Unreliable ignition Traditions Hawken Percussion

[.36Rooster]

As far as cleaning goes I use dry patches every one to two shots. At the end of the session I use wet patches with solvent. I don't use dry patches to get the solvent I let it stay in the barrel for the ride home. Once home I stick the barrel in hot water off the stove. I swab the barrel letting the water blast out of the fire Channel. After the crud stops coming out I pull the barrel out and start running dry patches and dry the exterior of the barrel. If it's going to be stored for longer than a day I will run a patch lightly coated in bore butter followed by a dry patch to remove the excess. I start range sessions with a dry patch to clear out the bore butter. This method has always been effective until I had to replace the nipples.

Add this into your cleaning regimen, and it will solve your problem: Go and buy or order some of those cva/traditions pipe cleaners. Remove your nipple, Cut off an inch and a half piece, Wet one with whatever solvent you use, hot water is excellent if that's what you use! Bend the piece of pipe cleaner into a curl and feed it down DEEP into the spark channel, and scrub back and forth REALLY GOOD. Cut another one and bend it again if the first one gets all bent up and stops feeding.

This is really the only part missing from your good cleaning regimen. Its just that running water through the spark channel isnt enough on its own. The spark channel needs a good scrub followe by your rinse of Hot water or solvent. Blasting it through with a good jet is an excellent way to rinse it, but does nothing to scrub away the crud. You need a brushlike object for that.

After cleaning and oiling, before putting away your rifle, use one more pipe cleaner, this time dry, and swab your spark channel to make sure there's no remaining oil, water, or solvent in there. The gun will definitely go off the next time its loaded.

Now, you may need to spend an hour or two cutting and bending pipe cleaners to get caught up on all this gunk buildup in there, but from there on out it gets easier. Couple of passes each time you clean the gun in the future. And i dont expect any problems. I have never owned a rifle i couldn't get to go off. And I've had some real beaters in my day.

Just remember, crud catches sparks.

Hope this helps,

 

[Philip Lebow]

Gents, the breech plug on those rifles has a chamber the drum screws into. Then there is a restricted passage to the bore where the chamber sits. The recess collects fouling and ignition becomes intermittent. I JUST cleaned out one of these for a customer. Don't try and pull the plug. Just the drum, and clean out the back end of the barrel. IMHO. Phil

 

[.36Rooster]

Thats probably what is necessary if the crud buildup is too thick to clean it with pipe cleaners. If its a rifle that you can remove the drum on, i honestly wouldn't fiddle around with pipe cleaners too much. The cleaning gets much simpler if you can take it apart.

 

[Frontier's]

Load your pistol. Remove the nipple and see if you have powder in there. If not, you got something blocked up.

 

[Riverbravo]

Alright I hit the range today. I had so so performance. I got off three shots no problem other than SEVERE fouling. Had to swab with a dry patch each time and even had bust out the wire brush. I have never had to before. I don't know if goex changed their recipe. Like I said I swapped the old goex can of 2f (so old it's made of metal) for a brand spanking new can of goex 3f.

Tapping the side of the rife after pouring the powder initially seemed to address the reliability issue. I was also popping caps after swabbing to blow the crud out of the channel.

Things went south at the 5th shot. I stupidly forgot to tap the rifle after pouring and loaded the ball. The gun began misfiring and I had remove the musket nipple. I stupidly misplaced my musket nipple wrench and had to use a leatherman to remove it. I replaced it with the modified #11 Traditions nipple after pouring powder in the channel. The #11 caps fit this nipple poorly as well leading to more misfires that I am going to blame squarely on the nipple.

I think I made some progress but the problem isn't solved completely. I am going to switch to an aftermarket nipple.

I searched for Hot Shot and Flamethrower nipples but couldn't find them. If someone knows where I can locate some that would be awesome. What I did find were a brand called Spitfire. They advertise similar benefits to the Hot Shot and Flamethrower nipples, but I have never heard of them. Are they any good? I wanted to ask before I bought them.

