Issues... and I'm upset !!!

zimmerstutzen said:

….. Put a new factory nipple on the gun. Clean the gun, with alcohol before shooting if necessary to get oil out of the flash channel. Snap two or three caps before loading. Use real black powder. After pouring in the powder, use your palm and smack the gun sharply two or three times on the side opposite the lock to settle powder into the flash channel. Then load the projectile and seat it just until you feel the powder crunch. Throw the fake powder away. Make sure your clean out screw is not so long that it blocks the under side of the nipple. …, Make sure you are not over torquing the lock into the mortise and causing internal friction to slow the hammer fall or that the hammer is rubbing on the stock to slow the hammer. Lastly, did anyone ever remove the drum on your gun? If so, the likelihood that they got it lined up correctly is pretty slim. If it is not exactly in line with the hammer face, the hammer will not hit the nipple squarely and it may take more than one strike to get ignition.

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^^^^Another Vote for The Above ^^^^^^

LD

When loading powder tilt the rifle hammer side down. After the powder is loaded give the stock a couple slaps with the hand. This allows powder to enter flame channel.

Remove the nipple and clear the flame channel with a bristled pipe cleaner.

He hasn't mention anything about cleaning the olive oil out of the barrel before loading.
Any oil in a Traditions breech will create a carbon wall blocking the flame channel when the gun is fired.

fleener said:

I dont think anyone has mentioned a fouling scrapper?

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/842/1

Get one for your rifle, put it on a good range rod and I bet you will scrap some crud of the bottom of your barrel that is causing you to have these issues.

I also vote for a new nipple and real BP.

Fleener

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YUP! You got it!

springfield art said:

YUP! You got it!

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It is a traditions. A fouling scraper will only reach the internal face of the drum. It won't go beyond that. The drums go all the way across the breech. The drum is then drilled with a hole that is under bore size. A scraper would have to be custom made to fit into that hole. (Funnel shaped)

CVA and Traditions guns were not designed with Pyrodex in mind (nor were they designed for scrapers). They were designed for use with real black powder. The nipples and patent breech design especially. The breech passage is small with 90 degree turns and a small hole.
The factory nipples are usually long with a narrow cavity and a tiny flash hole. some of the smallest in the industry. As a nipple gets older and succumbs to eventual corrosion, those diameters can become even smaller.

The upper picture is a CVA breech plug and bolster removed.

Im confused.. what rifle did you trade for? You had a traditions for 10 years and traded a pistol??? Now you have something with nice wood?

Briengolis said:

Any help here is greatly appreciated. I've had a traditions percussion woodsman for 10 plus years that I traded for. Got rid of a pistol I didn't like and picked up a great looking, nicely made piece of history (sort of). It turned out not to be very reliable at the time, put it away for several years, and took it back out recently for a little bit of deperation cow elk hunting.

I recently recalled why I had closeted it... #11 caps are very loose, #10 are too tight. I can almost always guarantee a hang fire, or failure to ignite. After usually 2 (if Im lucky to get that far) shots the gun simply will no longer fire and I end up pulling the projectile and working the propellant out.

Im very anal about cleaning, poking the nipple clean after each shot and even disassembling the ignition chamber after the nipple (I don't know the name of this part) and adding powder there to try and get an ignition. Im literally at a loss as to what to do to get this rifle to work properly.

Primers are fresh CCI's and Im using fresh pyrodex RS. I keep every thing in the garage (insulated but not heated) and dry. I live in northern Idaho.

I kid you not when I say I'm about ready to wrap this gorgeous rifle around a tree just sighting it in, let alone feel comfortable dragging it out into the woods with me after elk.

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This wreaks of a bad percussion nipple. I did some research on the 1861 Bridesberg I have and the nipple that was in it was just wrong for musket caps. When I found the right nipple I bought three. So far I haven't had a problem fitting a cap or getting solid ignition. Sometimes you don't know something's wrong till you have the right parts! Also, I initially thought the new nipple was wrong also as the bolster side of the nipple had a much much smaller hole then the nipple that was in there originally. Turns out, bigger is NOT always better! The bigger inlet and smaller outlet produce a concentrated jet of fire directly into the bolster. Shot 25 shots through it without a hiccup.

You have received some very good advice, from some very knowledgeable people. When I had a similar problem, a simple nipple replacement solved it in short order.

