Question on ramrod mechanics for the Traditions Kentucky Rifle

Hey all. I am somewhat new to the muzzle loading world and haven't fully learned the anatomy of my rifle. I own the Traditions Kentucky Flintlock Rifle, with a brass ramrod that I had replaced the wooden one with. Anyways, one day I was cleaning my rifle, and decided it would be fun to unscrew some things, and see if I could disassemble it. After I decided it would be more trouble than it's worth, I returned the rifle to it's original configuration. I found that the ramrod was much looser than it was before, sliding out after any sort of downwards slope I held the rifle in. No matter, I'll just hold the ramrod in place with my left hand when shooting. But after one shot, the ramrod now sticks out about an inch more than it did before. I fiddled with the gun some more, to see if there are any obstructions in the under-barrel ramrod hold, but no luck. Traditions offers little information on the topic. Any information is appreciated, apologies I'm an idiot.

Take out the lock screws and see if one has a reduced diameter in the middle or a notch ground in it. If so that is the front lock screw. If it has a notch the screw has to be oriented so that the notch is down for ramrod clearance.

Depending on how much wood was removed inletting the lock and where the ramrod hole ends it may be possible the mainspring is in the way of the rammer. This could happen in this case if the lock screws were too tight pulling the lock in deeper.

Did you pull the lock screws? If so, you caused the ramrod retaining spring to fall out of place. You will likely need to pull the barrel so you can reposition the spring.

If you removed the front lock bolt you lost the spring that holds tension on the ramrod. You have to remove the barrel to get it back in place. On the rifle that I had I just left it out and glued a small thin square of leather in the ramrod channel near the ram rod entry pipe. Holds it tight and you don't have to deal with that aggravating spring everytime you pull your lock out

My advice is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unless of course you did anyway as in this case, and now it is broke, so you have to fix it.

I have I rifle that has a little loose rod, and can slip forward. I don’t have a retraining spring, I never used them. Some guns have them I don’t about Traditions. Howsomever the fix was easy. I glued a thin strip of leather in the ramrod grove. It’s workable and invisible.

I have a Traditions Shenandoah which is a short version similar to the Kentucky. JB67 is likely correct on the spring having fallen out of place. He is also correct in probably pulling the barrel to get it back in place. I had to do that on a couple of Traditions rifles. Once I got it back in place on the front lock screw I make it a practice to tape the screw in place with masking tape after loosening it. Do not pull the screw out unless you absolutely must unless you want to go on a spring fishing expedition again.

I just looked up scematics online for the Traditions Kentucky ( it has the two piece stock) and it doesn’t have the retaining spring. If you have the Tennessee, it has the one piece stock and does have the spring. Which do you have?

Yes, there's a flat spring in the barrel channel of many of these rifles that keeps the rod in place. If you can find it, fine. If not a piece of leather glued in the channel should work. I've done this in the past.

JB67 said:

Did you pull the lock screws? If so, you caused the ramrod retaining spring to fall out of place. You will likely need to pull the barrel so you can reposition the spring.

Click to expand...

This is exactly right. I have a Traditions Pennsylvania Longrifle (was my first longrifle) and had to remove the barrel a couple of times because that stupid design. Rather than make a tight fitting channel, they put a small shallow-v shaped spring in there with a loop around one end. That loop goes around the forward lock screw and if you pull out that screw, it will fall down into the channel. You have to unpin the barrel and remove the barrel to get that stupid thing re-set. I do have to admit though that the little manual that came with it DID warn me about not removing that screw, telling me that was exactly what would happen if I did.

A couple of things:


So, that's a lousy design that Traditions used instead of drilling one more hole and pinning that spring in place. I can understand that they don't want to hand fit the ramrod to a tapered channel but using the lock screw to hold that ramrod spring in place in just stupid. If you don't have a drill press or the skills to use it, have someone who does drill and pin that for you. Even if they charge you $25 to $30 it's money well spent.

Here's a shot of where mine is pinned right in front of the lock: