Enlighten me please

[Nuttinbutchunks]

About ten years ago, my wife bought me a Hawken .50 caliber rifle. I took it to the range, rammed a ball down the barrel and fired it. I went to repeat the process and the next ball got stuck less than an inch down the muzzle. I suspect that I needed to swab the barrel to remove the powder residue before the next shot. What do I use for that, or am I completely off track?
Now that I'm "paroled" from Kalifornia, I want to take advantage of the muzzle loader season next year, which means I need to learn to shoot this fine firearm.  Any information is greatly appreciated.
Thanks  

[quickdtoo]

Most shooters just use a spit patch for the wipe between shots. Take a clean cleaning patch, stick it in your mouth and wet it good, place it on the muzzle and wipe the bore out with a cleaning jag on the end of your ramrod. You can also use different types of muzzleloading solvents such as TC #13 or the like, but really isn't necessary. If you use the right lube on the shooting patch, wiping between shots isn't necessary at all. I use moosemilk on shooting patches, you can shoot all day long without wiping. You can also clean with it. If you do a search here for moosemilk, you'll find more than you need to know about it. :wink:

[lostid]

OK "parole'ee" you found the right place fer helpin. But you'll really need to give us a bit more back-ground about the rifle,,give us some "kibbles an bits" before ya throw chunks..

 What rifle?
 What cal.?
 What powder?
  What ball.?
 What do ya got? what can ya get? And, What do you wanna do with it?
 I'll tell ya one thing, if you follow quick-do's advise with-out a cleaning jag,,you'll post again trying to figgure-out how to get a spit patch back from the bottom of your barrel!! Truth. so whatta ya want?
 If you want some help,,lord knows you found the spot,,, we'll all help ya what we can,,If it's a "joke" to ya,,well that's fun too.

[quickdtoo]

I'll tell ya one thing, if you follow quick-do's advise with-out a cleaning jag,,you'll post again trying to figgure-out how to get a spit patch back from the bottom of your barrel!! Truth.

Duh!   :wink: Good catch, thanks Lostit.

[Snowshoe]

I do not wipe between shots for hunting. I use Pyrodex and a lightly lubed patch. I use Traditions liquid Wonderlube 1000 plus bore cleaning solvent, for my patch lube. This enables me to shoot several shots without wiping. The first three shots are very accurate, after that it starts to spread out, but when deer hunting one is usually enough.

[clodbuster]

Nuttinbc   If you only got one shot off before the barrel loaded up so badly that the next ball would only go in an inch, there's trouble in river city.  Fouling buildup is usually much worse down at the breech end  and I have never heard of a stuck ball up so near the muzzle.  It's hard to image one shot fouling a barrel if it was clean to begin with.   A suggestion would be to have a scope run down the bore  to see what you have going on in there.  You could have a very rough bore that needs some serious cleaning and lapping with JB's compound.  Your patch thickness/ball size setup could be just too darn tight for the bore diameter and normal fouling is causing this trouble.  Reduce one or the other and try again after good cleaning.  Make sure you clean the bore completely free of everything before your first shot of every shooting session.

[alpini]

I guess you used a short starter first. Since it did get stuck right off, I'm guessing along with everyone else the bore is fouled. I get about 3 shots between swabbing. I use regular old spit patch for this and a lubed patch for shooting. I think most people will run a patch down the bore as they feel the ball beginning to hang up on the fouling as they ram it home. I tend to swab early as I know I can get a patch stuck as easily as a ball.  
   I hate it when I get something stuck and it happens often enough. I've shot jags, ramrods and loose patches out my barrel you'd think I'd learn by now.

[Longcruise]

I went to repeat the process and the next ball got stuck less than an inch down the muzzle

Is the ball still in the barrel? :shock:

[Nuttinbutchunks]

To the gentleman who asked me for more info on the rifle, it's a Traditions .50 cal with double set triggers (I had to check) and fully adjustable sights. I plan to hunt with it, and I should practice with it for that reason. I think most of you would like it. I particularly like the clean sigh picture I get when I look down the barrel.

 I didn't clean it before I fired it. That could have been my first mistake. I did remove the ball, it's clear now and I did clean it with the proper solvent before I stored it.

I will search Moose milk. I like that idea. This is something I will look into. Thank you all for your input. Now I'm not such a bonehead.

[willysjeep134]

The best thing to do first would be to take the barrel off the stock and stick the breech end in a bucket of scalding hot soapy water. Pump a few cleaning patches on a jag up and down the bore. This will suck that hot water through the nipple and up the bore. All that machineing oil and grease will come out. The heat will help dry out the steel once you are done. Once all that stuff is out of the bore you can use lard or Thompson Center bore butter, or any one of the many other bore lubes people talk about here, on your patches to help keep fouling down. These products also work great to protect your gun from rusting after a cleaing.  I still can't get but two shots out of my rifle without having to resort to using a hammer usually, so I religiously swab every shot at the range.

 If you swab between shots, don't go all the way down and try to pull the ramrod out again. Whenever you hit a sticky spot work the patch back and forth carefully, a little deeper when you don't feel it stick any more. I have had patches jammed so tight in my bore I pulled the end off my ramrod until I learned that trick.

[jeager106]

Enlighten you I shall! :grin:
Now why in the world would you NOT swab between shots and completely avoid all the stuck things?
Use ordinary rubbing alcohol, moisten a patch, run downbore a couple times, then run a dry patch.
Sure it takes a little longer to shoot, BU"T you will NEVER stick a ball, patch, ramrod again.
It's worth it.
Never, ever, shoot a black powder arm with oil in the barrel. Turns to tar don'cha'know.
If you oil to preserve your bore between shooting sessions its back to rubing alcohol patches and a dry one 'er two to clean the bore of oil.
Look, this isn't and NEVER WILL BE a rapid fire sport.
I've been at this black powder game a little while myself...THIRTY plus years. I buy black by the case, primers by the thousand, flints by the dozen and since I started swabbing between shot I have NEVER, NOT ONCE stuck anything I didn't want stuck.
I'd tell you how to make M.A.P. to clean your bore with just 4 patches but most guys here would upchuck thier dinner and call me a heretic.
Not that I care, but I'd hate to see anyone blow an atery. :grin:  :grin:

[Glanceblamm]

N..B..C..
This sounds just like me in Mar of 1981.
The dealer gave me a thinner patch & some lube but that .50 T/C was still awful tight. So tight in fact, that I bought a mold for that big 370gr Maxi-ball. Worked much better.  Shot them up through Nov of that year & even took a deer.

Spring 1982 came around and a muzzeloading club started just 30miles down the road. Sounded great but no Maxi-balls allowed. :eek:

Those guys were great though. Gave me some Moose Milk and I couldn't believe the difference!. Also taught me how to clean the thing right with the hot soapy water as mentioned above.
Didn't take too long (around 400 shots) and I was shooting spit patches supplemented with a little moose milk now & again.

You can find some Moose Milk recipies in this forum but the T/C #13 blackpowder solvent will work just fine if you are in a hurry.
I see alot of good advice ahead of me here. I would prioritize the Clean Rifle and Ball/Patch fit as being the most important. I assume that you are shooting store bought balls of the right diameter? If someone made some for you or you cast some yourself, a hard lead like wheel weights would be Bad News.

[Nuttinbutchunks]

The only recipe I can find for moose milk has wiskey in it (doh!). That can't be right is it?

[clodbuster]

NBC Do not use any petroleum product in your bore--ever, if you want to avoid trouble.  Use Wonderlube or bore butter or homemade, beeswax and lard.  Clean with hot soapy water and rinse with hot water then borebutter.  Lubing patches--surefire topic to start warfare.  Moosemilk, borebutter, spit  whatever just dont over use it.  No slathering--use the littlest amount to just barely coat the patch lightly.  After I lube patches I put a dry one in between the lubed ones and put the stack in a clamp and apply pressure and oila! twice the lubed patches for the half the price and they still have plenty of lube.  No petroleum on the patches.  MooseMilk is basically emulsifiable oil (petroleum) and water in 1 to 8 ratio, with a million tweeks and secret additives.  I guess there are emulsion vegetable oils but hard to find.    Find your shot patch and see if it is intact or cut and burned.  When your gun is broken in and you have the right patch material, lube combo and ball size, you can often reuse a shot patch.  Be sure to wipe the bore dry with denatured alcohol before you start a shooting session and clean well after every time.....

[quickdtoo]

Moosemilk will work just fine, many including myself have used it for patch lube and cleaning for years, just read up a little on it.
http://www.graybeardoutdoors.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=36848&highlight=moosemilk

[Nuttinbutchunks]

Perhaps I should mention the stuck patch and ball used Crisco oil as the lube.

AND, how long will black powder keep. I've heard it has a shelf life of six months.

[quickdtoo]

I got a good buy on the better part of a 25lb bulk bag of Goex that was at least 20yrs old, I've shot most of it up now and it worked just as good as stuff I've bought that was new. As long as it's kept dry, it should last pretty much forever.

[Longcruise]

AND, how long will black powder keep. I've heard it has a shelf life of six months

If the container is sealed tight it will have a shelf life of many years.  45-70 govt ammo over 100 years old seems to fire reliably.  The fur traders often left powder cache's buried for many months.  sometimes they were uncovered and found to be wet.  They dried it out and shot it. :shock:

Perhaps I should mention the stuck patch and ball used Crisco oil as the lube.

Usually when you see references to Crisco as a lube they are refereing to Crisco shortening.  Probably no reson why crisco veg oil wouldn't work too.

No matter what lube you use and regardless of it's magic properties, each shot with bp will leave fouling behind and if your load is a tight fit you may have trouble loading without wiping after the shot.

I think lube is rated as much more important than it is compared to other elements of the load.  If you read enough posts here and talk to enough RB shooters you will eventually discover someone who is getting great results with all of them!  IMO, the fit of the ball and patch and the durability of the patch is way more important.  A poor quality patch or even a good quality patch that does not fit tight enough can be blown with any choice of lube.  OTOH, you could probably take a good combination of patch and ball and pee on the patch and get great results :eek:

A couple months ago I was experimenting with some new patch material.  I picked up a yard each of two different rolls of pillow ticking at Wal mart.  One was red striped and one was blue.  Luckily they were different colors and they could be told apart because while they seemed nearly identical and both loaded with similar ease/difficulty (take your choice), the red patches blew every shot and the blue were 100% survivors :?

I once tried shooting a good patch ball combo with no lube at all and it worked fine.  The recovered patches were in good condition.  OTOH, I've had some good combos blow the patch when powder charges were increased into the max range.

Once I shot next to a guy in a match who was using TC1000+ for lube and his shots were all over the target.  His charges were reasonable but I noticed that his combo was very easy to load.  During a target change I checked some of his fired patches and found they were all blown.  I mentioned it to him and he remarked that he knew but given his age (very old) and physical condition (shaky) he had to stick with the easy to load combo.  Well, at least it kept him in the game and he was enjoying the match as much as the guy who took first so, to each his own :grin:

And, finally, here is one of my all time great blunders.  I was at the range shooting a tried and true combo and my shots were going everywhere except where aimed.  I couldn't figure it out.  Every patch was blown out. :shock:   The only thing that was different was my short starter.  Finally figured out that the diameter of the stubby starter part of the short starter was very near bore diameter.  It was actually hard to pull it out after starting the ball.  Looked carefully as I hit the starter and saw that the patch material was being bound tight against the bore and the starting rap was actually pushing the bottom of the ball through the patch.  Heck, the patch was blown before the hammer fell :-D

[Winter Hawk]

A shelf life of six MONTHS?  I am in trouble!  I have some Goex I bought in 1992 and am still shooting.  Actually, black powder will last indefinitely, unlike smokeless and BP substitutes.

Now a little trick I read about many years ago.  Go down to the hardware store and get some of the "green scrubbies" which are used for finish sanding.  Also get a bore mop of .45 caliber or so.  Cut a green scrubby so it will wrap around the bore mop (which you have on a cleaning rod, of course).  Spray it well with WD-40 and run it down the barrel and back.  You will want to clamp the barrel in a vice with some leather or wood to protect it.  You want a very tight fit of the green scrubby and mop in the barrel.  Okay, now start stroking in and out, full length of the barrel.  When it gets easy, replace the scrubby.  Give it at least 100 in and out strokes.  You are polishing the inside of the barrel here, and this is a one-time event.

Okay, now clean it well as suggested before.  Hot soapy water in a bucket.  I use dish detergent.  You want to get all the WD-40 and other hydrocarbons out of there.  Follow this with hot clean water to rinse the soap out.  Let it drain and swab the barrel with dry patches.  FROM NOW ON, USE ONLY NATURAL LUBRICANTS!  Lube the bore with Bore Butter or similar.  I use olive oil.  Then use the same lube on your patches for you round balls.  The rifle will load a lot easier and foul less.

At the range, run a patch down the bore between shots.  Some folks advocate a lubed patch, I use a dry one.  When I'm hunting I don't find this necessary.  When I was up North and going after bunnies I would go all day without swabbing between shots, but then again, I would go all day and only shoot 10 times.  But on trailwalks I never found it necessary either.  Hmmm, I never thought about this before...

Not to scare you off, but you are going to want to try different powder, patch and ball combinations also.  It's part of the fun of shooting the Holy Black.  You can generally get precast ball in .490 and .495 diameter, and patches in various thicknesses.  Start with say a .010 patch and .490 ball, then vary the powder charge to find the what gives you the best group.  Shoot five shot groups at each powder charge.  Then go to a different patch and do it again.  Then do this all over with the .495 ball.  Write the combination of ball, patch and powder on each target you shoot.  Compare the groups to see which combo gives you the tightest group.  A good rule of thumb is to use a powder charge 1 1/2 times the caliber of your rifle to start, then go up and down from there.  Above all, have fun!

Let us know how you progress.

-Winter Hawk-

[Nuttinbutchunks]

Start with 1.5 times the caliber? That would be 150 grains? The only time I shot the rifle I used 100 grains. Maybe that was my problem, not enough powder Just kidding. Olive oil, hugh. I can do that. I also like the moose milk. I will try that. I wonder if JB bore polish would be beneficial. Man, you guys know your stuff. But there are many different techniques. I guess I should try some of them and see what works for me. Now I do feel enlightened. I'll continue to check this thread and see what other ideas you all come up with.

[quickdtoo]

1.5 x50= 75grs :wink:

[Longcruise]

I wonder if JB bore polish would be beneficial

It is, especially with rifles like the Traditions where the bore is pretty rough.  100 long even strookes of JB is a s good as 500 or 600 shots fired.

I've done a lot of them by shooting conicals that have been rolled in bore lapping compound.  Shoot em with 20 or 25 grains of bp and wipe thouroughly after every shot.  It will take about 15 or 20 shots.  Some guys use JB to firelap but I've never tried it.  I have used LBT compound (can buy it here on Graybeards in the LBT forum, they are a sponsor) and alos the Wheeler kit which is sold by Midway.  The Wheeleer kit gives you three different grades of compound to work through.  the most course grit is all you need for this project.

The advantage of lapping your bore is that you don't have to contend with the ever changing shooting chrachteristics of your barrel as you work your way through five or six hundred shots :grin: