How could Mt. Men survive with wooden ramrods?

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I use a wooden ramrod for hunting and field use.  But I use a rangerod with a muzzle guard for cleaning and range shooting.

I've never hear reference of Mt. Men or Longhunters carrying an extra metal rod.

How did they pull bullets?  I just can't imagine being out there with a soaked powder charge and only a wooden rod to pull a patched ball.

Were there other tricks?

I suppose if I were in a situation like that I'd fashion a near-bore-diameter rod on-the-spot.  But I don't know of any good way of attaching a bullet screw to the rod that would handle the pulling.

[Birddog6]

IMHO there were two ways.  One is they let it sit in the dry til the powder dried & then shot it out. The other is some of the tips on the rods had ball puller screw in the tip with a cover over it &  they would remove such cover & pull the ball. Also the ball/patch combo was not as tight as we do them today, so loading was easier & the ball & patch was started with your thumb & then the ramrod, no short starter was used.

[johnt]

Birddog 6 gotter right there,on both counts.Ya think them fellers hung their gun over the fireplace mantle cause it looked good?Or teepee several over a low fire cause it was the only way ta stack'm?
Actually primitve pullers look like a heavy,tapered spring.A stick(aka.woodrod) could be threaded in to one end and pushed into the ball.
Them fellers either had one,was with someone that had one,or ate alot of root's an berries til they found one.Them folks was quite handy at gitten by,If ya look around ya ,we might even find some ancestors of the early pioneer right here amoungst us.

[Loozinit]

Hey there, Black Jack.  
One answer to your question is: they often didn't survive.  If a wood rod broke on the trail or up in beaver country, those boys were in real trouble if they couldn't find a ready substitute near at hand.  Ramrods and their inherant weaknesses were a subject of some concern for the rifle maker.  Some would soak them in coal oil for up to a month, thus making them very tough and flexible.  Some could be bent nearly double this way.  I haven't tried it but I hear that kerosene can be used as a sub for coal oil.

The problem of wood not holding threads was a difficult one as it still is.  I speculate that the wood they used in the old days was old growth and therefore somewhat better in terms of tight grain and such.  But, pulling a ball was still a problem.  There are very few examples of military arms having wood rods.  I wonder how many surviving plains rifles have their original rods or tips...?  I have repaired some rods with cross pins rather than threads.

[fredj]

i think looznit has the idea Military muskets and rifles of the day had
metal ramrods and commercial rifles were built with considerable care
and expertise, those rifles sometimes cost several months pay,
that was the pre-corpobeancounter era. I believe they selected the wood
for both the ramrod and stock with great care and knew all kinds of (pretty much now long forgotten) tricks and techniques to do things right I'd imagine any builder worth his salt would take one look at a piece of hickory and know if the density and grain structure were suitable and they also pinned the ends. The Brits who made fine shotguns and rifles went to extraordinarly lengths to select just the right wood then quarter saw the planks and air dry them for 30 years or more, thier idea of proper walnut had more to do with uniformity and strength than fancy figure although the really high grade stuff had both, but when you look at the very delicate almost petitie dimensions of the wrists of those Rigby's and such think about the hefty  loads and 500 + gr. bullets they routinely shot and realize there are no previous repaired breaks evident  they obviously knew their grain structure. I'm also reasonably certain the trappers and men who relied on their rifles for daily survival and sustenace routinely carried
a length of stout cord or hide to tie aound the ram rod and the nearest branch to get the needed purchase to get a stuck ball out, I also think they likely carried spares of critical spares in their possibles bags needed to effect critical repairs including making a replacement ram rod. I keep a length of nylon shot cord in my gear for pulling stuck balls as I've had a few that defy my best efforts with a stainless range rod, I've also filled the flash channel with dry FFFFg and then shot out recalcitrant balls.
Regards fredj

[Loozinit]

I've been out in the shop throwing boxes around, trying to find a book that described how the old guys would soak those rods in the coal oil.  I think it also said something about fire-hardening the tip area before attaching the jag.  Yes, the wood was everything to riflemakers.  I wonder what some of the present-day custom guys could tell us about the ramrods?

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I'm sure the quality of the wood had something to do with it.  I've had an oak ramrod that took a beating but never showed signs of weakening.  However, I never attempted to pull a stuck ball with it.

I've heard of, and done the oil soaking trick.  I believe that gives the wood pliability, but I doubt it does anything for tensile strength employed while pulling a ball.

The reason I specified remedies for a wet charge is because I know from experience that a dry-ball does not need to be pulled.  Simply forcing some powder through the touch hole works fine.

I've even employed this trick with a slightly damp charge.  But I've never had the misfortune of going completely in the drink as frequently occured during the many river crossings encountered in fronteer life.  

I also doubt that they could afford to wait until the charge dried out.  Especially since that could take days even weeks.

There MUST be some trick that we don't know.  

Were they more inclined to remove the breach plug?  I might consider that route given the circumstances.  For whatever reason contemporary advice is to never do that (unless you have a modern in-line, which by virtue of their superior design, never get wet charges or even dry-balls).

[HWooldridge]

I spent some time blacksmithing in a previous life.  One gentleman I knew kept his hammer handles in linseed oil for a month before installing on a head.  He would also drill a small hole down the center about 3/4 the way to the head, fill with linseed and plug with a dowel.  He claimed this treatment made the handle more pliable and I never saw him break one.  You couldn't drill a ramrod but surely could soak it for a while.  My 54 Uberti Hawken replica has a cross drilled and pinned brass tip that a jag can be screwed into - I don't know if this is historically accurate.  If all else fails, I suspect a mountain man would have worked some fresh powder into a touch-hole or cap bolster if he needed to push out a ball.

[P-J]

Does anyone know if ramrod fittings were cross-pinned in those days? If so, I don't see the problem. It's pretty hard to pull off a pinned fitting, and the rod itself wouldn't break in tension. Especially if the ball wasn't patched tight, it should pull easily.

Someone mentioned threaded fittings. Was that really the way it was done? That's surprising, if so. Threads were not easy to make in those days, and interior threads? It would have been easier to use pins.

[bubba]

How did the mountain man survive. How did w esurvive 25 years ago. I have the same wooden ramrod in my T/C hawken that came witrh it back then. I use it for a bench rod a hunting rod and even a cleaning rod. Aint technology great lol

[Bob/FLA]

Hi guys, thought I'd chime in.  Pulling loads was not as big a deal as "we" make it to be.  Early breech plugs were very loose and could at times be twisted out by hand!  So if your powder got wet, it was a matter of pull, clean, dry and reload if necessary. The other method was to simply shoot the ball clear before it got too wet, recover the ball for later use and reload.  As stated above, run some dry powder in to the touch hole and fire if necessary.  Both these methods were documented.  

Please remember too that your piece was loaded/cleared/reloaded as necessary to ensure proper ignition.  

Hope this helps.