Problem with flash channel plugging up

[russellshaffer]

I didn't see what caliber is your rifle. 100 grains of 777 is a very stout charge. Maybe a little less powder would help solve your problem.

 

[Grenadier1758]

I swab between shots when purely accuracy testing. Lately, on the advice of a friend I’ve been using Heet additive, dries quickly and an extra cap should pop all the crud out of the breech.
View attachment 81027

I use rubbing alcohol as the dampening agent for my wiping patch. Every bit as effective as HEET and far less costly.

Curious, how do you swabbers do a woodswalk?

Its a different situation. I do a woods walk with a smoothbore and the course is equally challenging for smoothbore shooters as rifle shooters. I have a ball of tow on a linen string. between stages I dampen the ball of tow and run it down the bore of my Bess. I rinse it out from my canteen and its ready for the next stage. I do use paper wrapped cartridges. I spit on the wrapped ball before loading. At the Fort de Chartres Winter Encampment Woods Walk, I have learned that the best placing teams do some form of cleaning between stations.

 

[J. Paul]

So you "never" swab until you are done shooting for the day and then do a full cleaning? I would think accuracy would be affected after so many shots and the barrel would need to have some kind of patch run through it?

 

[J. Paul]

I typically run a lubed patch through mine using both sides after 10 to 15 shots. Rarely if ever need to run a wet patch until I get home. The lubed patch keeps things soft and it does pick up a lot without allowing it to fall to breech.

 

[French Colonial]

I use rubbing alcohol as the dampening agent for my wiping patch. Every bit as effective as HEET and far less costly.



Its a different situation. I do a woods walk with a smoothbore and the course is equally challenging for smoothbore shooters as rifle shooters. I have a ball of tow on a linen string. between stages I dampen the ball of tow and run it down the bore of my Bess. I rinse it out from my canteen and its ready for the next stage. I do use paper wrapped cartridges. I spit on the wrapped ball before loading. At the Fort de Chartres Winter Encampment Woods Walk, I have learned that the best placing teams do some form of cleaning between stations.

I am glad that works for you, I guess this old dog is not up to learning new tricks, I refuse to swab, wipe or anything else between shots, I just keep shooting and I will put my Caywood type C/D fusil up against any smoothbore for accuracy. Mine is a peach.

 

[Grenadier1758]

I agree with Deerstalkert, if I had to swab between every shot I would take up needlepoint.
People make this more complicated than it needs to be, stick an unlubed patch in your mouth while you put powder down the bore, load a ball using the patch, prime the pan and shoot...repeat.

I have NEVER swabbed, wet or dry, between shots and after doing this for 40 years I am not going to start.

Curious, how do you swabbers do a woodswalk?

I am glad that works for you, I guess this old dog is not up to learning new tricks, I refuse to swab, wipe or anything else between shots, I just keep shooting and I will put my Caywood type C/D fusil up against any smoothbore for accuracy. Mine is a peach.

Ah, but you do swab or wipe between shots and have been doing it for 40 years. You spit patched ball is doing the wiping and swabbing as you load the wet patched round ball. Its just a bit different from the way I wipe between shots. Since it works for you don't let me try to make you change.

 

[R.J.Bruce]

The issue I see with swabbing after every shot is that it is a byproduct of bench rest shooting that has worked it's way into common usage at some point during the mid-20th Century.

This nation would never have been founded, nor survived, if every shooter in the past had had to stop to swab after every shot.

The key to being able to shoot consecutive shots ad infinitum without needing to swab is.....

1. Soft fouling. Back in the early 70's when I got started at age 17, blowing down the barrel was an acceptable practice, and a NECESSARY ONE. Doing so adds moisture into the barrel from the shooter's breath, which along with a wet spit patch will soften the fouling to the point where it will EASILY slide down on top of the new powder charge which has just been poured into the barrel.

