Kentucky Pistol fired one shot and that's it.

I just bought a Traditions Kentucky percussion pistol. I cleaned it with ballistol, ran several dry patches down the barrel. Fired just a cap, ran a dry patch trough, loaded 20grains Swiss 2fg, a prelubed patch and ball, set a cap, took aim and bang it goes. Well that was fun, ran a spit patch down and a dry patch, loaded it back up with the same charge, set a cap, took aim and the cap goes off but no boom. Waited a few minutes with it pointed down range. Made sure the nipple/hammer was clear, put on another cap same thing. Got out my other tin of caps, tried again and same thing. Did this a few times then gave up as I'm an just wasting precious caps.

From what I can see everything is as it should be and functions well. I'm not new to muzzleloading as I have an inline but am new to percussion systems.

Any ideas?

Only thing I can think of is the flash hole (not sure if that's the correct term or not) in the barrel is clogged. I can't find my bullet/patch puller so ordered a new one.

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Remove the nipple and work as much powder under nipple as possible. Replace nipple and fire with new cap, load should exit barrel.


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Originally Posted by Ozarkflyflinger

Remove the nipple and work as much powder under nipple as possible. Replace nipple and fire with new cap, load should exit barrel.


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This. It’l work


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I thought about doing that but wasn't sure, I will give it a go.

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Pick out the flash hole in the nipple with a thin wire they can clog up.

Do everything the same ,no spit patch 7-1water/oil Ballistol /damping only after loading patched ball ,this cleans fouling in front of ball shoot all day if you have a (tight enough) patch ball combo . Otherwise you keep pushing fouling down accumulating behind ball and blocking ignition/ Swiss is famous for hard crusty fouling !

If all else fails, and your jag still hasn't arrived, find a friend with a small air compressor that will give you at least 100 psi, take nipple out, and push rubber tipped blow nozzle down into threads for good seal. Hit the button and make sure you are aiming it toward the ground or somewhere safe. 100 psi will send it sailing.

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Originally Posted by Edward

Do everything the same ,no spit patch 7-1water/oil Ballistol /damping only after loading patched ball ,this cleans fouling in front of ball shoot all day if you have a (tight enough) patch ball combo . Otherwise you keep pushing fouling down accumulating behind ball and blocking ignition/ Swiss is famous for hard crusty fouling !

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This. You probably pushed fouling down into the nipple. When you run a patch after firing, you want the patch to fit loose, that way it rides over the fouling and when you pull it out, it bunches up and pulls the fouling out. Typically, I don't run a patch down unless needed, like when the accuracy drops off or ball and patch start to get too tight after firing several or more rounds.

Buy yourself a set of "Oxy-Acetylene" tip cleaners and use them to clean the flash hole in the nipple.
I carry a set in my shooting box and after every shot, I clean out the flash hole before installing a new percussion cap.

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Originally Posted by Edward

Do everything the same ,no spit patch 7-1water/oil Ballistol /damping only after loading patched ball ,this cleans fouling in front of ball shoot all day if you have a (tight enough) patch ball combo . Otherwise you keep pushing fouling down accumulating behind ball and blocking ignition/ Swiss is famous for hard crusty fouling !

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I have Swiss, Schuetzen, Goex, triple seven,pyrodex and blackhorn.

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After you get the barrel cleared take it off the stock and get a small bucket of hot soapy water. Take off the nipple and force the solution through with a patch and cleaning jag. You may have had some shaving from the barrel manufacturing process that were jammed against the flash hole.

You should mark the ramrod where a correct load is at the muzzle. That way you know if you dry balled it, or worse, double charged it.

Unscrew the nipple and add as much 4F or equivalent as possible and screw the nipple back on. Try firing it.

If that doesn’t work, you can get a CO2 bicycle tire filler, that has a lot more pressure than most compressors. The screw in type ball removers don’t work that well, because as you are screwing them in they are expanding the ball, putting more pressure on the barrel and making it harder to remove. There is a type of ball remover that has two claw like hooks that screw into the top of the the ball. They work a lot better, but are specific to calibers.

