Vented drums or pat. breech?

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Dave Orchard

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I was into caplock rifle 1st, then flint for a long time, then laid-off ML.s for 30 years except some perc. revolvers.

"Back-when" I shot caplock rifle, I tried venting the drum like Turner Kirkland mentioned in a DGW cat. of that time, and it DID seem to increase reliability.
In damp weather you plugged the tiny vent hole w/ a little bit of beeswax or the broke-off end of a toothpick.

Have any of YOU got pro or con on the subj. of venting drums?
Davo
 
I know the instructions are in the older (late 80s maybe) Dixie catalogs. Saw it done once. A problem as I remember was the hot gases that came out of the vent. You want to point vent away from your face and remember to keep your hand away (buddy cooked his pinkie finger). Didn't help in any way. Remember helping the guy that did try it to plug the hole with a set screw. Don't remember if we used a 2-56 or 3-48, but I had small bags of each in my muzzleloader smith supplies years - always made me think of this adventure. They were tiny little things, about what you would use on glasses to hold hinges together. It was on a CVA with the old two piece stock. It got worse when he removed the drum to replace it. I supervised a tool room at the time and we saved the gun, though we replaced the breech plug and drum - and finished up with an inch or so shorter barrel.
 
I also "vented " a percussion drum in the 70's as per Turner Kirkland's instructions. While it did not "harm" the rifle or cause misfires in damp weather when sealed with beeswax, I never vented another. :idunno:
 
Seems like a solution in search of a problem.

If you have reliability issues there's some other problem that needs to be fixed.
 
I vented a drum on a rifle I built almost 30 years ago at the customer's request. I drilled a tiny vent hole (.025")in the axis of the drum. When shooting, the owner stands beside a flint-shield or on the far right of the line. Can't say that it helped anything but I do know that if there is powder in the barrel it says "bang". The theory was/is that in an unvented breech the air trapped between the main charge and the nipple is compressed by the flame-front from the exploding cap and could compress enough to reject the flame. The vent allowed that air a place to escape.
 
LJA said:
The theory was/is that in an unvented breech the air trapped between the main charge and the nipple is compressed by the flame-front from the exploding cap and could compress enough to reject the flame. The vent allowed that air a place to escape.
Click to expand...

I could understand if we were talking about a fluid, but this doesn't really pass the sniff-test...
 
Had to look. Checked a couple of old Dixie catalogs. Instructions are in the 1999 catalog (Chuck Conners on the cover) on page 508. Says to use a #50 drill (.070 dia). Also in the 1997 catalog on page 695. Instructions have been out there for quite some time. No current catalog to check.
 
Dixie did publish how to vent a drum. I question the validity, utility and supposed efficacy of the procedure...

To echo Bakeoven Bill: Seems a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
 
On page 622 of the 2011 Dixie Gunworks catalog it shows how to vent the drum. That's the latest Dixie catalog I have so I can't comment on later editions.

Back in the early 80's I had a CVA Frontier .50 caliber percussion rifle that would have a hang fire maybe every 5th shot so I decided to follow the Dixie vent the drum fix.

Not having the recommended #50 drill bit I used a 1/16" drill.
Being smart enough to figure that the vent would belch a flaming stream of fire when the gun was fired I positioned it so that it was pointed upward and forward at about a 45° angle.

It did seem to improve the reliability of the rifle although that was a long time ago and I don't remember exactly how much.
I do know I wasn't tempted to plug the hole and the gun still had it when I sold it.

Yes, I read the thing about the cap flame fighting against the air in the breech and that may have something to do with it but I think I have a better theory, at least as far as the CVA breech is concerned.

Although the hole sizes in the breech are larger than the small flame channel in some factory made guns, having a place for air to escape besides the hole in the nipple during ramming the ball could cause more of the loose powder to blow back close to the nipple.
A vent hole close to the nipple like Dixie suggests would allow for this additional escape path.

(Imagine a small hole in the drum just outside the barrel wall in the
upper right hand corner drawing)


Maybe adding the hole will help. Maybe it won't.
It seems all muzzloaders have a mind of their own. :grin:
 
At best, most claim it did no harm.
That said, if there was no perceptible effect for the majority, it should be a last-ditch resort. If there is an issue, I'd look for logical reasons for the issue and address those first (misalignment of hammer and nipple, squashed nipple, poor cap fit, eroded nipple, extra wood impeding lock function, loose hammer, weak spring, junk in the breech or flash channel). If there is no issue, then I can't see drilling a hole in a drum on the off chance it might help...
 
I remember all the hoopla about the vented drums and benefits of the improved flash channel.

At the time these new nipples were being offered to improve the ignition of that hard to ignite Pyrodex. These were vented within the nipple and the flash channel was allegedly bored to improve the path to the powder.

Before I would recommend venting the drum, I would suggest that you get a vented nipple such as the Hot Shot or Spitfire. Most hammers have the recess that will capture the flash from the nipple as well as any cap fragments.

Advantages of drilling a vent in the drum, none over a vented nipple.

Disadvantages of drilling a vent in the drum, you have a hole in the flash channel that will be difficult to rework.
 
if you want air to be pushed out why not just cock the hammer and clear the fired cap? that has always worked for me.

yes an answer looking for a question.
 
I have a Traditions Deer Hunter in .32 that has a vented drum. It was that way when I bought the gun a couple of years ago at a gun show. As others have said, I wouldn't bother to do it to another gun unless there were serious problems with ignition. The vent is about 1/16" and is about 20 degrees away from vertical pointing towards the muzzle. It is close to the barrel.

I have several other percussion firearms with drum and this is the only one with a vent. The others seem to go bang just fine without the vent. One is a CVA in .50 caliber and the other is an old Italian made "hawken" in .50 caliber.
 

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