need a ram rod

[mainiac]

I need a ram rod for my t/c cherokee in .32 Is there a hickory rod "ready-made" for this gun? I thought about buying the parts and building one myself, but i became migrained, with all the different parts! Anybody help me out? thanks,

 

[Muskeg Stomper]

Have you tried searching on either Track of the Wolf or Dixie Gun Works websites?

 

[mainiac]

Yes i did, thats why i endedup over here! The rod i have has the ball seater on one end,and a tapered brass piece on the other end to screw jags,etc. into. This gun needs a 24" rod, and all they sell is 48" rods. Id have to cut this down, and then what do i need to screw on the wooden end? P.S. the rod i have is black fiberglass, and i want a rod like what came on the gun originally, whatever that was. T/C aint no help on this subject, they dont have any parts for my cherokee.

 

[roundball]

One suggesgtion would be to call owner 'John' at www.octobercountry.com

I've gradually replaced all my T/C underbarrel ramrods with solid or tubular brass ones that he's made...I have him D&T each end for 10/32" attachments.

You just need to give him the diameter and finished length that you need...

 

[paulvallandigham]

IMHO, you need two rods, One to replace the one that was under the barrel, and a range rod made of sterner stuff to use for loading and cleaning the gun anywhere but in the field.

 

[mainiac]

Of got the range rod covered, built one out of 5/16" brass rod. 284 win case with the primer pocket drilled out, makes a perfect fit muzzle protector. I just want a wooden one for field use. I bought this gun used,and it came with this black rod.Somehow it has swelled up with time,and now just barely goes down the bore.Dont want it rubbing on the rifling, so dont want to use it anymore.

 

[paulvallandigham]

I prefer, after frustrating experiences ordering RAMROD stock from suppliers, to wait, and find a vendor at a major rendezvous, or at Friendship, that has a huge box of rod stock, so I can go through them my self.

In your case, the good news is the barrel IS SO short! A lot of rods get rejected because their are crooked at one end, or they grain run-out 6 inches from one end. With a 36 or 48" rod stock, you should be able to find 2 feet of straight grain fairly easily. Do check hobby shops, and lumber yards, and home improvement stores. Some do carry wood dowel stock, but its usually birch, rather than hickory. Ask for Hickory. That is what you find in the Rendezvous and major dealers who know the business. Birch dowels are fine for furniture. But not as a ramrod. If you have a friend that is attending a rendezvous, ask him to buy you some Ramrods. Ask for 3. YOu stand a better chance of having at least one that will do the job for you. The others you can use for other projects, or trade them, or sell them at shooting events. Someone is always needing a spare Ramrod. The smaller diameter rods are in higher demand than the larger ones, because they are easier to break.

 

[Kevin2241]

Mainiac:

I agree with Paul that you need more than 1 rod.

I bought a 3 piece brass ramrod that fits in my rangebox that is perfect for the range and cleaning at home.

I have one rifle with the original wooden ramrod and a second rifle that has a black plastic rod I made myself. Local blackpowder shops in your area should have wooden or plastic dowels with the hardware you need to complete them.

For display purposes, you can't beat a wooden ramrod. For hunting, I would insist on the plastic rod. I have heard horror stories of folks being injured when a wooden ramrod breaks. I never plan to be one of them.

Kevin

 

[roundball]

For hunting, I would insist on the plastic rod. I have heard horror stories of folks being injured when a wooden ramrod breaks.

Just FYI...no question about the horror stories BUT..."unbreakable space age plastic" rods in fact also break easily.
One difference is that they snap clean and don't splinter...but the hunt is still ruined...tried two in the past, won't ever own another one.

The most dependable rods that won't let you down are solid brass, solid aluminum, solid steel, etc

 

[paulvallandigham]

Kevin: Rods break because they are not being used correctly. For some reason, Manly Men both insist on proving their verility by grabbing a Ramrod at the other end and attempting to jam it down the barrel in one long stroke. On the other hand, these same Manly Men seem to be horrified at getting their hands DIRTY, by grabbing such a rod close to the muzzle, and running it down the barrel, Hand OVER Hand!

Wooden RRs break on the downstroke, when there is both resistence- mostly from a dirty barrel, but also from that tight Patch/Ball combination.

The proper way to use any rod- wood, Steel, Brass, hollow tube, or solid- aluminum, one piece, three piece, 5 piece-- in a MLer, or modern gun is to run it down the barrel HAND OVER HAND, with your two hands never more than 8 inches apart. With one hand holding the muzzle of the barrel so that your thumb and index finger can guide the tip of the rod into the barrel, your other hand can hold the rod adequately, and STRAIGHT just that 8 inches above the muzzle. As the rod and your PRB or conical go down the barrel, you change the jobs your hands are doing when they come together, or you can used the one hand stroke method- ie., releasing the rod, and reach up another 8 inches to grab the rod again. I suppose this might be one way to keep at least one of your hands "cleaner", fo the Manly Men who are concerned about that.