Thanks for the continuing help!

 

[.36Rooster]

With my main shooter, i have shot upwards of 30-40 balls at a time. I do tap like you said, but only when i think about it. It seems to me like accuracy and ease of loading is dependent on running a wet patch and a dry patch every three to 5 shots. I invert my barrel down towards the ground with the wet patch, and keep it inverted until i do the dry, and when pulling on both, i do so rapidly to suck air through the nipple into the bore to clear the spark channel just in case any liquid was forced upwards into the spark channel on the push stroke. The inverted muzzle at all times does the rest.

I can go as many as 12 shots without losing ignition reliability, but the balls get so damn hard to ram, that i can't go further. I will tell you need a breech scraper at that point, because the balls start seating an eighth inch higher due to the formation of a crud ring at the breech. But the ignition is still reliable.

In general, barrel fouling has no effect on ignition. It really just effects accuracy.

However, fouling in the spark channel does effect ignition, and that pretty much happens just from snapping caps. I have said this before and it is contrary to the advice given to beginning muzzleloading enthusiasts: I NEVER snap a cap unless I've got a load in front of it. I know guys like to clear oil and solvent by snapping a couple, but that just leads to fouling in my spark channel and that I don't want. I work damn hard keeping up with the fouling in my spark channel, and im not going to introduce any fouling, especially if unnecessary, and it is unnecessary with the this kind of method.

Basically, I just don't snap caps, because I already know my spark channel is clear of oil, since i ran a dry pipe cleaner in it after cleaning the last time. I know no oil has ran down the bore because i only used a light enough coat to protect the bore, and nothing more. I know there's no solvent from my previous swab because of my swabbing method i mentioned above, and it sucking air; and I know that the cap has a tight seal because I pressed it down HARD, with the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, using the flat tip of my ball starter, which is made from a dowel rod and handle. But, However, if I start out with a dirty spark channel, or dirty it up by snapping caps i don't need, then all of that turns to crap immediately.

It's how i do it, and i honestly can't remember the last time I had a misfire, except when i tried pyrodex. I basically know at this point that my gun is going to go off whenever I pull the trigger. I think with a little fine tuning, you will be fine. I used to have a bit of trouble when i started out as a teenager with a cva...but learned over time that the essence of reliability is in good gun hygeine and cleaning practices. You should feel like a dentist when using all of your ramrod tools and applying solvents for your rifle. You literally clean and care for every orifice to maintain a gun you can rely upon.

 

[Harmonica Bob]

Some of us were doing this before others in the group were born. People ask "why am I having a problem with this, or that?" and unless I can watch everything you are doing, and every product you are using, If I post an answer, it's only a guess. I still don't know everything about the rifles I have been shooting for 40 years. Your rifles are going to be different than my rifles. Anyway, we try to help, and we all learn.

 

[tgfrench]

There is a jag made to clean out the CVA/TRADITIONS PATENT BREECH get one! GET THE CLEAN OUT SCREW OUT! Until you make absolutely certain that you can see the end of the jag in the patent breech, while looking through the clean out screw channel, you will continue to have the same problem.



Helpful hit! Do not remove the spent nipple from your first shot until you have reloaded and are ready for the next shot. Having an open flame channel will allow crud to be forced into the tight areas of the flame channel when swabbing the barrel between shots.

 

[deermanok]

There is a jag made to clean out the CVA/TRADITIONS PATENT BREECH get one! GET THE CLEAN OUT SCREW OUT! Until you make absolutely certain that you can see the end of the jag in the patent breech, while looking through the clean out screw channel, you will continue to have the same problem.



Helpful hit! Do not remove the spent nipple from your first shot until you have reloaded and are ready for the next shot. Having an open flame channel will allow crud to be forced into the tight areas of the flame channel when swabbing the barrel between shots.

Where can you get that jag you mentioned?

