Are the sights low to the barrel? Are you seeing heat waves?
Loss of accuracy…
- Thread starter lbothell
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beardedhorse
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45man. Where do you find Young Country Arms lube? I started with it in 1974 but thought they went out of business. Called 103 lube and claimed to be able to shoot 103 times without swabbing. Was good stuff, biodegradable. Ibothell, What are you using to clean between shots with? Too wet a cleaning solution (Moose milks, Ballistol-water, whatever) can make fouling gummy or wet the powder if not cleaned and dried with a dry patch. With sights too low on the barrel you can get heat mirage. I am not familiar with the Traditions Crockett rifle's breech plug system. Is there a flat breech face and plug drilled with a smaller than bore diameter hole such as on some patent and hook breech designs? Do you use a fouling scraping on breech face? After 5 shots you may get a fouling ring in bore about where the patched ball and powder charge meet. Are you seating the ball firmly on the powder without compressing the grains too much? I've seen shooters throwing and bouncing their ramrods down the bore to seat their overly tight patched round ball over the powder and fouling ring. They distort front of ball and compress the charge. Dutch Schultz has a system of using a not overly tight patch when swabbing. Not one full push of rod down to breech which can shove all the fouling there but a series of progressively deeper pushes. What are you considering 5 good shoots (group size in inches) at what distance (yards) and what position (offhand, bench, prone, kneeling)? I'd test your fixes on a bench rest and cut out operator error from offhand position. What are you deducing from reading burnt or cut patterns on recovered shooting patches? Good luck getting it figured out.
Before you go messing with your gun try this. Shoot one fouling shot. Then load and use spit as the lube on your patch. Dont clean between shots. Let the spit patch clean the barrel as you load. I gave up that cleaning between shots several years ago. I either use spit or windshield washer fluid as patch lube. This technique works well in all of my rifles. In my match rifle I get WAY better accuracy doing this than I do cleaning between shots. It just doesn’t not shoot well with a sparkling clean barrel. Put the patch in your mouth as you load the powder. Wet it with spit then suck out the excess or rub it between your fingers. Damp not dripping. I had a .32 Pedersoli Kentucky and a Crockett and both shot well with spit patches. My patches were very thin with a .310 ball. Patches were probably .010. The tighter patch I used in the .32s the worse it shot.
There is still some information being left off the table before any good suggestions can be made. What caliber, cap or flint, round ball or mini,type lube, patch size, yardage being shot, group size, off hand or bench.
He wrote that it was a .32 Crockett.
Are you shooting offhand when the problem occurs? If so, try shooting a string off of a sand bag rest on a bench setup. That will allow you to better see what the rifle can do rather than what you can do with the rifle.
I shot my Hawken rifle this winter in 16% humidity and shots were all over the place. The gun was built and is normally shot in much higher humidity 60% to 75% on average. In the dry air the key wedge was loose to the point of almost falling out and lock screws were loose. Snug up and back in business. Just a thought.
Excellent point!
When stated “rust in the chamber” how much, where and how do you know this.
Are you referring to the breech?
Lot of interesting thoughts here. I had a problem once with a new rifle where the first few shots would be center, and then they would wander off towards the edge of the paper -- each successive shot a mite further out. Turned out to be a high spot in the barrel inleting. As the barrel got warmer that spot pressed harder on the metal and it changed the vibration characteristics. Friend of mine took the barrel out and found
the contact spot, dressed it down a bit, and presto! Problem went away.
the contact spot, dressed it down a bit, and presto! Problem went away.
How wide and deep is your rifling? Years ago I built a Trade gun with Civil War style of lands and grooves. 3 shots and it needed cleaning. Most times I used two pillow ticking patches one dry then the patch for the ball was very wet with Track of the Wolf patch lube. The dry patch would keep the power dry the wet patch would help clean the groves. Also look at the condition of the barrel. If the barrel is rusted, pitted or just plain poor finish that will cause all types of issues.
Mike in FL
50 Cal.
200 shots without wiping. Wow. For me 200 shots mean 200 wipes. I don't see how we can even push the load down with a bore caked with crud.
