Howdy folks,
I am not new to muzzle loading, but have been shooting them off and on for about the last 45 years. I have been reading this forum for about 10 years and have thoroughly enjoyed the questions and comments/answers generated and have learned quite a bit from all of you that are much more knowledgeable than I. I don't generally feel like I can contribute much, so don't. I do like to work with my hands and built a Lyman .50 cal. percussion GPR from a kit about 45 years ago, along with many accoutrements for it. I have added other percussion rifles to the safe since then.
I remember seeing the Kadooty loading rod system advertised maybe 20 or 30 years ago. I did not order one because it seemed to me to be pretty expensive at that time, and I had better uses for that amount of money. The other 'feature' I did not like was the fact that you were pounding on the lead ball with a weight sliding along the rod. Surely, I thought, this had to flatten and deform the ball, so how accurate is that going to be? I always was very uncomfortable seeing anyone throw their loading rod down the barrel and bouncing it off the patched ball, not good!!! If you'd like, please feel free to copy and/or adapt any of my ideas to your own rod(s). My small chance maybe to give something back to you all!
It did start me thinking of some way to get more uniform seating pressure on a patched round ball, which to my way of thinking, could not be a bad thing. What I used to do was to set the rifle's butt plate on top of my foot, about midway between my toes and ankle and to continue to push down on the loading rod after the patched ball contacted the powder charge until I felt the bones in my foot give. That seemed to work well, but my foot got kinda sore after a while.
What I came up was a secondary 'knob' below the primary one to push on that compressed a spring pushing down on the rod harder once the patched ball was initially seated on the powder. Below is a pic of two of my rods that I outfitted with my compression assembly. Keep in mind that your finished rod may need to be from 4" to 6" longer than your barrel is, depending on how you go about it.
The upper loading rod is for the GPR, is sectional and is made of stainless steel. The stained wooden palm ball is semi-permanently attached to the end of the rod, and the other elements were made to just slide on and lock in place. I'll show it broken down below. The lower loading rod is for a Remington M700 .50 Cal. ML (in-lines are sacrilege, I know). The rod is made of aluminum and the tapered handle screws into the end of the rod. My brass compression assembly fits between the two pieces. The break down of this rod follows below too.
The components added to the rod were made to fit the diameter of the rod at hand, and consist of (from LH to RH, disregarding the muzzle protector) a thick brass collar with dual opposing set screws and step or lip (cut to fit inside of the coiled spring), a coiled compression spring of suitable diameter and tension, a brass flat washer and a wooden drawer pull knob (drilled through to fit rod). Simply slide all of the components up the rod so they touch one another and lock the collar in place so that there is little, if any, compression of the coiled spring. In use, one seats the patched ball on the powder pushing down on the round ball knob until you feel contact, then only the drawer pull knob is depressed just until the coiled spring is fully compressed, not harder. This imparts very close to the same pressure (as measured using a bathroom scale) on the patched ball each and every time.
This compression assembly is a little more complicated because you have to turn the entire unit that fits between the rod and the handle on a lathe and be able to do some basic drilling and taping too. The threaded ends of this rod and handle are male and female tapered where they join, so the ends of the compression assembly should also be tapered similarly to go together solidly. The break down of this assembly follows.
I started with a brass rod a little bigger in diameter than the aluminum rod, cut it to length, drilled and tapped both ends to 10-32, cut the male and female tappers, installed a short section of 10-32 threaded steel machine screw in the male tapered end and turned it down to rod diameter, leaving a slight step or lip at the male tapered end to support and stop a brass collar. The thick brass collar is made to slide over the brass rod and has a step or lip that fits inside the coiled spring. The coiled spring is selected based on diameter and tension. I think you'd want a fairly stiff spring, but not one so stiff as to be difficult to fully compress. Next a flat brass washer followed by a drilled-through wooden drawer pull knob. Last is a flat collar dilled to slip over the brass rod, with a set screw. Slip all components together as shown and slide the set screw collar on to just sit against the drawer pull knob with no coiled spring compression. Again, just seat the patched ball onto the powder pushing down on the rod using the tapered handle. Then push down on just the wooden drawer pull just until the coiled spring is fully compressed, no harder.
The idea here is strictly to compress the patched ball on top the powder with a uniform amount of pressure for each and every shot. This rod modification is probably not legal for competitions, but I believe that it helps enough to make it worthwhile using when one can.
Shoot straight and keep up the good work!
Clint Meier