Nuthin' like a good piece of hicory...

[DVanVorous]

Ok so Im out praticing my off hand with my Hawken and as Im pulling the rod out after a cleaning swipe, snap goes the rod in a greenstick break.:shocked2:

The issue? None really given that the rod was over 15 yrs old (hence the topic name)...but a reminder to those that use traditional gear to keep an eye out for expanded grain along the length of the rod. :wink:

For the safety minded I also use a "palm saver" made out of a large wooden dresser drawer pull thats big enough to deflect a failure during loading. May not necessarily be "HC" but its well enough used to "look" HC... :grin:

Keep yer powder dry,

D.

 

[Christiaan]

I also broke the rod of my 10Ga shotgun a few weeks ago while shooting doves. :cursing:

Luckily I had a fiberglass rod in the car. I prefer a wooden one though. Hickory is quite scares in SA. I'm still looking for an acceptable wood.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

Hickory grows fairly straight and steam bends easily. Maybe if you could locate a native species with similar qualaties, you'd have something similar to hickory. Of course, when worked properly, it doesn't like to break either, which is why it makes such a good bow wood.

 

[rice1817]

Speaking of broken rods....what would a frontiersman have done in the wilderness if he managed to break his rammer? Find a hickory sapling and whittle another? Carry a spare? I am sure that they broke them then just like we break ours today, but when we break one, we go to the car and get another or drive home and make another out of a round blank or order one, and we don't go hungry or get scalped from the ordeal.

 

[Bountyhunter]

I have read that the mountain men carried a couple of spare rods with them. One under the barrel, and one in the barrel. One thing I can assure you of, is that once you get west of the Missouri River, you wont find any hickory. However, you do find certain plants that grow some decent shoots that can be made to work as a rammer such as the black willow. It aint tough, but it is readily replaceable. Choke Cherry also has a super tough shoot that grows slim and long and straight. Mountain Laurel in this area has straight shoots. Nothing beats a basal shoot from the Osage Orange when it is peeled and shoved down a gunbarrel to dry straight.

Remember, the whole shoot, has no grain run-out.......

 

[Zonie]

It's a guess but if I were a frontiersman I would look for a long straight branch of whatever was available to replace the rod as quickly as possible.
Then I might look for a known wood that would be more suitable.

This brings up the question, if Osage Orange was available wouldn't it be an excellent choice for a ramrod? It is often used for bows which of course have to be able to bend without breaking.

Is Osage Orange too soft to be used?

Has anyone seen any documented information about using it or some wood other than hickory?

 

[MikeC]

I don't believe osage would work for the reason being if your making a self bow out of it you must follow a single growth ring or it will break if not backed with sinew or rawhide, if a ring is violated. So my guess is if your cutting dowels of osage and you don't get it between rings it will break if bent. In other words if the dowel is cut going through multiple rings and skinny as they are they will break if bent enough.

With 'white woods" which I believe hickory is one, you don't have to worry about chasing a ring.

I guess if you find a perfectly straight stave long enough with wide rings it would work.

Just a thought.

 

[BrownBear]

Man, wouldn't I love to have local woods suitable for making my own!

But I don't.

So the practical side of my location is to order up a handful at a time and keep them on hand. No sense paying shipping for just one. And any time I order up a gun, I'll have extra rods put in the same box for some "free" shipping.

Not sure what our ancestors did for a solution, but I keep a "pack" cleaning rod in my possibles bag. It breaks down into six or so sections about 6" long each. Nope. It's not an alternative to a good ramrod for regular use, but I sure feel better having it along in case of problems.

 

[Rancocas]

Once upon a time in northern Michigan I was stuck in camp due to bad weather. I had forgotten to bring my jags and cleaning stuff. I needed to give the gun a good cleaning, and so with nothing else to do, I whittled a cleaning rod.
I just cut a small sapling. I don't know what kind of wood it was. I peeled off the bark, smoothed it all down, and carved a little hole through one end that would hold a cleaning patch. I didn't want to risk just carving a jag type end and take the chance that a cleaning patch might slip off and get stuck in the rifle bore. So, with the hole I stuck a patch through it and wrapped it around the end of the rod.
It took less than an hour to have it ready for use. I used it for a week and it worked fine.
A simple ramrod with no attachment would be just as easy to make - easier because I wouldn't need the hole to hold a cleaning patch.

 

[roundball]

"...I keep a "pack" cleaning rod in my possibles bag. It breaks down into six or so sections about 6" long each..."

A smart idea...to avoid an injured hand or ruined hunt I take a similar but different approach and use a solid brass rod...if I break that I just need to go on back to the house and take up checkers.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

Got 22 shots out of my new rifle, and the brand new rod broke.

Sent away for one of these
http://www.periodramrod.com/

Been abusin it every chance I get.

 

[BrownBear]

That looks like a smart move, Johny. Thanks for the link!

Hey Roundball-

I like your idea and have done it with my 32 and 36, but how do you deal with rod rattle on small rods or weight full dimension versions for larger cals? Seems like a small rod would keep coming out of big pipes, even if it didn't rattle. I'm talking 50,54 and 58 cal here. The rifles all weigh 9 to 12 pounds as it is.

 

[omarick1948]

Here in Nebraska we have alot of Dogwood. When that wood dries, it's harder than a rock!

Anyone ever try to use it for making a ramrod? I know a fella that use's Dogwood for throwing hawk handles and they seem to hold-up pretty good!

Alot of the guy's here use them for Tipi and other tent pegs too.

 

[Swampman]

I have a Hickory range rod that's over 20 years old. I agree you can't beat hickory.

 

[kansas_volunteer]

Rough leaf dogwood grows straight and is very hard when dry it ought to make a good ramrod, as has been suggested. The word dogwood, is derived from dagwood, or dagger wood, a wood capabable of being used where toughness and wear resistance were desired, like rake tines etc.

Osage orange shoots are straight, but thorny. I think removing the thorns and carefully scraping the shoot to suitable size might make something quite satisfactory.

Hickory is found west of the Missouri. There's a lot of it in the neighborhood of the University of Kansas. Along Hwy. I-70 it fades out about halfway between Topeka and Lawrence.

In Commerece of the Praries, or one of the other primary source books, mention is made of travelers on the Santa Fe Trail making a last stop at Council Grove before heading out into the sea of grass, and while there cutting "wiping sticks" for their rifles. Most of the wood at Council Grove today is introduced species, but in the old days there would have been some ash and other woods that like to grow in the low lands a scattereing of oak in the uplands, and maybe some osage orange. By an off chance there might have been a little hickory, as it likes to grow where oakes grow, but this certainly would have been the very most western limit of it's range, if there were any at all. There certainly would have been rough leaf dogwood, too.

 

[horsesoldier03]

I recently replaced mine. I found a local source with 3/8" Oak Hardwood Dowell Rods. I know not my first choice, but it was economical. I guess I will just have to wait and see how long it holds up.

 

[Charles D. Prokopp]

I've use Australian she-oak for pendulum shafts and other components in my wooden-wheeled clocks. The stuff is hard to find and expensive, but it's amazingly tough and dimensionally stable. Absolutely brutal to work with. It acts more like a member of the mineral than the vegetable kingdom.

 

[Bountyhunter]

In the 1820's the travelers would not have had dowling machines, and I believe would have had to settle for shoots or limbs from trees.

I grew up just west of Salina, and there were no hickories there. We did have at that time large burr oaks, however the burr oak (white oak) does not grow straight shoots. They zigzag all over the place.

Back to straight round rods, one would have been able to get basal shoots from the osage orange as it was a native species at that time. That is why I mentioned that it would have to be peeled to get the bark and thorns off of it. Also in the Council Grove area as well as the Salina area would have been (2) locust species which gave up straight and tough shoots. Along the creeks would have been Chokecherry and Dogwood which give straight shoots that dry incredibly tough. The black willow grew everywhere there was moisture and made nice rods but was brittle.

Some species of elm may have been in the area, and would have given up nice straight basal shoots and would have served nice as it has a tangled grain structure and does not split well. Red elm splits very easily. American Elm doesnt. The limbs grow crooked, but the basal shoots are straight.

Once the travelers left Eastern Kansas or Eastern Nebraska, the species changed, mostly in that there were no trees. Oklahoma had very few trees west of present day I-35. I have some family who homesteaded in Oklahoma Territory around 1900, and they said it was bare when they moved there. They went to the Canadian river and cut shoots and hauled back and planted to get trees. Since most of the westward travel came from St. Louis to Westport or what is now Kansas City, then west on the Santa Fe Trail or north onto the Oregon Trail, then that area is paramount for westward expansion.

West of what is now I-35, there would have been virtually no trees. Most of the trees that you would see now are results of conservation plantings done about 1930 during the drought. Once the travelers gained the Mountains, then they would have gotten back into a few straight species but, species which would have been very brittle. I guess when you are virtually surrounded by black willow, it is easy enough to cut a stick when you need it. Use it until it dries and breaks and cut a new one. The species that we witness now-(Lowes, Home Depot, Ace Hardware :rotf-most of them were not there in 1820......

 

[PaulN/KS]

I'm guessing that the dogwood shoots would do well since they are pretty common out here. They were a favorite wood for arrow shafts too. I'll have to try making a wiping stick out of some one of these days...

 

[Robert Egler]

That looks like a smart move, Johny. Thanks for the link!

Hey Roundball-

I like your idea and have done it with my 32 and 36, but how do you deal with rod rattle on small rods or weight full dimension versions for larger cals? Seems like a small rod would keep coming out of big pipes, even if it didn't rattle. I'm talking 50,54 and 58 cal here. The rifles all weigh 9 to 12 pounds as it is.

Well, I use a brass tube ramrod on a 54. Outside diameter is very close to the same as my wood rod, so there's no rattle. Solid rod pieces soldered and pinned in both ends, and drilled and tapped for jags. Weighs a lot less that a solid brass bar, and is still a lot less likely to break than a wood rod.