Carbon 6 said:

# 4 Storing powder in or caps or even guns in an unheated garage is bad in northern climates. You are prone to condensation even if you can't see it. You will also run into this problem in a basement for the first 3 or 4 feet off the floor.

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29 more messages and I just got in from hunting. Don't have time to read them all.
You are NOT prone to condensation if the gun was hunted cold, stored cold, and hunted cold again. Remember the "3 C's". from junior high. Cooling causes condensation. Period. Take a cold gun, store it cold and......wheres the problem? I hunt in camps and store the guns OUTSIDE overnite to stay cold.You only get problems if the room is cold at night and warm by day. Or vise versa. My hunting guns, loaded, spend the night in an unheated attic at home, then go back out the next day. They still go booom after 2 weeks.
And the humidity level of 3 or 4 feet above the floor differs to a packed load....from 5 feet up.....or 6..... A loaded charge patched for gas tightness after ignition is now subject to humidity creep.. ..No. I'm going to supper.

Carbon 6 said:

CVA and Traditions guns were not designed with Pyrodex in mind (nor were they designed for scrapers). They were designed for use with real black powder.

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Funny, my Traditions instruction booklet says black powder or Pyrodex.

What are you using for patch lube? Too wet patches can foul a breech up pretty fast.

JB67 said:

Funny, my Traditions instruction booklet says black powder or Pyrodex.

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I knew the word "designed" would be misinterpreted. I wondered who would squawk first. Think about it, it will come to you.

Carbon 6 said:

I knew the word "designed" would be misinterpreted. I wondered who would squawk first. Think about it, it will come to you.

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Gotta be Clyde, just gotta be.

Traditions and cva shoot just fine with pyrodex. The factory nipples supplied with sidelocks often leaves a lot to be desired though. A knight redhot nipple is a huge performance upgrade, especially when it comes to shooting black powder subs.

So whats the original poster even shooting? He said hes now shooting something with some good wood?

So, just to clarify.

1) the pistol... I had a smith and wesson sigma which I hated with a passion. In 2008 (?) I took the pistol with me to the Potlatch ID gun show held in the elementary school gym (eat it up haters). I traded a man the sigma for his traditions woodsman. I shot the woodsman for a season (never reliably), put it away for about 10 years and recently took the rifle back out of the closet

2) choice of oils/lubes. I've used CLP oil in the past and switched to olive oil on a recomendation from someone. I use very little, only apply when the barrel is hot from my cleaning process, and wipe with a dry patch (just like seasoning a cast iron pot) after application.

3)Thing I havent been doing... preloading cap ignition. I will start doing this just to make sure all the excess oil is burned off as I havent been doing this. However, of any of my overall shots, the first is usually the easiest to ignite and I dont believe excess oil is the true only culprit to my problems.

4) Questions. What is the easiest black powder you guys have found to ignite in an application like this? Musket caps vs #11 magnum caps, pros and cons? Flame channel, should this be packed full of powder, some powder but still loose, what should this condition look like if I was to open this up and look at it while the gun is loaded?

Thanks!
Brien

Try removing the "clean out" screw at the end of the bolster and look to make sure the flash channel is clear into the powder area. I have heard that there are sometimes some burrs left from the factory drilling that block that area. No flash to powder=no fire. I know - it is not a clean out.

3f real black powder is probably your best bet for ignition. I doubt if there is any difference in "easiest to ignite" between brands.

If you have a little bit of oil in the breech, the first will go off but the fouling will build up very quickly so by the second or third shot a lot of fouling is captured in the breech.

"Seasoning" in a muzzle loading firearm is simply a build up of fouling and oil. A muzzle loading rifle's bore is nothing like the surface of a cast iron frying pan and a rifle barrel gains nothing from a practice of "seasoning" the bore. Eventually the "seasoning" fills the grooves, accuracy is gone and the barrel is considered to be shot out.

Always use a patch dampened with a cleaning solution to wipe the bore between shots. A dry patch can push the fouling to the breech and won't soften fouling so that when the patch is pulled the patch and fouling wedge up in the bore and the patch can't be pulled out easily.

Your hammer needs to fit easily over the musket cap. Most hammers have a recess that is too small to clear a musket cap. Magnum caps are better.

Olive oil collected by storing muzzle up will cause the problems you describe. Add a fat to stiffen the oil to a paste/ grease so it resist migration.
Store muzzle down.
Popping caps before loading will not burn anything off!