Home built ram rods and short starters

[Willbird]

I mentioned in another thread that I had made a couple ramrods that I liked. Well those were just "prototypes" here is the finished product version 2.0.

I think I have about $3.15 in materials to make a set of ramrod and short starter.

The wooden drawer pull knobs were $1.86 per pair
The nylon spacers on the tips were $.92 per pair at Lowes
The 7/16 Dowels were $.50 each.

I did some lathe work on the nylon spacers, basically turned them down so they would work decent with a patch. The hardware is glued on the dowel rods with gorilla glue.

Nothing earth shattering in the design.

The first ones I made were really too short, they were long enough to ram a bullet on top of a 100 grain by volume charge, but not long enough to run a patch clear down to the breech plug, nor long enough to use smaller powder charge or a shorter bullet.

I guess the point is for less than 5 bucks and 1.5 hours of work my brother in law and I each have a ramrod that will work nicer than a lot of store bought fancy looking $20 ones :-).

Bill

[Willbird]

OK here are the pictures :-)

[Willbird]

Maybe now ?

[Willbird]

Picture number 2

[northmn]

Very good ideas. The ramrod tips as sold by ML suppliers are only a couple of dollars and would not add much to your cost. They are also threaded and permit the addition of a jag for cleaning or whatever. Draw back is that unless ordered with something else the postage is more than the product. I have had luck with dowels as long as they are not cross grained. A good treatment of hot boiled linseed oil and turpentine will also help maintain them. The short starters do not need all that treatment and work fine as they are. I have a solid brass loading rod with a muzzle protector I bought many years ago that has loaded a lot of guns. Depending on what you buy the more expensive ones are not all that spendy in the long run. What you have made may do so also.

Northmn

[missionary5155]

Good morning & Merry Christmas
Those are very nice looking !
My 'Short Starter" for my 58 & larger calibers is a lowly table leg knob with a 1/2" x 6"wood dowel expoxied into a drilled hole. fat end was a little rounded on the sawed off edges & drilled for a leather strip to hang around the neck. Been hunting with me 22 years now.

[Willbird]

Very good ideas. The ramrod tips as sold by ML suppliers are only a couple of dollars and would not add much to your cost. They are also threaded and permit the addition of a jag for cleaning or whatever. Draw back is that unless ordered with something else the postage is more than the product. I have had luck with dowels as long as they are not cross grained. A good treatment of hot boiled linseed oil and turpentine will also help maintain them. The short starters do not need all that treatment and work fine as they are. I have a solid brass loading rod with a muzzle protector I bought many years ago that has loaded a lot of guns. Depending on what you buy the more expensive ones are not all that spendy in the long run. What you have made may do so also.

Northmn

Well the problem with threaded tips, is that they unscrew :-)....and with a tight patch or projectile, they will break if only slightly loose. I thought about using some tung oil on mine when I have the time to apply some.

Also I put a deep custom tapered countersink in the end of the nylon to allow seating the hornady or barnes plastic tipped bullets without damaging the plastic tip.

I just had a look at sinclairs and I see they have both rifle and pistol lengths of 50 caliber brushes, I think they would be handy for cleaning ML rifles that burn other than BP, Dewey makes a 10-32 thread 50 caliber brush, but I'm not sure if the 50 caliber ones Sinclair has are the larger thread or not.

The Dewey brushes are $10 per dozen....

http://www.deweyrods.com/cgi-bin/ccp5/cp-app.cgi?usr=DEWEY15529&pg=prod&ref=B_MISC&cat=&catstr=HOME:BRUSH_MOP

[Willbird]

One nice thing about inlines is you can more readily clean from the breech end. Another upcoming project is to make a cleaning rod guide that is threaded to replace the Omega breech plug...this will prevent skinning a cleaning rod on the razor sharp back end of the rifled bore. Right now I use an old parker hale cleaning rod that got partially skinned many years ago.

I have mentally debated over and over whether there would be benefit to reaming a small dia "chamber" in the back end of a hunting ML bore...nothing more than a section say .01" to .02" bigger in dia than the rifling....this might allow use of a bronze brush from the muzzle end in the field, it would allow the bristles to be free to reverse direction for the return trip down the bbl.

Bill

[Hanshi]

One nice thing about inlines is you can more readily clean from the breech end. Another upcoming project is to make a cleaning rod guide that is threaded to replace the Omega breech plug...this will prevent skinning a cleaning rod on the razor sharp back end of the rifled bore. Right now I use an old parker hale cleaning rod that got partially skinned many years ago.