Since blowing down the barrel is frowned upon, or outlawed nowadays, each individual shooter will have to come up with a substitute for the moisture that one's breath once added to the equation.

2. A ball diameter that almost always is 0.005" under bore diameter. A tight fitting ball makes it easier to get the whole combination working the way it should. Some shooters insist on a ball diameter that is 0.010" to 0.015" under bore diameter in order for the ball to load easier. Doing this requires a much thicker patch material, which can be hard to find in a fabric store.

3. A patch material that is thick enough to COMPLETELY FILL the grooves of the rifling, and at the same time imprint the weave of the fabric into the soft lead of the ball.

Fabric is COMPRESSIBLE. Let me repeat that. Fabric is COMPRESSIBLE. Which means that you have to purchase a fabric thickness that exceeds by a factor of usually at least 0.005" the total measurements of the groove depth × 2; the ball's diameter, and the patch thickness × 2.

You want to squeeze that well lubricated patch/ball combination down the barrel. And, it will slide remarkably easily once it gets past the muzzle.

That is if your barrels bore is not rough, nor if the lands are so sharp that they are slicing the patch up as it makes its way down the bore.

4. The CROWN. The crown is critical. It must NOT be cut on a straight angle, which is how EVERY muzzleloading barrel manufacturer cuts their crowns. The crown has to have a gentle, smooth radius. This can be done by hand using progressively finer grades of wet/dry paper & ones thumb. Plug the barrel with a piece of cotton ball. Push down with the ball of the thumb against the crown with the course paper to start with. Twist the barrel back & forth about 20 times. Then, rotate the barrel 90°, and repeat another 20 strokes. Do this until you have gone through two complete 360° rotations of the barrel. Then, repeat the process with a medium grade of paper. And, then with a fine grade of paper. Do this until the crown is smoothly radiused, and at least 1/16" deep.

A smooth crown that is highly polished will allow a bore sized ball, and even an over bore sized ball to be driven into a modern muzzleloading barrel, and to EASILY slide down the bore once past the first 6"-8" of the barrel. About the length of most short starters.

If all 4 of these conditions are met, then the lube is not very important. All the patch really needs to be is WET. What it's wet with is less important, than the fact that it is wet at all. A lot of shooters will swear that their lube is the next best thing to sliced white bread, but for close to a hundred years SPIT did the trick.

Remember.....

Smooth crown
Moist fouling
Wet patch
Tight patch/ball combination
Grooves must be completely filled

 

[ohio ramrod]

My boy's CVA would never fire if you ran the cleaning patch all of the way down. If you stopped it about an inch from the bottom no problems. I suggest you do as others have stated and try swabbing leaving the parch short of the bottom.

 

[Mknight702]

When I am shooting my Hawken I load the powder, then put an over powder card wad (cut from a juice carton), then I wipe the barrel with a chewed patch before dropping the bullet down the barrel. I shoot conicals not PRB though.

 

[French Colonial]

If I were to get really really serious about shooting teeny tiny groups with a muzzleloader from the bench I would try wiping between shots with a Ballistol water mix.
But I have been there/done that with unmentionables and "for ME" I want to be able to shoot without wiping as a separate step (Grenadier is right about my spit patch wiping and I know that) and load without using a short starter.

If you want those tiny groups from the bench, more power to you, keep working on that magic wiping formula/technique.
If your shooting offhand I believe you will benefit more from practice, practice and more practice. Try making a wooden flint and dry firing at home about 10-15 times a day and I bet your scores will improve.

 

[Bad Karma]

If I were to get really really serious about shooting teeny tiny groups with a muzzleloader from the bench I would try wiping between shots with a Ballistol water mix.
But I have been there/done that with unmentionables and "for ME" I want to be able to shoot without wiping as a separate step (Grenadier is right about my spit patch wiping and I know that) and load without using a short starter.

