Since starting to shoot my Pedersoli Flint 45 cal Kentucky about two months ago, the first time I've ever shot black powder, I've regularly been swabbing between rounds - fixing the jag to the ramrod, spitting lightly on a cleaning patch and pushing it once down the barrel to about two or three inches from the breech. This seems to remove a lot of fouling and also occupies a minute or two, following Pedersoli's advice that there should be a gap of about this length before loading again in case of embers from the previous ignition.
Am I doing the right thing? What do other people do?
The problems I've had doing this have occured after about ten rounds and after I've inadvertantly pushed the patch right down to the breech (easy to do when you're used to using the ramrod to pack a load!). On the first occasion, the ramrod became stuck and I had to go back to my workshop and pull it out using a bench vise. On the second occasion, I loaded afterwards and then couldn't ignite - I eventually had to pull the ball and clean out the load. On both of these occasions the problem I think was pushing fouling residue down and compressing it into the breech/touchhole area, thus my care ever since to pull the jag back well before it reaches the breech (the problem with doing that is creating a small ledge of fouling resistance just above the point where the top of the ball should be seated, meaning an extra push is needed in the next loading to ensure the ball is seated against the powder and not the fouling ...)
All advice/experience greatly appreciated.
PS I'm using .440 ball and .015 patch, either the prelubed Ox-yoke .40-.49 cal patches or Remington's .44-.54 cal patches self-lubed with Wonderlube 1000 - at the moment I prefer the latter because they're a bit larger and less finicky, especially with numb fingers in the Great White North ...
Am I doing the right thing? What do other people do?
The problems I've had doing this have occured after about ten rounds and after I've inadvertantly pushed the patch right down to the breech (easy to do when you're used to using the ramrod to pack a load!). On the first occasion, the ramrod became stuck and I had to go back to my workshop and pull it out using a bench vise. On the second occasion, I loaded afterwards and then couldn't ignite - I eventually had to pull the ball and clean out the load. On both of these occasions the problem I think was pushing fouling residue down and compressing it into the breech/touchhole area, thus my care ever since to pull the jag back well before it reaches the breech (the problem with doing that is creating a small ledge of fouling resistance just above the point where the top of the ball should be seated, meaning an extra push is needed in the next loading to ensure the ball is seated against the powder and not the fouling ...)
All advice/experience greatly appreciated.
PS I'm using .440 ball and .015 patch, either the prelubed Ox-yoke .40-.49 cal patches or Remington's .44-.54 cal patches self-lubed with Wonderlube 1000 - at the moment I prefer the latter because they're a bit larger and less finicky, especially with numb fingers in the Great White North ...