 

[tgfrench]

https://www.deercreekproducts.net/store/p1497/Breech_Scraper_-_A1610.html

 

[Boomerang]

One thing that makes a big difference on my rifles is to make sure your rifle is on half cock when you load it. That will cause air to be forced out the nipple, clearing it of any fowling. I also wipe between shots with a moist patch and force air out the nipple. You can hear the air escape through the nipple if you push the ram rod down fast enough.

 

[OldSmoky1967]

I agree with others here. I have a traditions Woodsman .50 from 2007 with the clean out screw. I have very reliable ignition, great accuracy and easy cleaning on that rifle. But I MUST snap a cap before loading. It is very unforgiving in that regard. My other is a TC and I can go a few shots without even a slight delay, let alone a hang fire or misfire. But that Traditions rifle will misfire on the first shot if I fail to snap a cap before loading.

I always fire a cleaning shot.

 

[hanshi]

I'll just mention that if any oil has been used in the bore denatured alcohol will take care of that and pipe cleaners do wonders in those pesky dogleg fire channels. I used a Traditions DeerHunter for 20 years and it was super reliable.

 

[tgfrench]

One thing that makes a big difference on my rifles is to make sure your rifle is on half cock when you load it. That will cause air to be forced out the nipple, clearing it of any fowling. I also wipe between shots with a moist patch and force air out the nipple. You can hear the air escape through the nipple if you push the ram rod down fast enough.

I'm sorry to say but your not going to force any fouling gunk out of the small orifice of the nipple.

 

[renegadehunter]

This thread is a year old. OP has not been on the site since October 29 of last year.
I would wager it was his swabbing method. A dry patch for swabbing does nothing to soften fouling. Just compacts it tightly between the jag/patch and bore walls, to the point that the excess is just scraped down the bore ahead of the patch/jag and jams up the flame channel opening.
Amazed he didn't get it stuck in the bore, many a person has stuck a dry cleaning patch in a fouled bore.

 

[Okie Hog]

When it came time to switch I got a Traditions musket nipple with the correct thread.

What brand musket cap did you use? Some musket caps are low powered re-enactment caps.

Keep the flame channel clean, a bristled pipe cleaner works very well. Watch the video at post #9. Jon is spot on in giving the stock a few slaps. That allows powder to enter the flame channel.

There is absolutely no need to pop caps with a rifle that is well maintained.

 

[Boomerang]

I'm sorry to say but your not going to force any fouling gunk out of the small orifice of the nipple.

I know it clears the passage way through the nipple enough that I get 100% reliable ignition and if I forget to put the hammer on half and leave it down on the nipple I don’t.

 

[yellowhammer]

I have a Traditions Kentucky with the same breech. After a few shots I ream out the barrel passage crud with a small brass jag and use a safety pin to clear the nipple. Even so, after 12-15 shots I usually have to remove the clean-out screw and remove a "wall" of crud that builds up and begins to block the cross-passage. I'll bet you that's the culprit.

 

[renegadehunter]

I know it clears the passage way through the nipple enough that I get 100% reliable ignition and if I forget to put the hammer on half and leave it down on the nipple I don’t.

What having the hammer at half cock mainly does is help to more easily pack your flame channel with powder.
Think about the difference. Nipple down, the air trapped in the bore from pushing a PRB down can't escape very quickly, almost creating an air lock type of resistance. Hammer off the nipple lets the air whoosh through there more easily. Since you've already dropped the powder charge in, the air will carry powder through there with it.I always set my hammer at half after a shot before I start to reload.

That habit has bit me once though. I was at a range. My routine was to shoot, set the hammer to half, make sure spent cap was cleared, then stand and position the rifle from the sand bags to leaning against the table with the muzzle up to swab and reload again. As I was lowering the rifle butt to the floor I didn't allow enough room between the rifle and the table and hit the hammer spur against the table top on its way by. The impact was enough to shear the end of the sear right off. Sure felt like a fool.