Question.....or 2

[LAH]

Have cap & ball rifle, Ardesa. 'bout 28" barrel. 50 cal. I load 90 grs. FFG, .490 Hornady ball, with a T/C cotton prelubricated .015 patch. Gun does 1 to 1 1/4" three shot groups at 50 yards. Is that about what it should do?

Problem is the rifle must be wet patched with jag between loadings. It can be loaded twice but the second loading is ramrod unfriendly. I've added petro jelly to the patch but the results are the same, rough loading. Do I need to try something else for patch lube? Maybe thinner patch?

Creeker is no expert blackpowder guy though I do love shooting the little gun. Somebody fill me in here please. Thanks and God Bless......LAH

[OldBob]

Never gave much thought to not cleaning between shots, when I was taught how to shoot one, thats what I was shown to do. I don't think accuracy would hold up for long if you didn't clean between shots, if you even could load the gun. Another reason for that cleaning is to preclude the possibility of any embers in the bore, don't want to toast your fingers or eyes..... Bullets such as the Lee REAL bullet, etc. can be loaded in a dirty barrel for several shots, but thats a whole 'nother deal . As for group size, need a bit of information,how good a group are you capable of shooting with a "known good" rifle with the same type of sights? With my eyes being what they are and open sights, thats about normal for 50 yds, used ta could do better, but now thats about it. A good round ball rifle is capable of pretty fine accuracy given good sights and consistent loading. Shot my Lyman Plains Rifle today for an hour or so, 1" at 50 yds., about 6" at 100 Yds.......seems the further I look over those open sights, the more fuzz grows on them.

[mooman76]

Your shot groups are about right. Some do better than others and of coarse some do worse. Part of it is probubly you but shooting an 1" - 1 1/4 @ 50 with open sights in my book is pretty darn good!
Try the good oldfasion spit patch and you shouldn't have to clean between shots.

[Slamfire]

You might try FFFg, you'll need less to achieve the same velocity, and it is a bit less foulin' to start with, not as many big chunks of charcoal. :)

[Bigjohn]

Have cap & ball rifle, Ardesa. 'bout 28" barrel. 50 cal. I load 90 grs. FFG, .490 Hornady ball, with a T/C cotton prelubricated .015 patch. Gun does 1 to 1 1/4" three shot groups at 50 yards. Is that about what it should do?

That's not too bad for a group @ 50 yards; some rifles are capable of better if the shooter does his bit with the sights and trigger.
I use some prelubed patches for my .40 cal. Flinter and don't add further lube to them. They load just fine unless the fouling is too dry. Normally, I use a combination liquid cleaner patch lubricatant and lube the patches with it during shooting and clean the bore after the match with it.


Problem is the rifle must be wet patched with jag between loadings. It can be loaded twice but the second loading is ramrod unfriendly. I've added petro jelly to the patch but the results are the same, rough loading. Do I need to try something else for patch lube? Maybe thinner patch?

Petroleum products tend to make BP fouling harder, try some of the liquid or paste patch lubes and see if they make a difference.
If you can load the patch/ball combination without really straining the loading rod, then it is suitable.
The maths on this is (patch thickness X 2)= Patch + Ball diam. = projectile total
(.015" X2) = .030" + .490" = .520"

If you believe they may be a problem then try some different combinations of patch and ball to see what effect they have on you grouping. Remember where you started so you have somewhere to come back to if your new trial does not work.

Some more information on the condition of the barrel may help; does the clean barrel grab at the patch material as a rough barrel would?


Creeker is no expert blackpowder guy though I do love shooting the little gun. Somebody fill me in here please. Thanks and God Bless......LAH

:drinks:
John

[Buckshot]

................It continually amazes me that a patched RB rifle would have to be cleaned between shots. I have never owned one. I have three 58 cal rifled muskets and two 45 cal long range match rifles. None of them gets cleaned between shots. By the very means of loading the next patched ball the barrel is wiped, isn't it? It would seem to me that until fouling in the breech reaches a point where the cap won't set the charge off is when upi need to clean.

This very thing came up maybe 3 weeks ago. I was walking back from the rest room when Brian the rangemaster said "Here he is" pointing to me and a guy walked up and said he was having trouble with a Lyman Great Plains not shooting one after another. While walking to his bench he said he was wiping between shots and everything. I said why are you cleaning between shot's? He said because he was supposed to.

Maybe he was doing it wrong and getting too much moisture in the breech, as he said he had to snap a bunch of caps after wiping to get it to go off. So I said lets NOT wipe the bore down and see what happens, mentioning that it seemed that subsequent loadings would serve the purpose. Wiping out a patched RB gun between shots seems a great waste of time to me.

He fired 7 rounds before having a hangfire. He was delighted. I have fired my rifles most the day long, maybe 30 rounds or more before needing to clean to the breech. I suggested his caps were weak or that the flash channel needed a really good cleaning. Hard continually baked on "Generational" fouling in the flash channel can be a real bugaboo to completely clean out. This area just continually gets layered. You can't get a stiff brush in there to really work on it either.

An aquaintance of mine (Lenord) who is maybe 15 years my senior had been roondyvouing and shoosting the ML'ers since before I graduated high school. All he shoots are Pennsylvania types, both percussion and flint. I have NEVER seen him wipe out a barrel between shots, and one day saw him give a guy shooting his 22 WMR at 50 yards a run for his money. Lenord was shooting his favorite 40 cal rifle.

One time I was banging away offhand at the 200 meter gong with my Whitworth. Lenord said, "lemme give it a try". He had one of his long persussion rifles but I don't recall the caliber. However it had the standard fixed sights those rifles had, being a simple notch and silver blade up front. He fired twice Offhand). Both were perfect for elevation but the first missed scant inches off the right edge and the second off the left. At that he said dang that he'd held a bit too much into the breeze :-).

One other time a shooting buddy with the descriptive nickname of 3 Band Bob showed up atthe range with a new to him P53 caopy. It had been imported by Lyman probably in the early 70's and no doubt had been made in Italy. It was a very fine put together musket, and no doubt. He was a CNC machinist by profession, and the one who wrote code and setup machines at his job. He was forever making new HB plugs for Lyman and Lee moulds!

Anyway, that 3 band was a superb shooting rifle! One afternoon long after most everyone else had left the range, he and I sat on opposite sides of the bench shooting that musket at the 200 meter gong. Since we were shooting off the bench it was no great shakes to nail it about every time. He'd load and shoot, CLANG!, and then he'd hand it over to me and I'd load and shoot it, CLANG!. Lemme tell ya, that musket got HOT! We stopped when we ran oput of caps or Minie's, I forget which it was. He sold the rifle to Lenord for $500.

I asked him why he'd done that and he said it was boring. Besides, the Marines had never been issued the P53 Enfield. He was a Gyrene and had this 'way' :-). He'd also place freshly cast Minie's in a coffeecan and then fill it with distilled water and let it sit. He never told me about doing this until one day I asked him why his Minie' bullets all looked so pale. Then he told me. I asked him why he did that and he said because it made them look old, HA!

.................Buckshot

[hobbles]

Mornin LAH
If you have to clean after every shot I would change your lube, Lube is very important in fine tunnin your weapon, I agree that to much cleanin will plug up the breech,, Took me a while and a lot of info (and trial and error) to come up with a lube our weapons like.

[waksupi]

Get rid of the TC pre lubed patches. Get some water soluble oil, mix one part oil, to 10-12 parts water. I can shoot all day with this mix, with no fouling, and consistant accuracy. The commercial yellow preparations are heavy in the beeswax content, and this builds up in the bore, as you have discovered.

