Powder bridging

[Walks with fire]

I have been shooting my new Lyman Deerstalker .54 flinter over the last few weeks and it shoots pretty well and with the exception of one very annoying characteristic I like it. The annoying feature is powder bridging across the top of the recessed chamber for the patent breech. No amount of bumping the stock or bouncing the buttstock will get the powder down into that recess. I have resorted to using the ramrod to tamp the powder down into the chamber but what a pain in the neck.

 

[AZbpBurner]

Are you swabbing the bore between shots? If so, you may need a little drier patch, or follow-up with dry patch.

In a dry bore with dry powder, there should be nothing to hold powder grains together tightly enough to prevent them from separating with a light tap on the barrel.

What kind of powder are you using?

 

[BrownBear]

Dunno how you're determining that's going on. A 54 cal hole is awfully big to be bridging even 1f powder, much less to bridge 2f or 3f.

Seems to me that seating the ball would accomplish the same thing as your ramrod tamping.

 

[Larry Pletcher]

You don't mention what grain size you're using. If you are using 2fg, you might try 3fg to see if it works better. The English, back in the day, designed their breeches for a certain grain size of powder. This may not be your answer, but it's worth a try. This is one reason I like flat breeches on flint guns.

Perhaps this is also the reason colonial makers may not have used this type of breech - they may not have had access to as uniform grains sizes as did the English. This of course is simply speculation on my part.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[Walks with fire]

I am swabbing between shots and using a breech brush with a patch on it to get down into the chamber. It's the same way I swab my TC flinters and never have trouble with them getting the powder in the chamber and right up to the vent liner when the ball goes down.

I am using Swiss 2f and Goex 3f powders. I was getting pan fires and no bore ignition so I started to trouble shoot the problem and I found that I was not getting the powder up to the vent liner like my TC's do. I just put a new RMC vent in the Lyman a few weeks ago to see if that would help any. I found that if I jab the bare ramrod down on the powder enough times it will get into the chamber enough to fire consistantly.

My Tc's always have fresh powder that is visable right up to the vent after pushing down the ball; most times there is even a couple of grains in the pan. I can't even detect any powder in the vent it self with my vent pic on the Lyman but with enough tamping I can feel it in the chamber with the vent pic and then load the ball.

 

[Rifleman1776]

My take is the problem is with the powder, not the rifle. If this will a rifle characteristic, we would have heard from others also about it. Even though you say you use several powders, I'm guessing there is a moisture situation involved.

 

[mike garner]

i have lyman gpr 50 cal. and have no problems like this, i use goex 3f

 

[Alden]

Touchole in slightly wrong place?

 

[user 13289]

I'm guessing, if moisture/humidity/granularity is no the issue, that it's a production issue. Production mfg'd products have "allowable" tolerances in every dimension. Maybe this one is at the lower limit. Maybe compare yours to another gun of same type/breeching.

Fix yourself or hire a guy or send it back.

Life is too short to add bare-powder-tamping to the loading process. :wink:

 

[galamb]

Your powder could be bridging on residue (burnt powder) that is getting stuck in the breech chamber.

The chamber is a little smaller than bore diameter (done on purpose so your cleaning jag won't get stuck in the breech when the channel tapers near the touch hole/flash channel).

If you got a breech plug that slipped past the QC guy and it has a burr or grove or something in what should be a smooth channel, it could be trapping crud which, after you wipe, traps more until you have effectively blocked off the breech.

This is not totally unheard of but rare.

Here's a pic of your breech (the barrel and breech were sawed right in half to illustrate) what it looks like at the bottom of the barrel/breech. A underbored channel or a burr of metal in that channel could allow crud to quickly accumulate and block it off all together.

Your other option is to try a (maybe) 30 cal bore brush, which will fit right into the breech itself, as part of your "between shots" to keep the breech clear.

If that's the case I would be exploring the warranty...

 

[Birddog6]

The chamber is a little smaller than bore diameter (done on purpose so your cleaning jag won't get stuck in the breech when the channel tapers near the touch hole/flash channel).

FYI: The Patent Breech & Noch Breech were basically designed to make manufacturing processes faster, easier, and a multitude of dif caliber barrels would be used on the same breechplug with barrel interchangability.
It had nothing to do with jags getting stuck in the breech.

I can't believe that breech plug photo showed up. I posted that a couple of years ago when we were discusing patent breeches. Bill Knight sent me that photo to me probably 15 years ago, when we were discussing dif. powder grades he was testing & effects on patent breeches & etc.

Simply amazing what people will save & pass around, & it will show up on the internet now & then.

Keith Lisle

 

[hanshi]

Just one more reason I don't care all that much for the "patent type" breeching system. I do have a couple with that type breech and have no trouble with them. Using 3F powder should help.

 

[duca]

Nothing worse then a patent breech. Been shooting Flints for 30 years and never had a problem with a flat Breech and a straight Touch hole. A friend has a later Hatfield rifle and has nothing but headaches with that patent breech. Pain in the ass to clean to.

 

[galamb]

It had nothing to do with jags getting stuck in the breech.

Yes, you are quite correct, I did not explain that correctly.

What I should have said there was, some chambers are rather small which may lead to bridging. They can be enlarged but it is recommended that they remain smaller than bore size so as to not trap the cleaning jag.

Graham

 

[hawkeye2]

If you are swabbing after each shot you will need to run 1 or more dry patches down before loading again. It is essential you dry the patent breech or you will have problems. The TCs have a much larger breech opening and if I remember correctly it is also tapered and less likely to give trouble since the patch can actually get into the breech to some extent. You might consider enlarging the hole in the breech plug and beveling it's opening too. The patent breech on my wife's .58 has a hole so small it takes a .270 brush to get into it and it's quite deep too but doesn't give any trouble so long as she follows the cleaning with a few dry patches on the.58 brush which has the end sweged down from use so that it goes into the patent breech. Cleaning is also followed by snapping 2 or more caps on the line before beginning an event though that little bit of info doesn't help much with a flint gun.

 

[Walks with fire]

Yep; I used 80 grains of Goex 3f and never missed a beat. I think I must of been getting some fouling build-up at the step down or maybe didn't get all the packing gunk out of the chamber. At any rate it fired great today and is very accurate with a patched ball. I did switch lubes from Track Mink oil to Lehigh lube though. I doubt that had anything to do with it though. Another mystery but it's gone I think.

 

[Walks with fire]

I would much prefer a straight breech because I don't like needing to swab down in the chamber. It's just another step added to slow down loading. It's not a problem hunting really but for range shooting I would rather have a straight breech.

I don't like long barrels either and all of the short barreled production guns have them. Some my TC's have the recessed bore and I rather like that for loading ball but the Deerstalker doesn't have it and it's ok without it.

 

[Old Salt]

Try a range session without swabbing between shots. Make sure the gun is squeaky clean and dry, no lubrication/solvent etc. in the barrel before the first shot.

I had a Lyman GPR in .54 that had similar symptoms. Once I stopped wiping between shots the succesful ignitions increased notably.

If you have good lubrication on the patches there should be no problem seating the ball on the powder. Too much of any lubrication will mess things up quickly.

Unless there is a manufacturing defect in the breach the diameter of the opening to the Lyman patent system is @ .357. A .357 jag cleans that area nicely.

 

[Birddog6]

You will most likely have much less fouling buildup with the Lehigh Lube. You may have been shoving the fouling into the breech when swabbing. You may have solved the issue for that rifle.

Also, How the jag is shaped means allot when swabbing also. If it is a standard jag, you may be shoving the fouling into the breech rather than pulling the fouling out.

Keith Lisle

 

[Joel/Calgary]

When swabbing the bore, do you go all the way to the bottom or do you stop just short of the breech plug? Have you tried swabbing the bore but not the breech between shots? I have NEVER swabbed or brushed chambered breeches (no-one makes an actual Nock patent breech) when shooting and I have never encountered a problem with fouling build up, even with the miniscule hole in my Pedersoli Frontier.

Regards,
Joel