Broken rods are God's way of punishing you for doing these things wrong! If you don't clean that barrel between shots, ( and any reading of the posts on this forum for any length of time will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that most of the members here INSIST on finding out how many shots they can fire from their gun without cleaning them!-- Lots of Manly Men here) you will reach the point one day where that next PRB just doesn't want to go all the way down the barrel. Depending on the gun, and combination of patch/ball, and where you live, and what time of year it is, that can happen in as little as 3 shots, or require more than 20 shots to get there.

My suggestion, which I have made many times to our Manly Men, is to carry a towel and water to wash and clean their hands, and their Ramrods So they don't transfer the black powder residue from their guns to their clothes. Most of the long session shooting takes place on ranges, and there is no reason to NOT have a canteen, or bottle of water, a small container of dish soap, and a towel, rag, or paper towel roll in your car that you can use to clean up. A couple of towels or rags can be tucked in your range box, or a back pocket to use after each cleaning and loading of our gun, and the same rags can be used to wipe down the stock, and clean off the residue on the barrel and action from the last shot, before you prime, or cap the gun on the line to fire the next shot. Commercial hand cleaners, like Go-Jo work fine, too.

But, rather than take this common sense approach to personal safety, the Manly Men insist on showing all the rest o fthe Manly Men that they can shove a 48 inch Ramrod down their barrels with one long stroke!

I have personally always watched these Demonstrations of the Manly Arts, waiting for the bells to ring, or fireworks to go off overhead, and someone like Ed McMahon to show up out of nowhere and present these guys with Whatever prize you get for achieving that feet- may be with a bevy of beautiful babes showing lots of cleavage! I have seen those sticks being bent almost in half( thank God Hickory rods are up to that kind of thing!) and the shooter show Not the Least Concern about that rod, or the danger he is posing to himself, and even shooters next to him. Of course there is a bit of cursing and cussing going on if that rod does resist enough to bend into a "U", because it means the shooter might have a stuck ball, and is going to have to find a way to either get it down on the powder, or pull it out.

You can pull that same rod OUT OF THE BARREL in one stroke grabbing it at the end, and pulling back out. And, if you bend the rod in half as you are pulling it out, its not likely to stab you- but someone near you might get cut or scratched. Taking the rod out hand over hand makes better sense, from a safety perspective, also, no?

What do you do if you get a ball stuck in the barrel off the powder?

A. pour a bit of water, or cleaning fluid, or liquid patch lube down the barrel and wait a bit for the liquid to soak around the patch, and dampen the residue that has stopped the ball. DON'T POUND the ball, as all that does if distort it, and force the soft lead to expand into the grooves, making the fit even TIGHTER! It also makes it harder to get water into that patch to loosen the residue around and immediately behind the powder. After 5 minutes, turn the barrel muzzle down, and pour any excess water out of the muzzle. Now, using a ONE PIECE range rod, see if you can't move that ball down the barrel, but use that hand over hand method. If it doesn't want to budge, you can try banging the end of that solid range rod against a post or tree, and sometimes the combination of force, and the water dissolving the residue will get the ball moving. I do not recommend doing this with any wooden or synthetic Ramrod. I have done it, because I had no choice, gaining my education and overcoming my Manly Man Ways of stupidity when I was younger, but I shudder now even thinking about having done that, and what it was doing to the wood in that rod.

Of course Once you get that stuck ball "unstuck", and fire it out of the gun, you will have to spend time cleaning that gunbarrel, so any time YOU THINK you saved by NOT cleaning between shots is a fantasy in your own mind. One of my friends- a paid up member of the Manly Men club, used to kid me all the time for cleaning my gun barrel between shots. I took the kidding without comment, and waited. Sure enough, he got a ball stuck, then managed to break his Ramrod. I had an extra Ramrod blank in my trunk- I bought extras at Friendship when I was buying my own, and took them to the range just for this occasion---- figuring someone would need to make a new ramrod as often as guys where breaking them at the club range. I charge him only what it cost me for the rod- nothing for mileage or forethought-- as it was killing him just to have to ask me if I had a rod he could buy. I also used my steel Range Rod to pull his ball, when he could not get it done with hie wooden ramrod. Then I had him dump his powder charge and we cleaned the barrel using my Range Rod, and I let him FEEL what a clean barrel should feel like before he poured down the new charge. I also showed him the Hand over hand method, and explained why it is used. I showed him how to pin his ferrules- tips - to the new hickory rod to that they would not pull off when he tried to pull the next ball he stuck in the barrel, all over his protestations that he would never he that happen again! I even showed him how having a short piece of leather thong that he can wrap three times around the end of his RR would give him enough "GRIP" on the rod to be able to pull a stuck rod out of the gun. ( from running a too-dry cleaning patch down a dirty barrel- the more common reason that rods get Stuck, as opposed to balls that get stuck in barrels.)