[LAH]

OK guys, thanks for all the info. I've decided to get away from the petro jelly and T/C lubed patches. Every one I asked say the "Petro" based products are my problem. They case hard fouling with BP.

I'm going to try coating the clean bore with bore butter and using bore butter lubed .015 patches before doing anything else. A friend suggested water/dish soap lubed patches but think I'll use the bore butter first and see what happens.

I also have a can of FFFG I will try at some point as suggested.

As for wiping the barrel after each shot. Well it's either that or stand in danger of breaking the ram rod. I'm looking for a combo that will allow at least 2 reloads without undue strain on the rod. Believe me, I hate to clean guns. Some of my sixguns haven't been cleaned in a year. My 45 has maybe 600 rounds through it and the chambers and barrel haven't been wiped.

Thanks again gang.......Creeker

[OldBob]

You gents have raised some questions in my mind, I have always cleaned between loadings, used to travel around to do the muzzle loader matches and a best I can recall all of the other shooters did the same. I have always used a spit patch and cut them while loading rather than greased precuts. I patch real tight ( or at least I think so) enough so that it takes several good whacks with the palm of my hand on the short starter to get the ball started. My 54's use a .530 ball and .015 ticking, 50's are a .490 and the same patch material. I find if I don't clean , the next shot loads hard, and I never went much beyond that. I would have to agree that the loading will clean the barrel and accuracy shouldn't suffer, but how long before you can't load ? How tight are you guys patching? Also, I've never experienced the flash channel plugging up or getting wet from cleaning, probably because I don't use a sopping wt patch, just a dampened flannel patch.
Muskets have been just the opposite in my experience, I used to shoot a "re-converted" Snyder-Enfield conversion that refused to group until it had 6-8 shots fired, when it started to feel like the barrel had sand in it when you loaded, the darned thing would shoot excellent. Has that been your experience also or am I all alone here too ?

[twotoescharlie]

try moose snot, 50/50 murphys oil soap-neatsfoot oil (not neatsfoot compound it has mineral spirits in it) you can get pure neatsfoot oil at most any tack shop.
measure,mix well and use as a patch lube, for hunting use a dry felt wad between powder and ball. been shooting black powder for close to 50 years and have been using this for the past 7-8 years and has worked well for myself. not unusual to target shoot several hours without having to wipe the bore, just ain't necessary.
I put my patches in a baggie and pour a small amount of lube in and work it through the patches add a little more if necessary.


TTC

[shooter575]

[QUOTE=OldBob;
Muskets have been just the opposite in my experience, I used to shoot a "re-converted" Snyder-Enfield conversion that refused to group until it had 6-8 shots fired, when it started to feel like the barrel had sand in it when you loaded, the darned thing would shoot excellent. Has that been your experience also or am I all alone here too ?[/QUOTE]

Shooting minnes is a diffrent game than rb. My guess with you enfield you minnes were too small.The powder fouling decreased the barrel dia to fit your rounds.
.001-.002 under min bore size will improve that first shot. Also if your are getting hard fouling your lube is failing.Barrel gunk should be sorta gooey.I had a Euroarms 3 band enfield that I shot a lot using Crisco for lube.I was using a Lee ashcan.The thing shot real good but I sometimes needed to shoot a 15 shot string in 5 minutes without wiping.The fouling after 8-10 shots left a hard spot about last 6" of barrel.Made reloading fast real hard.Switched to a beeswax/oliveoil lube and that hard spot went awayDidnt shoot any better,just faster.

