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Correct ramrod fitting(s)?

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I like to get a rod bigger then my gun takes. Pull off a pipe and scrap the las two or three inches down to fit through the pipe. Mark as far as it goes with a pencil and then scrape another three or four inches, slide mark repeat. Leave the other end after you’ve done as long as your rod needs to be to the front pipe. Hold a piece of sand paper in your hand and sand a few swipes. Gives you a nice taper and a tulip head under your muzzle
 
A scraping plane (I have a Bowyer's Edge tool from the sadly departed Dean Torges) works well, too.

Use a dollar bill to set the thickness and take your time. I have a routine of marking a circumference line with pencil and taking 21 passes to go one full revolution of the dowel . . . then moving further along and repeating
 
Ok - go larger. It depends how large you want the end (this is the end I use to load, so limited by bore size) as the tapered part will be essentially the same since it needs to go through the thimbles & entry pipe. My rods start as 3/4 inch square blanks and I go from there.
The bore is .54, so I could order a 7/16" and a 1/2" rod and see how they work out. At $2.50 each, and my inexperience, perhaps two of each.
 
Here is a picture of a tow tip to a ramrod. The firearm is an Enfield ??? with the original tower lock, British proof marks on the barrel and the Crown embossed on the lock with the date 1862. I don't know much about rifles after 1840, so those are just the details I noted. The stock looks like it was two piece? Anyway, a friend had been given this by a cousin, and the family history was that the gggrandfather brought it back to Texas with him after the war. I checked the barrel and was a couple inches short of the breech plug. Pulling the 'load' showed it wasn't a load but the broken off jag. Think of a thin sheet metal cone with a cut-away taper down part of one side. At the bottom of the cone is a 5/8 inch long extension with a bulge at the end for a tie point. The tow used for cleaning is still attached in the photograph and a piece of the broken off ramrod is still inside the cone. I have not seen a cleaning jag like this before.
Gene's musket cropped.JPG
 
There's not much sense in getting an oversize rod. It has to fit in your rod pipes, after all. And the shaping of your nosecap will dictate how much flare you can or can't put on the tip of the rod (generally, NONE), so getting a larger rod won't do much good, you'll just end up scraping all that extra size right off. Now, you can taper down the lower end, of course, and I often do just a little, but there's generally no practical reason to do so.

On the rare occasion when one sees an original ramrod tip, they look like that shown by Jackley. Long and tapered down (often tapered down to clear a front lock bolt that cuts into the ramrod hole...). As much as I like a flared upper end for the ramrod, it seems that it is EXCEPTIONALLY rare to see any flare whatsoever on the end of an American rifle ramrod (the nosecaps will show you that they were not made for flared tip rods). As I recall, I have seen photos of one, and only one, American rifle with an apparently original rod that has an applied horn tip (with very little, if any, flare). I presume this was at least somewhat common, but the original gunsmith-made ramrod would almost certainly eventually be broken and replaced with a field-expedient hickory shoot.

A gun can be cleaned just fine without any tow worm or other implement. You can make up a wad of tow and tie a string or piece of heavy linen thread around the middle, and push it down the bore with your plain rod. Pull on the string, and you can easily withdraw it all from the bore. If you hold the string tight against the rod, you can manipulate everything as a single unit, just as if you had a jag or worm.

As far as dryballing... just don't do it! Seems simple to me.... :D That said, if you look at many old guns, you'll quickly find lots of them that very obviously have had their breechplugs roughly removed and replaced, apparently to get out an uncharged ball.
 
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There's not much sense in getting an oversize rod. It has to fit in your rod pipes, after all.
In order to make a tapered rod that fits the pipes, one needs to start with a rod blank that is somewhat over-sized and taper the rod so it fits the pipes. This won't leave all that much of a flare at the front end, but it will be somewhat bigger than the rest of the rod.
 
The bore is .54, so I could order a 7/16" and a 1/2" rod and see how they work out. At $2.50 each, and my inexperience, perhaps two of each.

When I'm fashioning a rod I get four. The best grain is the rammer. The next best I leave untapered and full length for a home cleaning rod. The other two I use as dowels for various projects. My flint rifle actually has a hickory split and is bendy but nice grain.
 
I have ordered six rods: 2 are 3/8" and with brass fittings, 2 are 7/16" with no fittings and 2 are 1/2" with no fittings. I will have 2 rods that I only need to shorten for use and I will have four rods that I can try my hand at shaping. We have another two months of winter, followed by 1 - 2 months of variably bad weather; St. Patrick's Day blizzard is the normal thing. Month of May cold/snows are not unusual and ice-out on the deeper lakes often does not occur until the second week of May. Lots of time left to fiddle/fuss with making rods.
 