Over the years of " rescuing" ( what one member called what I do at the club) other members who get rods or balls stuck in their barrels I have noted that while it happens to all kinds of MLers, it seems to happen the most to guys with the commercially made guns that have those powder chambers that are smaller in size than the bore diameter. ONe member who repeated had trouble candidly and innocently told me the reason he didn't dampen his cleaning patch really well was because he was afraid that liquid would get down into the chamber, and then on into the flash hole, and foul his next powder. He said he actually was Afraid to clean his gun, because he always had trouble afterwards getting it to fire at all!

I went to my range box, found both a .22, and .30 caliber bore brush, and tried them on my rod to see which would fit his gun better. In his case, my .30 caliber brush went into the powder chamber, so I put a damp patch on the muzzle, stabbed it with the bore brush and ran it down his barrel and cleaned out his powder chamber. It was FULL OF crud! I am trying to be nice. Even he recoiled from what he saw! I dried the chamber with a dry cleaning patch, and then we fired some caps off to clear the flashchannel. I was not happy with what I was hearing or seeing from firing the caps, so I went back to my range box, and got out a pipe cleaner, and a screw driver, and removed both his nipple, and his clean out screw. I then showed him how to clean out that channel with the pipe cleaner.
He had some machinist training and skills, so I recommended that he at very least find a drill bit close in size to the existing flashchannel, and using his fingers, run it into the channel and clean out any burrs that might be at the junction of the flash channel and the back of the powder chamber. I also suggested polishing that channel as much as possible, and if he could, use a larger size drill to widen the channel. In his case, the clean out screw was actually a bit larger than the channel hole, so this was possible without having to rethread and replace the clean out screw with a larger one.

Once he understood what he needed to do to clean his gun properly, he not only didn't need my "helP" again, but he actually began loaning his rods and tools to other shooters at the club to "Rescue " them. When he finished helping another member he would give me a smile, and a small shake of his head, and I would just smile back.

Nothing more needed to be said between MANLY MEN! :grin: :wink: :hatsoff:

 

[PitchyPine]

Now watch it there Paul, accidents can happen. As you know i broke my ram rod this year after shooting a deer. The circumstances were that I was in my cabin with a low ceiling and in very cold temps. I had to hold my rifle at an angle because the ram rod hit the ceiling and the ball froze in the bore and i had to push hard to get it loaded.
Sure I might of been holding the ram rod incorrectly but things don`t always go as planned in the excitement of a kill.
No (Manly) man about my incident. :nono: :haha:

 

[paulvallandigham]

Ah, Come-on, PitchyPine. If you were holding it wrong, You ARE a Manly Man. I have never doubted that you don't belong to the club. I am still a member, too, in spite of my efforts at redemption. :rotf: :surrender: :hmm: :thumbsup: :wink:

 

[PitchyPine]

Not me, the rifle is taller than me and i was standing on a stool. :rotf:
My fault probably, was i purposely trying to be manly no.
Did it hurt like all get out yes, will i be more careful next time yes. Will it happen again no because i made a brass ram rod .
Now all it can do is bend and poke me in the eye. :shocked2: :rotf:
All in fun bro. :thumbsup:

 

[paulvallandigham]

:wink:

 

[roundball]

"...Now watch it there Paul, accidents can happen..."
"...things don`t always go as planned..."
"...no (Manly) man about my incident..."

Sounds like you're having to respond to some textbook armchair theories...if so, you're wasting your time trying to explain reality to those kind of people...not because they've actually experienced it but because they read it in somebody else's post somewhere and repeated it...not having experience of their own they don't know any better.


But beteween mere mortals like you and I, of course things don't always go as planned...plus...wood rods can have grain runout to the side, they can have defects...for me, I'm sold on brass rods for the range and for hunting...if I get a hunt cut short it sure isn't going to be because some cheap or defective wooden or plastic ramrod broke a half mile from the truck

 

[paulvallandigham]

I guess Christmas is over, right RB? So you want to begin the festivities again?????? :cursing: :nono:

I am still not interested in your blather, and I think most of the members have you figured out by now, too.

So, why don't you stop??? :youcrazy: :shocked2: :blah:

Or at least come up with some new line? :applause: :grin:

You are beginning to bore all of us. :barf:

Your comment to Pitchypine was not necessary, contributes nothing to the thread, and as usual just touts your particular way of doing things as THE ONLY WAY! Is your ego that fragile that you need it stroked every day??? :youcrazy: :haha:

Or was Mrs. Claus just not nice enough to Santa, this year???? Inquiring minds want to know! :v

 

[PitchyPine]

Ok guys, my post started this so my post can end it. :nono:
Happy New year to both of you, now go up to the pre-flint forum and look at the gun i just made.
Give me 30 minutes gotta take a picture first. :redface:

 

[shmrck1]

Pitchy,
Good move! :hatsoff:
snake-eyes:applause:

 

[TxRambler]

Back to the subject at hand, I had good luck with the "Virtually Indistructable Ramrod", an advertiser on this forum.

 

[mainiac]

Well i looked around some more, and found just what i wanted. Cains outdoors is building me one exactly like the one that t/c made for it when new. problem solved....