dry ball again

At range shooting up a storm my 54s. Was shooting renegade or at least we thought that dream shooter i bought at the gun show was that t/c model. You guessed it dry balled a ball and patch. Removed nipple got a little powder down her. Ball well seated. No luck on several tries cap ignited but no ignition to powder to blow ball out. With my max ear muff protection and centerfires at other stations i thought one of the attempts felt different. But this was sorta in retrospect after a few more attempts of powder and caps. It was when i checked to make sure ball was well seated that i noticed muzzle was at my mark on ramrod that showed barrel empty! Took her out to parking lot where i could take off ear protection and inserted rod to bottom where i get that tiny tinny tap tap sound that tells gun is empty. I told myself to be a real bear hunting man like danny boone and load her up but another voice told me not to blow my head off. Now i dont know what to do.

Not sure what to do? Whaddya mean!? Sounds like you're good to go, no? Just nervous!?

Ya, what Alden said. Is it unloaded or not? Ramrod should tell ya?

You just need to focus is all.
These things are still firearms and need care and attention.
Each time repeat the mantra
"Powder, Patch, Ball"--"Powder, Patch, Ball"
Just don't talk to any one or think of what's next until the first thing is done.

There are three kinds of ML shooters;
Those that have dry balled'
Those that will dry ball
And those that lie!

But empty mark on ramrod is with permanent marker and marked with pen with pen resting on muzzle so mark isnt exactly flush with end of muzzle. Just a bit above muzzle. Thinking that a ball and patch alone wouldnt be enough to be significant so could ball still be down there?

Dump some soapy water down the muzzle, wrap a patch around a jag and push it down the barrel, if the water squirts out the nipple proceed with cleaning it, if not get out the ball puller.

will5a1 said:

Dump some soapy water down the muzzle, wrap a patch around a jag and push it down the barrel, if the water squirts out the nipple proceed with cleaning it, if not get out the ball puller.

Click to expand...

Nope. :nono: Don't do that...yet.
Go back to range. At firing line, put a cap on, point muzzle at a blade of grass and pop cap. If you get enough muzzle blast to move the grass you are good to go. Reload and shoot. If you don't. Get help. Really, a little 4Fg behind whatever is in there should shoot out. I have a device called a nipple primer. It puts a tiny bit of 4Fg into the nipple tube and helps pop out those tiny charges.

Youre so right! My mantra is powder, patch, ball, start, seat. If youre near you can hear me actually audibly saying these to myself and see my intensity in blocking out. Now this. The fear of loading on top of that ball and patch is a bit OCD but cant help it because i didnt hear or see it blow out. Just in hindsight thinking one attempt felt different but no real kick because it was just the little powder dropped through the nipple hole. First time i dryballed i was by myself in the boonies so heard felt and saw the ball bury itself in the levee.

A ball takes up a half inch,
Ball in,, rod goes "thump-thump"
No ball,, rod goes "Tang Tang"
Nipple out, you can blow air through the barrel
Ball stuck,, you can't blow air,,,

See there should have called me to go. Going to start calling you...Chief Go alone...never invites anyone to shoot with you.

Yep, if you shoot muzzleloading rifles long enough, you will experience all of these things......and possibly some that have not been mentioned yet. It is all part of the fun you can have with a muzzleloading rifle.

This the rule above all
First the powder, then the ball

It's scrimshawed on my powder horn.

Ok, I know you've all been sweating out my latest adventure into the melodrama of muzzleloading. Sure, ha, ha. I wouldn't have lasted two days in my gg grandpa's regiment. Got to post his photo with his rifle, a gun he no doubt never dry balled.

So, I appealed to my rational self, returned to range, and figured that that attempt that felt different had blown it out, my own ramrod mark showing the barrel EMPTY for heavens sake (knew I put that on all my rods for some reason!), that tap tap tinny noise I mentioned I heard and that was brought up in that bit of seriously fine poetry in this thread where it was described as tang tang, and the gun passing the blow grass test mentioned here (I picked some blades of grass and the caps pushed it seriously along several times), I loaded her up and, guess what, my head was still on my shoulders. I KNEW she was empty, but the doubt took over. I stayed at the range and fired her for two hours more.

And lethemgo, ironically enough, lives right across the river from me. If he'd been with me, he could have watched and seen the ball blow out. Yes, buddy, we got to go shooting together.

My gratitude, seriously, to those who help me on this forum.

Your experience is pretty common.

Someone dryballs and remembering some of the good advice from this forum decides to shoot it out.

They put a little powder under the nipple, replace the nipple, cap it. point the gun downrange and pull the trigger.

Not much happens. The cap fires but there is no recoil. Little if any smoke comes out of the muzzle and they figure nothing happened.

What they didn't notice is the patched ball went skipping downrange, often quite a distance.
If the muzzle wasn't aimed at the ground about 20 yards downrange but was pointed slightly upward they would never see the ball skip or raise a poof of dust.

That little 1-4 grain powder charge can fire the ball a good 50 yards.

Anyway, glad you got her up and running. Now, don't forget to clean it.

never done it.... :wink:

With a wooden rammer it's alot harder, no play on words intended, to tell by "pinging" sound if a gun is loaded or not... I "wood" not rely on it to see if it's loaded.

Love it. :grin:

After cleaning the barrel and before loading, cap the nipple and point the rifle downrange and fire. Repeat toward the ground and pass some gas at some blades of grass.
This will insure fire after you do the proper loading aka powder, patch and ball.

I remember doing the grass test once and blew quite a hole in the dirt out front of my position.
That's what happens when you get interrupted, talk while loading and don't do the down range test first.
Doubt I'll ever forget that embarrassing lesson again.
Felt a little better when a very experienced friend did the same thing with a double barrel shot gun after years of competing.
Not particularly dangerous but certainly surprising and very embarrassing. Mike D.

Rifleman, do you know where I could buy one of those nipple primers? I ordered myself a CO2 kit just in case, too. Gonna be prepared for any future "eventualities." In other words, my own idiocy!

I would discourage the use of a nipple primer. Packing powder in the nipple is most likely to create a fuse effect and resulting hang fires. Better ignition would be found with a high performance nipple such as a hot-shot or Spitfire.

By the way, ggdad probably dry balled his musket too. Just didn't tell anyone and still survived.