Ball did not leave the barrel?????? But lots of smoke did?????

[oldracer]

At the monthly muzzle loader match today, two of the red hot shooters tied for first in the steel target series so a target shoot off was arranged. The first guy went and when they looked at the target there was NO HOLE although there was a regular sized cloud of smoke? So he ran his cleaning rod into the barrel and it stopped about 8 inches or so inside. Had to use a screw type ball puller as the CO2 shooter did not move it. I think it was because the ball was a tad too small and/or the patch too thin to get a proper seal. He ended up second in the shoot off as he had gotten frazzled some. Afterward we all looked and found several really destroyed patches that matched what he was using so........

Anyone else seen this happen?

[Lead Fred]

Bet he forgot to use a patch. Oil in the barrel can slow the ball down, and the patch can rip, venting the powder around it.

[oldracer]

No, he was using a patch as he does several things to get setup the day before the match: measure out powder in vials for his load, use home made loading boards with the patch and a ball set in and ready to load. He is also the only shooter in our group that uses red and white pillow ticking which he got many years ago he said. Around here all I have seen is blue and white but I imagine there are many colors? His patches were badly torn up and we could only fine small pieces of any he shot.

[waksupi]

Pyrodex, mayhaps?

[wgr]

need to find out why the patches are blowing. old patching, rough bore, ball to small, to much powder

[Tom_in_AZ]

need to find out why the patches are blowing. old patching, rough bore, ball to small, to much powder

This. If his patches are disintegrating, there's something wrong.

[oldracer]

I agree with WGR and my first choice would be round ball too small and adding in a patch that is too thin or possily too old? Someone asked about his powder and he said 60 grains of Goex FFG so that should be okay? I asked him if he had ever slugged the barrel and he said no it was just a 45 caliber Hawken from TC and he bought what was recommended in their tech sheet as he bought the gun new.

My mentor said to always slug the barrel, no matter what anyone said. With a muzzle loader it can be a pain but I use Cerrosafe and have had no issues. The issue there is it only gives the muzzle diameter and if the barrel has any choke then you have to run a ball down and blow it back out.

[fouronesix]

Hard to believe there isn't more to the story. When 2-4 gr of FFFF will blow most balls out a barrel, I have a hard time believing that a more or less full charge of BP, be it target or hunting load, didn't blow a ball, patched or not, out the barrel! All in all just doesn't make any sense. SEWAG here- any possibility the ball was loaded underneath the powder? :)

[wgr]

Hard to believe there isn't more to the story. When 2-4 gr of FFFF will blow most balls out a barrel, I have a hard time believing that a more or less full charge of BP, be it target or hunting load, didn't blow a ball, patched or not, out the barrel! All in all just doesn't make any sense. SEWAG here- any possibility the ball was loaded underneath the powder? :) thats been done but what about the blown patch

[fouronesix]

thats been done but what about the blown patch

What about the ball staying in the barrel with a normal charge UNDER the ball, patched or not?

With loose, easy to load rounds (as is common with some shooting games where long shot strings are the norm, blown patches are fairly common.

[oldracer]

Here is what I recommended to do, after cleaning well take the rifle and some patch pieces to one of our local competent gunsmiths. Have him slug the barrel and then measure the ball. Measure the ball and some new patches and figure how well they fit together. Look in the barrel with a borescope and check for burrs or nicks that could tear the patch before seating. If there is a defect then polish it out or get another barrel I guess. Time will tell here.

[starmac]

I have to side with fouronsix, something doesn't compute. Even if he had forgot the patch it should have blown the ball out.

[jblee10]

Put the powder in the barrel. Then put a patched ball on top of the powder. :razz: Makes the same amount of smoke, but the ball goes a lot farther, ha, ha.

[M-Tecs]

Never tried it but it was widely reported soldiers would just drop balls in their smooth bores and fire without using a ramrod.

[curator]

Yup, ball first then powder charge. With a lose ball/patch combo, the powder would go off and the the ball would move about 8 inches up the pipe. Shredded patches were from his previous shots. A good tight ball/patch combination would not allow the flame from the cap to reach powder on the other side of the ball, but a lose one will. Having worked Boy scout camp and Hunter training for 30+ years, I have seen this more than once.

[waksupi]

Yup, ball first then powder charge. With a lose ball/patch combo, the powder would go off and the the ball would move about 8 inches up the pipe. Shredded patches were from his previous shots. A good tight ball/patch combination would not allow the flame from the cap to reach powder on the other side of the ball, but a lose one will. Having worked Boy scout camp and Hunter training for 30+ years, I have seen this more than once.

I do believe this is the winner. I can conceive of no other circumstance where the ball would not have left the barrel.

[wgr]

my 36cal. mule ear will allow for a dry ball then powder . the powder will go off but the ball willnot move

[starmac]

Just a couple of things to think about.
The guy was tied for first place, so I'm assuming he had already made a few shots and the balls were going where he intended. Blown out ragged patches apparently were working well for him with his gun.

Second, I would hate to see the burr in a barrel that would stop a ball with a full load of powder BEHIND it.

[Rhou45]

It seems more likely the ball/patch and powder were loladed backwards than anythg else.

I have seen a ML fired with just the ball dropped down on the powder. It sounded like a normal ignition with a "ploof" sound mixed in. The ball rolled/fell out the barrel and landed about ten feet in front of the shooter. Blackened with soot on one side and no rifling marks.

The ML was a 54 cal Lyman, shooting 50gr of Pyrodex RS, with a .535 ball. The shooter said he'd brought the wrong patches (.010) instead of the (.005) and the balls wouldn't load with the patches, so he tried the pistol without a patch. I loaded him some of my .530 round balls for my Lyman .54 to finish the day.

[beroen]

Sounds like the pressure got to him and he dumptrucked. the round ball would have to be half the size of the actual bore for the slightest chance of shooting a patch out around it.. patches should be dirty semi charred but fairly intact not shredded.

Edit if he is running really thin patches they might get cut by the rifling but still be fairly intact

[beroen]

Never heard of slugging a muzzleloader barrel sounds like a waste of time when there's different patch thickness and ball diameters to chose from you just have to find what it likes

[oldracer]

It never hurts to know exactly what you have and 90% of the shooters I shoot with have never done that and have done things by experimenting. The few who have measured generally never have issues and several have been regional champions and such.

[johnson1942]

i agree with beroen, i have 3 diff 50 cal guns fast twist and they have never been slugged. all three are of diff diam by a fraction. if 18 pound paper around ny bullet is too loose i go to 20 pound paper for the single wrap system. if that dont work i have a hand crank knarler and i knarl the bullet up a little. they all shoot like a house on fire. length of bullet as to twist rate and patching material if its cloth or paper if the most important thing. bore can be smooth or fairly ruff, makes no diff, their are more important things to consider also. the biggest negelected thing is the length of the bullet for the twist rate of the rifle unless your a smooth bore which i know nothing about except the bebe gun i had as a kid.

[oldracer]

Roger, you surprised me there as when I called you about the muzzle loader you built, I was told what diameter ball to use and what thickness patch material to use? You even included a large piece of material which I tried and then found some pillow ticking the same thickness to use. Where you relying on the barrel maker's info on the barrel specs or ????? At any rate experimenting is the same as slugging, it just takes a bit longer and more note taking.

Also remember we are talking round ball and cloth patches here, not slugs or paper patched bullets and the twist is much slower than my slug guns which are 1 in 18 as usual.

When I bought Doug Knoell's Hawken rifles his note book pages showed bore and land diameters and noted if I use a 0.490 ball, use this patch or a 0.495 ball use this patch, etc. So just to be sure I did some tests and his notes were exact.

[johnson1942]

if you use that table cloth linen it mikes to seven thousands instead of 5 thousands as cotton cloth does. that linen is gold. that is what old timers really used and they only use cotton when they couldnt get linen. linen is so tough that you can pick up used shot patches and relube them and shoot them again, ive done that. i would encourage anyone out their that shoot patched round ball to go to the internet and find a pure linen cloth tight weave material and use it as you precut patches. you will never regret it. they never cut or come apart. also make them square to the same diam as your precut round patches. thats what they did in the old days and they knew what they where doing. i lube mine with alox from lee and let them dry then lube again with thompson bore butter or utter balm avail at the farm store. use a bal only 5 thousands in diam under the size of the top of the lands bore diam most likely .495 for the 50 cal. shooting good groups is easy, it just a matter of science that the guys from the old days already figured out. also dont over charge the load. 70 grains of black powder is enough. if the ball passes through a deer. what good is it if it passes through a little faster than needed. a 500 grain slug 50 cal going 300 ft per second will pass through a human or a deer completely and 1/2 way through a elk. thats the ft per sec at one mile. anything over that is wasted. the sniper rounds that take the enemy at one to one and a half miles are only going going 1000 ft to 1200 ft per second at that distance. patch good and with the best material and keep the ft per second down and you all will be match winners.

[OverMax]

Anyone else seen this happen?

Never heard of such a thing happening until now. I own and shoot a 45 T/C hawken w/p-b. Mine has never done the same. I suspect you observers were actually looking at another shooters patch's and not those of this shooter. I highly doubt a ball moving up its barrel bore would allow its patch alone to leave the barrel upon firing. Just doesn't seem feasible to me since a ball is nearly enclosed in its patch upon its downward seating to its breech.

[nekshot]

Linen for patches, I might try that! Lets see- my wifes good table cloth is linen, I wonder if I could cut a little---no can't even think about that!! I go for ball first but what happened to to the preloaded patch?

[45workhorse]

Dry rot on patching material. Did he swab between shots, damp bore???

P.G.I.F.!!!!!!!!
Something I never ever have any trouble doing!:rolleyes:

POWDER GOES IN FIRST

[oldracer]

The issue of wrong patches came up but he is the only shooter using red and white striped pillow ticking. Half the shooters use commercial prelubed ones and the rest, such as me use blue and white pillow ticking. Personally I opt for putting things in, the wrong order but he swears that was not the issue? He does not wipe between every shot as I do so that wasn't it I think? He does use premeasured powder charges in little vials and does not use a funnel/tube to load the powder so maybe a lot of it stuck to the barrel sides? I use a funnel and have since I started and especially since in Ned Roberts' book he mentions the "best" shooters always did.

Roger, you missed the point of the post I made just before you talked about the patch material.......How did you know what size ball I was supposed to use in that rifle you made........490 or 495 or ?

[johnson1942]

sorry, its a .50 cal. so you most likely wouldnt want a .50 ball , so a 495 ball is next as you want a tight fit. something is in the back of my mind but im sure it isnt so, is the barrel rung? when he runs a patch down the barrel to clean now is their a spot where the patch is real loose. did he slightly bulge the barrel on the inside, you may not see it on the outside but you sure can feel it on the inside. have to admit i did that many years back. i was shooting out in the pasture and a very low flying small plane went just over my head as i was loading and i was so interested in the plane i forgot to push the ball all the way down. sure enough i ruined the barrel. didnt show on the outside but on the inside their was like a hollow spot for about a inch. never do that again.

[flyingmonkey35]

I have seen this.

With a patch ball only partially seated.

Not enough presser to eject the ball out of the barrel.

I've seen it when you use dry patches.

And a hot barrel you get a false seat.


As he was using a tray it was most likely a dried out patch.

[Pyro&Black]

He loaded the powder after loading the bullet. Had it been an inline, it doesn't ignite.