I have mentally debated over and over whether there would be benefit to reaming a small dia "chamber" in the back end of a hunting ML bore...nothing more than a section say .01" to .02" bigger in dia than the rifling....this might allow use of a bronze brush from the muzzle end in the field, it would allow the bristles to be free to reverse direction for the return trip down the bbl.

Bill

I guess (I know) I'm cheaper than you. I bought plain, hickory rods and tapered them to fit my rifles-after kerosene treatment-that is. They were only $2 (or a little less) each. For short starters I used a 3" piece cut off the end of an oak cane that was too long for me. I glued leather to one end (to make it comfortable to hit with my palm) and just use the other flat end to put against the ball. I took a 3.5" piece of rod that I cut off while sizing them to my barrel length and inserted it into the side for a nice "T" starter. I made two, one for .40, .45, .50 and one for .36 & .32. No tip on the ramrods as i always clean with a ss range rod. Cost; $0, as I used scraps already on hand. Mine are not "quite" as pretty as yours but that has to do with my skills and not the materials used. And I shoot prb only. To me a large part of the fun of MLing is making your own "stuff".

http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/hanshi_photo/PICT0400-1.jpg

[northmn]

[QUOTE=Willbird;756611]Well the problem with threaded tips, is that they unscrew :-)....and with a tight patch or projectile, they will break if only slightly loose. I thought about using some tung oil on mine when I have the time to apply some.

That little problem, for those that shoot different calibers and want different size jags for the same ramrod, has been taken care of with the development of steel inserts in the jags that don't break as easy and the use of 10-32 threads. But it may pay, as you do to build seperate ramrods, as my point was that buying the tips is only practical if they are a part of a larger order. Postage is a b---h. I am having a hard time getting parts to fit on a ramrod for my 25 and used deer antler for a tip. Still like the ability to add a ball puller in case I may someday dryball or loose a patch down the barrel.

Northmn

[Willbird]

[QUOTE=Willbird;756611]Well the problem with threaded tips, is that they unscrew :-)....and with a tight patch or projectile, they will break if only slightly loose. I thought about using some tung oil on mine when I have the time to apply some.

That little problem, for those that shoot different calibers and want different size jags for the same ramrod, has been taken care of with the development of steel inserts in the jags that don't break as easy and the use of 10-32 threads. But it may pay, as you do to build seperate ramrods, as my point was that buying the tips is only practical if they are a part of a larger order. Postage is a b---h. I am having a hard time getting parts to fit on a ramrod for my 25 and used deer antler for a tip. Still like the ability to add a ball puller in case I may someday dryball or loose a patch down the barrel.

Northmn

Actually TC makes a decent jag, functionally, but it is all brass, and as we know all brass breaks...but I have as you say too drilled and tapped them for a steel threaded insert (a long set screw actually).

These ramrods I made are purely a tool for loading, and I made an effort to make them work with a wet and dry patch too (we will see on that part in the future). And yup when your done "shoulda, coulda, woulda " kicks in :-).

There is a guy around the gun board who runs a co called "Delta Enterprises"...he makes a LOT of delrin parts, I'm sure for a small fee he could bury us in delrin ramrod tips :-).

Bill

[jim4065]

http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/hanshi_photo/PICT0400-1.jpg

Nice set-up, Sir! Who did the bead work on the bag?

[Hanshi]

Nice set-up, Sir! Who did the bead work on the bag?

Thank you for the kind words. The small bag is leather, the larger is canvas & buckskin. All the beads are wood and I put them on myself. A learning experience as I have a long way to go. I see a lot of bags that are very professionally done, but alas, mine are rather amateurish.

[mooman76]

That's one of the great things I love about MLs. All the great things you can make for nothing or practically nothing.

[jim4065]

It's probably just my imagination, but the horn looks flattened - always wanted one of those (and even bought a book on how to build 'em, if I ever get time).

[northmn]

Mostly you can boil a horn and get it to take about any shape with a form. I have a very small flat priming horn I keep in my pocket that I did that with. Appreciate beadwork, horn work and other accounterments. Never took the time to really do that aspect of muzzleloading, but appreciate it.

Northmn

[405]

Here's a simple antler burr short starter that has worked well for years.

Along with my "big bore" patch knife :kidding:

More effort, study, time = more reward.. called "bonding" or some psychoterm :)