Trouble…

[FishDFly]

There are those who can and those who cannot, the cannots exceeds the cans

 

[MrMackc]

This original post and the problems resulting from his efforts suggest to me that what this sport (Muzzle loading firearms) really needs is for some enterprising machinist to make a short (1 inch adapter with a male nipple thread on one end and a common Zerk female fitting thread on the other end with a hex area bewreen the threaded ends out of heavy walled high pressure tubing and make a kit with a Zerk fitting and a combo nipple wrench/Zerk flat wrench to sell as a "Stuck ball removal kit"

Would someone that knows please post here the thread (metric and standard versions and also the thread for a standard Zerk fitting?
I think maybe It would be fairly easy to cobble up an adaptor using some Zerk fittings and and nipple and welding or soldering a short piece of 1/8" ID tubing between the two. I may see what I can do with what i have in the shop since I do have some small taps and dies, hint !, hint !

UPDATE !
I found some 6-1mm Zerks at AMAZON that should screw right in the nipple hole. at least they should work for My .50 CVA mountain rifle 1970-1980 version. I will let you know when they get here.

ProLube 46200 7mm Straight Grease Fitting, M6 x 1, 10-Pack

 

[deerstalkert]

I just got a ball stuck in my ML. Can I tag it on this post or do I need to start a new one??

 

[FlinterNick]

Take out the breech plug and tap it out with a 3/8 dowel.

 

[mjpchief]

Did I miss the one for Pyrodex?

View attachment 117643

Lol.

 

[Rawhide67]

My 2 cents would be to try the grease option before pulling the breach plug. Going at it with the wrong tools could ruin or damage the plug and/or the barrel.

 

[Whitworth]

Here's approach for thought, take out the nipple, fill the barrel with plenty of water to kill the charge, enough to hear water sloshing back and forth after giving the powder time to absorb all the water it can hold. Plug the nipple with proper threaded screw or bolt, then with barrel tilted up using a heat gun or torch heat the barrel just below the ball. Play the heat around until it's hot enough to make a wet rag sizzle, then tilt the barrel slowly forward (safe direction of course) allowing the water to hit the hot metal and flash off into steam pushing out the ball. Just a thought.

 

[FishDFly]

My 2 cents would be to try the grease option before pulling the breach plug. Going at it with the wrong tools could ruin or damage the plug and/or the barrel.

See Page 1, post No.6.

 

[Howard Pippin]

This original post and the problems resulting from his efforts suggest to me that what this sport (Muzzle loading firearms) really needs is for some enterprising machinist to make a short (1 inch adapter with a male nipple thread on one end and a common Zerk female fitting thread on the other end with a hex area bewreen the threaded ends out of heavy walled high pressure tubing and make a kit with a Zerk fitting and a combo nipple wrench/Zerk flat wrench to sell as a "Stuck ball removal kit"

Would someone that knows please post here the thread (metric and standard versions and also the thread for a standard Zerk fitting?
I think maybe It would be fairly easy to cobble up an adaptor using some Zerk fittings and and nipple and welding or soldering a short piece of 1/8" ID tubing between the two. I may see what I can do with what i have in the shop since I do have some small taps and dies, hint !, hint !

Hi MrMackc.The standard Zerk used in most machinery was two different sizes, 1/4 bolt size x 28 thread for the small one and 1/8 pipe for the large one. I don't know how many American guns would have this type thread, and there are several metric sizes of zerks. In my case, rather than trying to find the right size, I think I would take a standard Zerk and either silver solder it or braze it to an old nipple. That would make it long enough to get a grease gun on and would be plenty strong. I imagine most American-made and foreign-made cars now use metric grease fittings and you hardly ever see a greaseable ujoint anymore unless it's a replacement. When I was still working, I had an assortment of metric zerks in case I needed A replacement, but that's been 25 years ago now and I don't remember what any of the sizes were. The one other way of doing it, would be to take your nipple to any automotive parts store and have them match it to a Zerk. Shouldn't be hard to do.
Squint

 

[Greenjoytj]

Everyone get to make a silly post here’s mine...

Flush out the powder and heat the barrel enough to boil water trapped inside and let the steam pressure pop the ball out.