[Slamfire]

[QUOTE=shooter575;129598Switched to a beeswax/oliveoil lube and that hard spot went awayDidnt shoot any better,just faster.[/QUOTE]
I was readin' the label on my can of Sno Seal, and noticed it was basically bee's wax. I looked up the MSDS and found the softenin' agent was mineral oil. That's the basis of Ballistol. Well guess what I use for patch lube. [smilie=1:

[highwallbo]

The long range muzzle loaders Folks shooting Gibbs, Rigby and Whitorth rifles shooting the 800,900,1000 yard events wipe after each shot. and by all accounts these rifles are consistently accurate at those ranges and the way I see it ,it just can't hurt. However one must take extra care to make sure you have a dry chamber and snap a cap after each dry patch. I have shot my Gibbs as many as 50 rounds and had not a single misfire. The trick is getting the chamber and the bore dry and have a clear ignition path.
The old timers at Creedmoor used this method and many of their original rifles are still around and being shot as well as new replicas.
I assume we all want the best accuracy we can get and when working on loads at the range consistency is everything and clean dry bore provides that consistently.

[OldBob]

Yep, consistency is where it is at, at least for target work. The old timers I used to shoot with counted the number of strokes taken to clean between shots, held the weave of the patch material the same direction each time with the same side up, aligned the seam of the ball and the sprue the same way, ideally seated the ball in one clean pass, no thumping on it with the ramrod, etc. Now, I know this isn't practical or necessary for hunting accuracy, but for good target shooting, I believe it matters. Maybe its a psychological crutch, but if thats what it takes .........

[waksupi]

Now something I haven't seen mentioned. If shooting a patched round ball, using striped pillow ticking. Turn the stripes in the direction you want the ball to go. If the stripes are canted, they will obviously shoot away in that direction.

I've been around Carpetman too long!

[Guido4198]

Yep, consistency is where it is at, at least for target work. aligned the seam of the ball and the sprue the same way, ideally seated the ball in one clean pass, no thumping on it with the ramrod, etc. Now, I know this isn't practical or necessary for hunting accuracy, but for good target shooting, I believe it matters. Maybe its a psychological crutch, but if thats what it takes .........
OldBob you 'bout got it right. As a matchshooter myself, that's the deal. Face it, if you shoot BP, you're gonna get fouling. The way to shrink groups is to control the fouling so as to make it as consistent as possible shot-to-shot. If you do it all right, with a good bbl./patch/ball combo...( and a good steady rest off the bench...)you'll get a single "ragged hole" at 50 yds, and 1-2 in. @ 100. My match load for my 50 cal. Green Mtn bbl. uses a .500 ball, .018 patching w/ "Junior's Lube". Very tight combo..I use a Delrin tool and hammer to(gently) start the ball into the muzzle,sprue up of course.. then cut of the patch, follow that with a "short starter" to get the ball/patch started 5-6" into the rifling...then a 3/8's solid brass range rod to seat...in one motion. After each shot, wiping with a single moist patch ( once again...degree of "moistness" is important...be consistent). Then a dry patch, and I'm ready to load again. All this might be a psychological crutch...but a good percentage of match shooting is the mental game, and if these tedious steps help that..so be it.

[Buckshot]

.............highwallbo, I must disagree about LR ML'ers cleaning between every shot. During the Creedmore match in 1874 the Brits smirked at the crazy Americans who insisted on wiping their breechloaders between each shot. The British (or so called Irish team) did not clean their rifles between each shot.

I will grant that we do not have the same quality powder as what they were accustomed to having, but Swiss does come close. If LR Competitors shooting today are cleaning to the breech with each shot, I'd be amazed. With the coned patent breech in these rilfes it would seem that it could be problematic.

I have used a damp patch on the rangerod when pushing the wad column down to the charge, and then a dry patch before seating the slug but I saw no increase in accuracy so I've stopped doing it. The patches would just be a faint gray anyway.

................Buckshot

[Boz330]

At the ML Championships at Friendship IN this past fall the guys that I watched usually wiped with a wet patch and then a dry one. The only reason that I really paid attention is that a friend was shooting for the first time and he was working with some of the guys that are representing the US in South Africa in 2007. If not cleaning works then do it, but in a rifle that is shooting a paper patched bullet with no lube I would think that wiping between shots is important.
I do have a little 40 that I can shoot all day without cleaning using one of the water soluble oil patch lubes. I can tell a big difference in all of my guns using Swiss instead of Goex as far as fouling goes.

Bob

[Buckshot]

.............The patched slugs I shoot are lubed, and not shot dry.

http://www.fototime.com/F5B2831828DBFE3/standard.jpg

These are swaged 530gr slugs with a HP and cup based at .443", then patched to .450" with 9# paper. I use Bore Butter for cloth patches to lube the paper patch before loading.

................Buckshot

[piwo]

I start out with a pillow ticking sheet, and cut my patches. I then use an altoids tin sitting on the oven (low), and melt a mess of bore butter. I submerge my patches, then remove and let cool. After they "stiffen up" and the tin cools down with whatever's left in it, I add the patches to the tin. This I carry to the field. I do use one of these patches in-between shots with my flintlock which is using a .535 ball and .015 patch. If I did not, a 2nd loading would be difficult: a third impossible. Using one patch in-between I've shot 25 or so shots without loading difficulty. Just using one of these thoroughly lubed patches shot after shot would still not allow for repeated, easy loading.

Unless one is using an incredibly lose fitting combination, I can't imagine being able to shoot all day, or even more then a handful of shots without wiping with a damp cloth/lubed patch. Now, I do use a judicious measure of powder, so it's possible that contributes to the issue. If I need a quick follow up, I'll use no patch at all: just ball on powder. At 50yds, it still shoots to the point of aim. Past that, it falls off rather badly and of course, after seating snugly, I'd not try to aim downhill for long!

The extra benefit of bore butter patches: makes for a great lip balm in the field if you get chapped lips and forgot your chap stick! Bore butter is 100% food additive approved.:-D

[RBak]

Very interesting subject. Especially the mechanics of why, or how, one can shoot all day, and the next one only a couple of shots before cleaning / wipping is necessary.

The best I have ever done on a given day is 14 shots without cleaning / wipping between shots.....and, that 14th shot was very hard to load!

Still yet, I know lots of people who say they can shoot all day without wipping or cleaning, and when questioned about lube, patch, techniques, whatever, it seems we are all using pretty much the same thing, so I don't have a clue as why some can, and some can't.
I own about a dozen frontloaders, from .32 cal to .66, and I assure you that none of them have ever done any better than the one I mentioned with 14 shots....most will not do that good.

I used to shoot with an old timer (Doc Faust) who never wipped or cleaned his rifle on the range, and only shot spit patches and 2f in a .45, primed with 3f....one would think that combination would foul after the first shot, but he would be shooting when I got there, and still shooting when I left....

:holysheep....whats a mother to do? :-?

Russ...

[45 2.1]

When I started muzzleloading, I used a TC hawken 50 flintlock. I started with spit patching and still use it when target shooting. As long as you don't wait 15 or 20 minutes between shots it works fine. That spit patch does a really good job of cleaning the bore each time.

[waksupi]

I think a lot of it may have to do with lead hardness, ambient temperature and humidity, patch ball fit. I shoot moose milk lube all the time. In this area, if you try Bore Butter, after a dozen shots, you are done, until you give the bore a thorough cleaning.
I don't use a short starter, but my lead balls show the thread imprint from the fabric when I check this. And this, is with the local wheel weights we get, not pure lead. I will say, I do have pretty strong hands, and some may not be able to start a ball as I do.
With this combination, I can shoot all day, with the same bore condition, start to finish.

[OldBob]

Temp and humidity do play a BIG part in it, I've noticed dry days create harder fouling . Good example of this is using a blow tube so moisture from your breath softens the fouling in a BPCR. I've always patched tight enough to be able to see the weave of the patch in a recovered ball, but I can't start 'em without a starter, 'specially when they are wheelweights! I was always told they were no good for a muzzleloader, but mine always seemed to work fine...... :mrgreen: Its interesting to see how many ways there are to achieve the same end.