I have ordered six rods: 2 are 3/8" and with brass fittings, 2 are 7/16" with no fittings and 2 are 1/2" with no fittings. I will have 2 rods that I only need to shorten for use and I will have four rods that I can try my hand at shaping. We have another two months of winter, followed by 1 - 2 months of variably bad weather; St. Patrick's Day blizzard is the normal thing. Month of May cold/snows are not unusual and ice-out on the deeper lakes often does not occur until the second week of May. Lots of time left to fiddle/fuss with making rods.
Baxter,
While you can scrape the rods, I find a small plane (available from any hardware store) makes the process go easier. Start at what will be the skinny end and remove some wood for a couple of inches. Then move up a few more inches and plane towards the small end again. Repeat until the smaller end goes through the thimbles and the other end remains the original diameter - your goal is a long, gentle taper. Fine-tune by scraping and sanding so the wood just clears the thimbles - you don't want a loose rod that falls out. You will need to be aware of grain direction.
 
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Thanks RonT. Your photo reminds me that I have an old Workmate tucked away in the garage. I ordered a small planer from Amazon, thought about a spokeshave too; maybe later, depending upon how well the planer works for me.
 
I ordered a small planer from Amazon, thought about a spokeshave too; maybe later, depending upon how well the planer works for me.
A spokeshave works well with curved/irregular surfaces, as they usually have a narrow sole, while a plane with its longer sole will minimize digging in and creating divots (e.g the difference between a Jack-plane and a Jointer-plane. The latter gives a "flatter" edge)
I have one of these: https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=iA8oCgcg&id=C67C5B4C147390015E50F0D8A0CD1713AA774F0C&thid=OIP.iA8oCgcgs1-l99rWKdFaPAAAAA&mediaurl=http://i5.walmartimages.com/dfw/dce07b8c-372b/k2-_439a035f-3019-44db-a1a0-65a733a61118.v1.jpg&exph=450&expw=450&q=stanley+finger+plane+small&simid=608004936289878635&selectedIndex=2&ajaxhist=0
 
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Black Hand that planer is the tool which I ordered this morning!

Folks may wonder why I "order" this and that rather going to my hardware store. I have peripheral neuropathy; feet quit knowing brake from accelerator and I had four minor driving accidents before pushing out the lakeside garage wall and that was my impetus to give up driving in Sept. '16. We live 17 miles from the nearest hardware store or Fleet Farm. My wife has her own health issues, so I don't ask her to drive for me.
My live-at-home adult daughter has Asperger syndrome and her "sociability" traits are often reflected in her level of empathy. She is an extremely intelligent person and nearly always willing to drive dad a couple or five hours to a medical appointment and performs most of the family's grocery shopping.
If I asked her to take me to the hardware store for this planer, that request would have such an extremely low level of perceived need that, with "prime membership", the thing will be delivered to our door somewhat/much sooner and without "discomfiting" her.
I walk (like a drunken sailor) without an aid in my home and get along fairly well, with a cane, in other locations. I have an "action tremor" in my left wrist/hand that innocently crushes sandwiches and would respond to a stimulator put surgically into my brain but I am elderly and neither a member of congress nor quite wealthy.
My apologies for the length of this.
 
Black Hand that planer is the tool which I ordered this morning!

Folks may wonder why I "order" this and that rather going to my hardware store. I have peripheral neuropathy; feet quit knowing brake from accelerator and I had four minor driving accidents before pushing out the lakeside garage wall and that was my impetus to give up driving in Sept. '16. We live 17 miles from the nearest hardware store or Fleet Farm. My wife has her own health issues, so I don't ask her to drive for me.
My live-at-home adult daughter has Asperger syndrome and her "sociability" traits are often reflected in her level of empathy. She is an extremely intelligent person and nearly always willing to drive dad a couple or five hours to a medical appointment and performs most of the family's grocery shopping.
If I asked her to take me to the hardware store for this planer, that request would have such an extremely low level of perceived need that, with "prime membership", the thing will be delivered to our door somewhat/much sooner and without "discomfiting" her.
I walk (like a drunken sailor) without an aid in my home and get along fairly well, with a cane, in other locations. I have an "action tremor" in my left wrist/hand that innocently crushes sandwiches and would respond to a stimulator put surgically into my brain but I am elderly and neither a member of congress nor quite wealthy.
My apologies for the length of this.
Baxter,
No need to explain. If I can avoid going to the store crammed full of people, I take that option too. Also, Amazon does tend to be less expensive that most brick & mortar stores. Please feel free to PM me if I can be of help.
BH
 
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