Scott: I NEVER recommend "packing " the ball on the powder. EVER! When you have a load your gun shoots well, MARK your Ramrod, and "load to the mark"! I use the hand over hand method of pulling the rod down into the barrel. If you Bounce the rod, or Pack the ball with a few "taps", you only distort the shape of the ball.
This is NOT evident for most shooters at only 25 yds. And for others, its hardly noticeable in the groups they shoot at 50 yard. But, everyone seems to be able to see the difference when we move the targets back to 100 yds. Off the Bench rest.
The president of my local gun club, years ago, was a " Bouncer", with his .45, and he shot reasonably well at 25 and 50 yd targets. But when we put those targets out at 100 yds., he could barely keep the balls on a 12 inch square paper. He tried to alibi everything but the truth. After a couple of months, and he had practiced shooting at 100 yds a lot, and adjusted his ball/patch/lube combination to his satisfaction( he did shoot smaller groups at 50 yds), he said he was ready to kick some butts. Again, he could not keep the balls on the paper.
We finally got him to sit down on the bench, and shoot the gun at 100 yds., carefully. He hit the paper, but you would not call it a "group". So, finally, he let another long time member of the club clean and load HIS rifle for him. The gun was cleaned well, then loaded to the mark, without the bouncing. The first shot was a "9". The second shot was a " 10", about 1 inch from the first shot. The third shot was a "10" next to the second shot. He could not believe it- or didn't want to admit he had been the cause of his poor shooting performance. We put up a new target, and this time, He loaded his gun, and cleaned it, The Way the older member told him to do it. I think he shot two "9s" and a "10-X". He was NOT the only member standing around watching and learning about how to seat those soft lead balls, or the need to clean between shots. I saw a lot less " Bouncing" rods when I served my stints as " Range officer" at the club, after that.
The only time I PUSH the rod down the barrel is when I am sending a cleaning patch down the barrel to clean out the crud. I use my Range rod for this purpose. It has a nylon muzzle Protector about the only exception I regularly use to being as primitive as possible. If I am in the field with only my hickory ramrod, I use the hand over hand method, with my lower hand guiding the rod into the muzzle. This protects the wood from scraping against the edge of the muzzle, and makes it impossible to break a rod.
I don't shove a Ramrod, without a muzzle guide/protector, down the barrel under any circumstances. If you want to shoot fast repeat shots, use a modern cartridge rifle. This is a single shot Sport. It is one thing to be efficient at cleaning and reloading these guns: its quite another to think you can do it "fast". Get " Fast" out of your brain, and you will have a lot more fun.
I was hunting with some pheasant hunters with my BP shotgun, and they grumbled when I told them to hold up while I cleaned and reloaded my shotgun. Then they came over to watch! When I got done, and we finished the hunt later, they all said this was the first hunt they could remember where they simply relaxed and enjoyed "being there". Having to wait on me- not long, mind you-- to clean and reload my gun allowed them to catch their wind, rest their leg muscles. and just look around at the country we were hunting. They found my reloading entertaining, as several of them did not reload shotgun shells, and had no idea how it was done.
If you clean the barrel properly between shots, you should not need to use two hands on the rod to shove the PRB down the barrel. The hand over hand method allows you to FEEL the crud in the barrel, and when you pull the rod out of the gun, where the cleaning patch blouses out, and is both grabbed by the jag, and fills the grooves, you can feel the crud breaking free and being carried out the muzzle with the patch. If I have let the barrel cool after firing a shot, so that the crud is really "glued" to the bore, I expect my first damp patch to begin to dissolve the crud, but I generally will run two damp patches down the barrel, followed by a dry patch, to clean it between shots under those circumstances. I can usually get by with just one damp patch if I clean the barrel right after the shot, except on very hot, humid days around here. Then, I may need two damp patches, and TWO dry patches to prepare the barrel for the next load of powder.
The patches tell the story, if you simply take the time to learn to read those patches. Some of the men at my gun club began making a habit of asking me how many patches I was using on a given day, and then mimicking me. They admitted that they had less trouble with their guns, and their scores were a lot higher if they followed my example. They just didn't have the confidence I had in reading their patches. I tried to show them each time they noted I was changing, so they would see what I saw and felt on the cleaning patches that came out of my barrel. After a couple of years, they stopped asking. And they began to be asked by the new shooters about why they used the number of patches and why, etc..... :hmm: :thumbsup:
