Minnie Ball Stuck 1861 Springfield

[deerstalkert]

Winters, be sure your RR tips are pinned or use a steel RR or you will end up with the ball puller and RR end stuck with your minie'.

 

[flntlokr]

Now that you have put water into the gun, it's pretty important to get that ball out of there. Try putting water down from the front end as well, ( a bit of detergent in there will help) hopefully the fouling will get wet enough to allow the ball to move with a puller or compressed air. If you get a tubeless tire valve and press it hard over the nipple while a buddy works a bike tire pump, or one of those little 12v pumps (or any other air source), it should blow out (never failed me). Don't stand in front of it while doing that, and hang a towel or bunch of rag off the muzzle to catch the bullet. Good luck!

 

[Eddie Southgate]

There I go again. I gues a bench vise, giant crescent wrench and leather pads won’t get it. This is why I don’t build guns and probably should quit giving advice. Part of growing old is learning when to be quiet.
I’ll be glad to hear how he finally gets that stubborn lead booger out!

Those tools are what I have used on my Zoli for the last 50 years . They have worked every time . Some people like to make a small job like removing a breech plug sound like brain surgery .

 

[Stantheman86]

This rifle is an original?

Just get a .58 ball puller and a Treso range rod and pull the dam thing out

 

[Colonial Boy]

Years ago I read of a solution to this problem, as I remember the way it was done was to insulate a metal rod and attach a lead from it to the positive terminal of a 12 volt car battery and the negative lead to the barrel where the bullet was jammed, the resultant short circuit heated the bullet to melting point and most of the problem ran out the muzzle.
Don’t know if it worked as I have been fortunate enough never to have the problem.
As a solution it.sounds logical.

 

[mooman76]

Not with a load of powder in there.

 

[Orin]

1) If you are a prime member of Amazon then you can get this puller in 1 or 2 days.
Ball Puller
2) To make a good lube get some bees wax from Amazon - Here is an example
Beeswax
3) Lube - I use 3/4 beeswax and 1/4 Crisco and that lube works fine in all of my Civil War era weapons.

 

[deerstalkert]

Years ago I read of a solution to this problem, as I remember the way it was done was to insulate a metal rod and attach a lead from it to the positive terminal of a 12 volt car battery and the negative lead to the barrel where the bullet was jammed, the resultant short circuit heated the bullet to melting point and most of the problem ran out the muzzle.
Don’t know if it worked as I have been fortunate enough never to have the problem.
As a solution it.sounds logical.

may work, but that powder sitting under the ball can dry out and even damp will still burn. at least Black powder will. don't know about the phony stuff. i would try everything else first before introducing heat into this equation.

 

[gustrolland]

Same thing happened to me , I didn't size my Minies and one got stuck. They drop out of molds at varying sizes bigger because of expansion. Back in the 1860s Remington sized the Minies.

A .575 mold might drop a .580 Minie.

Lube isn't a factor here because a properly sized Minie would still go down with force. Unless the bore has a "tight spot"

Pulling that out is gonna be a huge pain, but you may have fouling pushed up below it and you'll be fighting that trying to pound it down. At least pulling it, you're getting it out through the same length of bore it went in.

If you pound on it it MAY go down or it will deform into a crushed up piece of lead and just be lodged in the barrel.

Since there's no longer a powder charge , just get a ball puller. You'll need one anyway, it's a must have piece of equipment.


If it's that bad a Smith will have to pull the breech off and tap it forward.

Been a gunsmith for almost 50 years, and yes you have to remove the breach to get out stuck round. Just no way around it. Usually not to hard, but it can be a pain and can be hard to non mar the barrel. But a gun is made to use and things happen.

 

[Colonial Boy]

Don’t think that heat would be a problem and there would be no sparks, besides which black powder is notoriously difficult to ignite with electric sparks.
As the barrel is an original it is probably iron or not as tough as today’s steels, so bashing the bullet could cause a slight bulge.

 

[deerstalkert]

i wasn't thinking about electrical sparks, more concerned with molten lead. muzzle downward oriented he might be ok though that still wouldn't keep loose powder from contacting the melted ball. just wanting the op safe in all this.

 

[mooman76]

If it's hot enough to melt lead, it's hot enough to burn powder.

 

[deermanok]

You could glue a drill bit to your ramrod.....oh never mind, forget about it.

 

[Muley Gil]

Dixie Gun Works sells a CO2 powered devise that fits over the nipple, to blow the Minie out. At the N-SSA home range in Virginia, they keep scuba tanks with a fitting that goes over the nipple. Those tanks blow out stuck bullets with ease

 

[Stantheman86]

I just read a part of a book where a Civil War Sharpshooter ruined a rifle by trying to melt out a stuck bullet over a fire

 

[Rudall]

If it's hot enough to melt lead, it's hot enough to burn powder.

Sure about that?

 

[Britsmoothy]

Don't heat the barrel up Lord give me strength......

Transfer of heat to the lead will not be linear. Any oxidisation of the lead surface and or any reaction by heated oxygen atoms causing oxidisation of the lead there and then will stop heat transfer until a damaging level of heat is reached in the barrels material period.

 

[Widows Son]

A drill bit is the way I’d go if other methods don’t work.
Something like a 14mm bit affixed to a rod with a muzzle protector to keep it centred in the bore. Pour a bit of oil in the barrel first to help the drilling. Put the other end of the rod in an electric drill and it shouldn’t take much time to bore through the minie ball. Let the drill bit do the cutting so don’t push very hard on the rod or you may shove it deeper

 

[Erwan]

I shoot mostly the Minié bullets and never one don't want to go out : the bullet is smaller that the barrel and the fouling isn't sufficient to do that, it gets stuck in the barrel, but a bullet extractor is enough to get it out.
The error may have been to tap it: you never tap on a Minié bullet or a compression bullet.
The only solution now: lubricant/black powder solvent and ball screw...
Ball screw, with that tool all the bullets are extracted : Bullet puller.
Just a last thing : forget to heat the barrel...

 

[Britsmoothy]

A drill bit is the way I’d go if other methods don’t work.
Something like a 14mm bit affixed to a rod with a muzzle protector to keep it centred in the bore. Pour a bit of oil in the barrel first to help the drilling. Put the other end of the rod in an electric drill and it shouldn’t take much time to bore through the minie ball. Let the drill bit do the cutting so don’t push very hard on the rod or you may shove it deeper