Howdy fellow BP shooters,
I joined this forum in 2008 and have read a ton here but haven’t been able to contribute much because of my limited actual shooting sessions over the last 25 years, or so. Before that I had a lot more free time and used to shoot quite regularly. I am grateful for all I have learned from you folks and hope to put some of this knowledge to good use this coming year. I tell myself that I am semi-retired now and hope to spend more time at the range shooting in the many areas of my interests, which includes BPML and several other unmentionable activities regarding shooting/reloading for accuracy.
I don’t shoot competitively and seldom get an opportunity to hunt, so my enjoyment of shooting is trying to ring as much accuracy out of any gun as I can. To me, plinking is generally a waste of time and ammo because you can’t really learn anything from it, but I have been known to do it too on occasion. I am the sort of guy that strives for everything I can control to be as consistent as possible when I go shooting. One step in loading a ML that has always seemed inconsistent to me is the general manner in which a PRB is seated on the powder. You all have no doubt seen as many, or maybe even more, squirrely methods of doing this as I have, so no need to dwell on them here! I know that the virtues of some kinds of loading rods and techniques have been discussed here before, but I wanted to just throw this out there for others curious about this, like I was.
I remember that years ago, around 1999, there was an all brass segmented loading rod set offered for sale called a KaDOOTY. It had a weighted coaxial slide hammer feature built into one of the rod segments. It did not have a spring, as others have mentioned here before. You lifted the cylindrical hammer up the shaft of the rod and let it fall one or more times against a stop to get the desired compression on the PRB. It wasn’t cheap either, selling for between $130 and $150, at a time when that was close to the cost of some new ML rifles and kits. For just a loading rod, that was a little too steep for me back then, so what I did was to use my range rod to seat the ball on the powder, then I placed the rifle’s butt plate across the middle of my boot/shoe and pressed down on the rod firmly just until I felt the bones in my foot give. That was as consistent a pressure gauge as I had available back then, which seemed to work OK. I got to thinking that there had to be a more consistent way to accomplish this step easily and at minimal expense. I freely pass on my ideas to those of you that wish to experiment along these same lines! None of this patented or even patent pending!
Some years back I decided to see what could be done with a coiled compression spring and a secondary knob located on the loading rod shaft itself. The use of a metal lathe will come in very handy for these modifications.
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Above are the two versions of the rod modifications that I came up with. The upper one above was added to a stainless steel loading rod with a free-spinning non-detachable wooden ball/knob that I used to seat the PRB initially. This rod was about 6” longer than needed to load my .50 caliber percussion GPR normally, so there was room to add the components beneath the wooden ball/knob. The lower loading rod was only just long enough for normal loading, so it’s modification was made to fit as an extension between the handle and shaft of an aluminum loading rod for a .50 caliber unmentionable ML. I know that these loading rods may not be legal for use in some competitions, but since I just shoot for my own enjoyment and experimentation, that never entered into my consideration.
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The upper stainless steel rod modification (shown spread apart above) was the easiest to do, requiring only five parts total, with three of the five components coming from my local ACE Hardware Store. I found a suitable large wooden knob and a coiled compression spring* and flat washer that would both slip loosely over my 3/8” diameter SS rod. The last part I had to make out of a short section of 7/8” diameter brass rod, a stop collar, if you will, cut to any convenient length from 5/8” to ¾”. A center hole was bored through the brass stop collar on the lathe to slip-fit onto my loading rod. Then a 1/8” long step was turned on the lathe to form a lip that the coil spring could slip over, keeping the spring centered on the loading rod. A hole was drilled and tapped into the side of the brass collar for an 8-32 Allen head set screw I had on hand (if you don’t already have one, you will need to add this to your ACE list). The flat washer needed no work. The large wooden knob needed a through hole drilled for a slip fit onto my loading rod.
Assembly was pretty easy, with the knob going onto the rod first and up against the wooded ball/knob, then the flat washer (used so that the end of the spring did not chew up the face of the wooden knob), then the coiled spring, and lastly the brass collar. I moved the brass collar up the rod and tightened it at a place to where it just barely touched, and started to compress, the coil spring.
In use I pushed down on the ball/knob at the end of the rod with the palm of my hand to seat the PRB initially on the powder. Once the PRB was initially seated, then I used just my fingers to press down on the wooden knob atop the coiled spring, compressing it, until the spring was just fully compressed and all segments of the coils touched, no harder. In testing this method using a bathroom scale, I found the pressure exerted to generally be within a pound or two, which was way ahead of what I had been doing!
*ACE had several compression springs of various strengths to choose from that would fit over my loading rod. I selected one that I could compress only about half way between just my thumb and middle finger. I did not buy any of the ones I could fully compress, nor any that were way too strong for me to compress at all. You may choose your spring differently for your own reasons.
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Modification of my aluminum rod by adding an extension section between the rod and handle is a little more complicated and requires a few more pieces and more metal lathe work. The photo above shows the extension section removed from between the rod and handle. What you can’t see is that the rod has a FeMale coned face with a hole drilled and tapped for 10-32 FM threads, and (you can see) that the handle has a Male coned face with M 10-32 threads. When the FM and M coned faces are screwed together these parts provide a good rigid joining of the rod and handle.
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This photo shows the breakdown of the extension section. It consists of a brass extension shaft long enough (4”-5”) and of a diameter to accommodate the other parts, i.e. a lower stop collar, a coiled compression spring, a flat washer, a wooden knob and an upper stop collar with a set screw. The brass extension shaft needs to be made with a M 10-32 thread and cone on the end that goes into the loading rod, and a FM threaded 10-32 hole and cone on the other end to accept the handle.
This brass shaft was originally a scrapped part of a shower valve stem, and will be the hardest part to make. The shaft was turned down to about the same diameter as the aluminum rod, except for the small raised rim and an M coned face to match the end of the loading rod. A small flat at the end of this cone was center drilled and tapped to a 10-32 thread and a steel bolt was turned tight into the hole and secured by a drop of super glue. When cured, the bolt head was cut off to leave a M 10-32 thread, allowing this end of the shaft to thread into the end of the loading rod. The other end of the shaft was FM coned and drilled and tapped with a FM threaded 10-32 hole so that the handle could be threaded into it.
Both the lower and upper stop collars are lathe turned to be a slip-fit on the shaft extension, and with features as described above. My upper stop collar uses a set screw. My lower stop collar is supported by the raised rim on the extension shaft, so does not need a set screw to hold it in place. If your shaft can’t be made with a raised rim, then you will need a second set screw for the lower stop collar.
Assembly is again very easy. Slide the lower stop collar onto the extension shaft and let it stop against the raised rim (or using a set screw to secure it at the bottom end of the shaft if no raised rim is present). Then slide the coiled spring onto the shaft, seating the spring over the lip turned on the lower stop collar. Now slip the flat washer onto the shaft so it rests against the top of the coiled spring. Set the wooden knob onto the shaft. Lastly, place the upper stop collar onto the shaft and tighten the set screw with barely any spring compression. This finished shaft extension can be threaded between the handle and the rod as needed. See all relevant instructions above.
These units have helped me get more consistent PRB seating pressure and have improved my accuracy with respect to vertical spread a little, enough to make it worthwhile. Now that I have read Dutch Schoultz’s material cover to cover, I look for an even greater gain in accuracy! I’d be interested in what results some of you guys get should you make one of these devices yourself, or something similar.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it can help someone else improve their shooting!
Good shooting! Clint Meier
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