Excellent Hickory Rods Located

Hey all!

If you're like me, you might have found locating straigh-grained hickory rods, with no run out, hard to find. Some resort to making their own from scratch, splitting and scraping them down. I've bought supposedly straight grained hickory rods from Track of the Wolf, and wouldn't you know they were loaded with run outs.

Well I decided to get some from October Country. In a word, they are superb with ZERO run out, straight grained hickory all the way!



I sanded mine down to remove the whiskers, trimmed it to length with a little hand saw and jig combo, and finished with Laurel Mountain nut brown stain. I also plan to wipe down with some beeswax once I get some.

Just pointing this out for those that'd like to get some quality hickory rods for their guns. I broke the end section after cutting on purpose and let me tell you, it is STRONG stuff. It did not snap but instead cracked and splintered along the length of the rod, and did not break in two. I snapped the original ramrod on my Lyman GPR and it literally snapped along the run out like a balsa wood twig. Junk.

They also make a neat button style jag with some knurling on it to make it easy to remove when needed. I've had jags get stuck on my ramrods before, no fun when you're out in the field and need to switch tips for whatever reason. This eliminates that.



I have no affiliation with October Country but have made several purchases with them and they make awesome stuff. The solid brass range rod and powder horn in this photo are from them and they are both top quality items. Good people!
http://www.octobercountry.com/hickory-ramrod/

Take care gang and have a happy holidays! Burn some smoke for Santa!! :hatsoff:

Smokey

When John and Linda Shorb had it they ran a wonderful business...even making 4 and 2 bore wompum-stompem muzzleloaders. There was even a double barrel 8 bore for African safari. Great folks and inventive ideas. Glad to see the new owners are still keeping up the good work!

Smokey, great intel and thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing.
Always pleased to hear about good products that other's have found. :hatsoff:

Your welcome all! You guys share so many things and knowledge with me, any chance I can (which isn't often, I'm new at this stuff) to share a good experience is worth it. Merry Christmas!!

Smokey,
Oh, by the way, I just noticed your age, we, the black powder shooting fraternity need more of you. Sign'em up.
What you are doing is keeping our passion and past time alive by forwarding great information. Also you are helping these suppliers keep going.
Sadly, we the shooters are also diminishing in numbers, and our purchasing powers are also diminishing.
The BP shooting craze of the 80's is dwindling and many of our suppliers are calling it quits.
Places like October Country are rare and hard to find.
Thank you for the information
Fred

I have been meaning to get some but been procrastinating. I only have one hickory rod for my many MLs and it came with an old original rifle.

Good deal. Thanks for posting that. And, BTW, save yer cut-offs to make short starters.

Good to know. Thank you.

I remember when I was little it seemed like all kinds of places carried goex some of my earlier memories have that red can in them now I don't know I haven't seen a can of goex in 5 years...

Thank you! I really enjoy this hobby. I do feel as if I am helping, in my own very small way, to keep the traditions of our ancestors going. It is very fun too!

Did you remember to cross pin the jag fer-rel on the new Hickory rod? If so than do yourself a big favor and make it happen.

It is pinned and sanded flush. Forgot to mention that!

Atta Boy! :wink:

Track of the Wolf also offers them: https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Search.aspx?search=hickory ramrod

Read the beginning of the post.

Thanks, Mooman! (I read that the other day, but managed to overlook it today...and I can't delete the post!)

October Country is my go to for custom solid brass ram rods..Made to order.
drilled and taped ends.
one end Tapered if requested.
Good stuff.

Excellent write-up... thanks! I have a new Lyman GPR now and while I haven't snapped my ramrod yet, it is pretty soft wood. It's already scraped up just from a few trips to the range when I was siting it in, and the stain seems to be fading already too. I purchased a replacement rod from Track of the Wolf made from some sort of bendy plastic material. That one probably won't break any time soon, but it just has that plastic look and feel so I really don't like it. I should have done more homework and bought one of these, as you have done!

Do you recall what length and diameter rod fit in your GPR?

Dont toss the plastic rod. Use it and abuse it rather than a hand picked hickory rod when you come home to clean the gun.
Clean it with plastic, shoot the gun with the good wood rod. :thumbsup: My 2 cents.
Nobody can see what you are using in that bucket of water.