I never swab the entire barrel when shooting - as Edward described, it tends to push fouling into the flash channel and block it. I load powder, and then push patched ball down with a damp patch, when you withdraw the ramrod the patch comes with it and cleans the barrel in front of the ball. The combustion chamber can foul as it wishes, but rarely gives trouble even over a long string of fire. You can clean that out once the fun is over, and you are putting the pistol away. Be aware that there is an item called a nipple charger which is just a brass tube with a female fitting which can push a small charge of 4F into the nipple, before capping to try again. The added flame often ignites the main charge, and saves you the trouble of unscrewing the nipple and adding powder under it. Don't despair! As you gain experience your misfires and hang fires will go away.

I don’t have anything in the 3f or 4f right now, mine is all 2f. I do plan to get some 3f when it becomes more available.

The patch and ball are very hard to get started but once they are .5-.75in down it goes a lot smoother.

The caps I have are CVA and CCI probably 20 yrs old just guessing by the packaging, they were given to me by an older family friend in his 80s who use to shoot BP.

I plan to get a cap/ball revolver and a Kentucky rifle, not sure if I want percussion or flint yet. Black powder is a lot of fun.

''I don’t have anything in the 3f or 4f right now, mine is all 2f. I do plan to get some 3f when it becomes more available.''

You can crush up some FFg with a wooden spoon to make some finer powder. (don't let the wife catch you)

Another thought, if this is a used gun maybe the former owner didn't clean the breech plug face and fouling built up blocking the fire channel from the nipple. Carefully removing the breech plug may give you a better understanding of what's wrong.

Whenever I pop a couple of caps on one of my front stuffers and it doesn't go off I figure that the loose nut on the end of the stock is the problem. In other words I dry balled it. I forgot to put powder down the barrel. I then pull the nipple and work some 3 FG down in under the nipple into the bolster and the next cap will generally expel the ball. If I get a poof and the ball isn't expelled I redo the powder trying to get a bit more under the nipple and then re-seat the ball and try again. So far I haven't done that with a flintlock but, I suppose that day is coming.

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Originally Posted by Bill*B

I never swab the entire barrel when shooting - as Edward described, it tends to push fouling into the flash channel and block it. I load powder, and then push patched ball down with a damp patch, when you withdraw the ramrod the patch comes with it and cleans the barrel in front of the ball. The combustion chamber can foul as it wishes, but rarely gives trouble even over a long string of fire. You can clean that out once the fun is over, and you are putting the pistol away. Be aware that there is an item called a nipple charger which is just a brass tube with a female fitting which can push a small charge of 4F into the nipple, before capping to try again. The added flame often ignites the main charge, and saves you the trouble of unscrewing the nipple and adding powder under it. Don't despair! As you gain experience your misfires and hang fires will go away.

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THIS above

one of two things is happening
1) swabbing between shots pushes the crud down into the powder channel before you dump powder in - so you have a) crud blocking the ignition from getting at the powder or b) the damp from swabbing damping the powder that should be dry to ignite -
2) FFg powder is bridging and blocking the ignition channel so the nipple spark cant reach with enough gusto to light the charge ....you can fix that by (after dumping powder in) whacking the side of your pistol with an open hand several times while holding the muzzle vertical so the coarser powder fills the channel right to the nipple face .

simplify things by loading powder into the dry cruddy bore, load a damp patch on the ball, shoot ----the damp patch cleans the bore ahead of the ball but dry powder is underneath - so long as you dont mess about too long on the line you can shoot all day this way and always be shooting from a clean bore

I was able to make it back to the range yesterday. I put as much of the finer powder from the bottom of a almost gone Goex FFG under the nipple, placed a cap and bang it went. Obstruction cleared. I took my cleaning supplies with me and cleaned It as best I could. I was then able to have some fun, fired 30 rounds and didn’t have an issue.

Good job for sticking with it [emoji106]


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