his accidental finding. He was not even very dogmatic, and actually asked other researchers, and collectors, who knew more about a lot of different designed guns than he did, to help him out on this thesis, by measuring the muzzles in their collections, and checking the possible bags for indications that a short starter was used. I don't have any interest in this issue, and neither did this man. That provides a pretty good foundation for quality research, IMHO. :hmm: :hatsoff: