TRUE STORY
In the 1990's I worked at the LGS for extra money and discounts. The Soviet Union fell and Poland also stopped being Communist, and we started seeing all sorts of Russian speaking and Polish speaking immigrants. So one customer from one of the old Soviet Satellite states had immigrated, and he came into the shop one Thursday evening. He fell in love with a TC Hawken, bought it and all that he needed to try it out at the range. He was back Friday evening saying in very basic English that he'd broken the ramrod, so I sold him a delrin rod, and off he went. He was back the next afternoon, saying the delrin rod lasted longer but broke too.
So I asked him to walk me through how he was shooting. Sure enough, he was launching his ramrod seated on the TC Maxi-ball, each shot. He didn't believe that since the bullet would go down the barrel that it wouldn't slide back to the muzzle when he leveled the rifle after replacing the rod. I sold him another rod, and explained that he'd be fine, just ensuring the bullet was on the powder, and putting the ramrod back. (He claimed he'd read the manual that came with the rifle .....)
LD