Na... I'll wait for the grease gun and appropriate size Zerk fitting.

 

[MrMackc]

I am very familiar with American (SAE) Zerk and Alimite grease fittings since I restored to original vintage Chevrolet cars from 1928 thru 1968 year models. However, never had any dealings with metric threads other than bolts and screws. I was surprised to see that CVA Mountain Rifles and others had nipples with 6-1 MM threads. I did a bit of browsing and found them on Amazon.

What gets me is that so many of forum members don't read the previous posted comments before posting.

 

[Whitworth]

Everyone get to make a silly post here mine...

Flush out the powder and heat the barrel enough to boil water trapped inside and let the steam pressure pop the ball out.

Na... I'll wait for the grease gun and appropriate size Zerk fitting.

Here's another for ya, remove nipple, fill barrel with water, plug nipple, let outside in the cold, water freezes and pushes ball forward, thaw, add more water repeat, as necessary

 

[Howard Pippin]

I am very familiar with American (SAE) Zerk and Alimite grease fittings since I restored to original vintage Chevrolet cars from 1928 thru 1968 year models. However, never had any dealings with metric threads other than bolts and screws. I was surprised to see that CVA Mountain Rifles and others had nipples with 6-1 MM threads. I did a bit of browsing and found them on Amazon.

What gets me is that so many of forum members don't read the previous posted comments before posting.

Mistakenly, I just assumed that you didn't know much about Zerks. As a farm kid of the 50s and a 40 year job as a mechanic, they were a large part of what I had to fix because somebody hadn't use them for what they were intended. Against my desires I stayed with mechanics long enough to get involved with metric zerks, bolts, and wrenches which was a whole new ballgame. I'm glad you made out fine, I know of my foreign-made rifles, they all used metric nipples and they aren't even the same size. I do believe that the grease gun is the only good answer if you can't get some powder underneath and seat the ball on it. I've been involved in that experiment more times and I should've.
Squint

 

[Africa58double]

How’d the mountain men resolve this issue? Head on down to the local town?

Just a pondering thought

 

[FishDFly]

Most likely they paid a lot more attention to the details at hand when loading guns. At times either their life or supper depended on properly and well maintained guns.

Their guns were tools, not a Saturday/Sunday hobby.

 

[Africa58double]

Most likely they paid a lot more attention to the details at hand when loading guns. At times either their life or supper depended on properly and well maintained guns.

Their guns were tools, not a Saturday/Sunday hobby.

I was thinking the same- Also it would have been a sound idea to have two rifles or a combo/Double barrel gun…. just incase this happened way up on a mountain.

Sorry for side track post- just a thought I had.

 

[Robby]

How’d the mountain men resolve this issue? Head on down to the local town?

Just a pondering thought

I believe they would have done just what I would have done.
Robby

 

[deerstalkert]

i would imagine the morning after at rendezvous, there may have been many dry balled rifles. and double charged. and short charged. and double balled. and...............................

 

[TFoley]

As an aside, some information that might be of use to Parker-Hale owners like me, re nipples.

Early production runs have 5/16x18 tpi.

Later production runs have 5/16x20 tpi.

Also, I have experience of driving a stuck patch on the cleaning rod out of a barrel. The gun was fired as fast as possible for five shots to warm it all up, and the remaining heat in the breech was enough to dry out the patch and 'weld' it into the breech area. That sucker was STUCK.

The grease-gun/Zerk method works perfectly.

Cleaning out the grease - which incidentally CAN be re-used - is simply a matter of making a tight-fitting patch and pushing it down the bore and the grease will exit the bolster in a disgusting-looking coil. Clean-up with any alcohol-based cleaner until you are happy with it. We were shooting again within half an hour of pumping that ol' grease gun.

 

[Grenadier1758]

How’d the mountain men resolve this issue? Head on down to the local town?

Just a pondering thought

They'd have wrapped that barrel around the nearest tree and headed off to the trading post to get a new gun.

They did not load so tight and the ball would have been pulled or shot out. The ball would also be loose enough that the fouling would not be heavy enough to cause a stuck ball near the muzzle. Quite a few accounts of getting the powder charge wet and returning after a couple of days to the supply camp to pull the ball.