If you want those tiny groups from the bench, more power to you, keep working on that magic wiping formula/technique.
If your shooting offhand I believe you will benefit more from practice, practice and more practice. Try making a wooden flint and dry firing at home about 10-15 times a day and I bet your scores will improve.

You’re right... practice is essential and most shooters don’t do anywhere near enough of it. Particularly field practice. I like tiny groups from the bench and larger but still small groups from prone, sitting, kneeling, from field expedient rests and offhand. Different horses for different courses as they say.

 

[R.J.Bruce]

Back before I stopped shooting, I rarely shot from a bench unless someone was challenging my guns ability to shoot. As I only shot flintlocks, you can guess that I got teased a lot about my rifles.

Most of the time I spent practicing shooting in every conceivable position that I thought might come up in a hunting situation. I put myself in some really awkward positions because I figured that sooner, or later, something similar was going to show up.

 

[R.J.Bruce]

I am glad that works for you, I guess this old dog is not up to learning new tricks, I refuse to swab, wipe or anything else between shots, I just keep shooting and I will put my Caywood type C/D fusil up against any smoothbore for accuracy. Mine is a peach.

The wooden flint is a good idea. My next rifle, if there is one, will come from the builder equipped with several hardwood flints.

Especially, throwing your rifle up to your shoulder, aiming at a object (about 4" in diameter) approximately 25' across the basement, & INSTANTLY snap shooting at the 4" diameter object, whatever it is. DON'T USE A CONVENTIONAL TARGET. You want to mimic real hunting as closely as possible. If you can rig some kind of moving target, like a 4" diameter red round shape on some kind of a metronome set-up, so much the better.

 

[Harley268]

I suggest you do as others have stated and try swabbing leaving the parch short of the bottom.

This is exactly what I am going to be doing today

 

[flntlokr]

Hello,
Just joined the forum a few days ago and thought I might need to post this question. Have done some looking around on here but can't seem to find an answer that works. My dad recently gave me a Percussion muzzleloader that was hand made and he had never fired it. The gun maker fired it once to make sure it worked and other than that it hasn't been fired in 40 years. It was kept in his safe and is in perfect condition. Now that I have it I plan on using it to take it's first deer this year. The gun seems to be super accurate using 100grns of triple 7. I am using a round ball and a lubed patch on top of that 100grns of powder. I have used CCI and Winchester caps (both size 11 magnums). My problem: when I swab out the barrel gunk seems to get into the flash channel and I can't fire it. I have had to remove the nipple and place a bit of FFF powder into the flash channel to ignite the main charge. I have tried dry patches alone. I have tried a wet patch first. I have tried spinning both types of patches at the bottom of the breech with my cleaning jag. So, at this point I am at a loss as to what to do to clean out the barrel without having to put in the 3F powder in the flash channel. I have taken 5 consecutive shots without the accuracy being affected, so that isn't an issue when it comes to the hunting woods, since I don't plan on needing to take many shots in the field.

Any recommendations as to what I can do to fix this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all very much.

If the gun has a hooked breech, remove the barrel and let the breech end soak for about 10 minutes in soapy water to soften any deposits in the entire flash channe,. Pump the water up and down the barrel with a tight patch. With the nipple in place, that will thourough pressure wash the nipple out. Then remove the nipple, and pump it a bunch more times. Flushing that way should blast out any residue in the rest of the channe. Replace the water with tap-hot soapy water and pump it some more with a new tight patch. Final rinse with the hot water poured down the barrel, then dry it with a few clean, dry patches. If you can, blow air down the barrel to fully dry out the nooks and crannies (maybe with a bit of alcohol to aid evaporation). Finish up with a squirt of whatever oil or rust preventer you like wiped in with another dry patch. Yer done! You can use the oily patch you used last to wipe down the exterior. Store it muzzle down, and enjoy your next shoot. If no hooked breech, plug the nipple and fill the barrel with soapy water and let it soak. Then attach a small tygon tube to the nipple, and pump water from to and from a bottle. The steps are the same.