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I do need to find a better Lube the stuff I normally use is about out and yes bore butter is not reliable for me hahah wish it was since it’s so easy to acquire. I will have my buddy shoot it for me as well, I will say I’m shooting off sandbags and have a great rest, not saying it can’t be me but my other guns sight in great with this method. BUT it still can be me hahaha.
yes in the breech area, and I’m believing there is rust bc when I run my patch right when I get to the bottom my patch seems to be getting caught. Now Iv got enough cleaned that it doesn’t rip my patch off but I do have a hard time reaching the end without pushing hard then getting a good grip to get it out. It won’t take off my patch now but it’s still sticking in that area. The rest of the bore and smooth and shiny. Now I don’t have a bore camera so this is going off feel but to me that’s what it feels like.
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I will have to look for a high spot and address this thank you for that insight as well. As mentioned I am shooting off sand bags, shooting at 25 yrds just as I would squirrel hunting. Was shooting around 1/2 inch group and at times 1/4inch but then as mentioned it would open up. I am going to take as many of this ideas to the bench and see what will work best and will update. Friend of mine who I got the gun from said it shot good with Murphy’s oil soap so I will try that as well. I mentioned the catching of the jag and possible rust not trying to say it was his fault or as to trade the gun back but to see if it was doing this when he had it. He said he hasn’t shot the gun in years just cleaned it and kept it away. Like I said the barrel is great till the very bottom but again that’s going off of feel. I appreciate these didn’t ideas, it will get worked out. As for the bottom of the breech area before it does into the patent breech I’m going to do my best to keep it clean but I can only do so much. I don’t think this is the cause of the problem but again I could be wrong
beardedhorse
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If the breech face is bored out smaller than bore diameter, then a cleaning patch will stop at the front of that chamber of the patent breech. Unless you have a fouling scraper that is custom matched to that cavity, you won't get the fouling cleaned out well. Each time you push a moist cleaning patch down to the breech face, you shove fouling into that smaller than bore diameter chamber. After five shots the fouling build up moves your powder charge and seated patched ball closer to the muzzle. It moves the fouling ring farther up, too. The fouling can clog your flash channel from nipple and drum to the main charge. Are you able to unscrew the breech plug without damaging the drum? If you can, you can clean the rust out at the bottom of the barrel where the breech plug stops. Pitting there may be the cause of your patches getting snagged. Thompson Center made a fouling scraper jag that screwed into the ramrod. The jag was made to match their breech plug face. Does Traditions make such a fouling scraper for their rifles? Are there any other shooters at your range or club that shoot a similar .32 cal Traditions Crockett rifle? See if they are having the same problems with groups opening up after 5 shots on their rifle. If not, what patch, ball, lube and powder load are they using? Are your undesirable groups displaying vertical stringing which can happen with a barrel gets hot? Does the first shot from a clean bore print different than the next four in your initial good group?
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No such scrapper that I know of, and the only other person at my club is me in my back yard haha don’t have to many ppl around me that I know that shoot. Patch and lube are going to be changed here, just waiting this this cold spell and work slow down. I’m not sure I could remove the breech, well to be honest I know I could but to what degree of damage not sure Iv never done it before but I’m sure it could be done. I will try everything that is mentioned and go into the heavier stuff if need be. Also might try the molasses trick to clean Iv read about it here a couple of time.
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Okay here is an update, pictures posted first is the group with the fliers next is after I did some of the things mentioned. Much better groups distance 23 yrds. The better group I shot 8 consecutive shots, the high one was second to the last shot and I had a slight hang fire which could have accounted for the SLIGHT flier. But the rest were right in there. So I made my screw holes oval like suggested, put on a new nipple (well old nipple but a different nipple), I sanded some of the wood where the barrel is in case of high spots, I Evapo rusted the barrel, I got different pillow ticking not sure of thickness I just keep it simple but I did get different stuff. Used murphy’s oil soap as my lube, and tried compressing the ball differently also as suggested, and I also did go up 5 extra grains of 3f so now shooting 20 instead of 15. 15 wasn’t working, now let me add the last time I shot 15 was the most consistent and 20 was worse, so whatever I did did make a difference and I had to adjust a little with powder but I’m still in the ballpark I wanted with this gun. Not to much but still enough I can shoot with confidence. I don’t have time to try each thing individually so I did it all at once, but this seemed to give me dead squirrel accuracy, at least 23 yards which is good for this purpose. Thank you all for the ideas and suggestions I know we sometimes go over the same things and it may frustrate some but I do appreciate the help that is received from this site.
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I would just add more lube to the next patch when it started to get harder to seat a ball. It worked for me.
