BOY IS IT STUCK!

If you are going to give advice on this forum you need (first) to learn good English and sentence construction. Secondly, the use of the copper dissolving solvents that you describe must be used with caution. Ammonia dissolves copper. In the process it will etch barrel steel if left in the bore too long.
Brass bristle bore brushes stuck in the bore simply need a simple way to collapse the bristles and pull it out. In the case of a cheap factory barrel it won’t matter. Using a custom barrel needs a bit more care and knowledge.

Don't worry about good English and sentence construction or spelling either. We are muzzleloaders and mountain men and don't need no stinking English degrees. Keep up the good work and keep on posting. I know lots of people without much education who are very knowledgeable on many subjects. Don't be intimidated. We ain't stuck up. Bet some people take shots at me but they will probably miss.

I must be doing something wrong because I’ve never even used a brush in a Muzzleloader barrel.

if your using a bronze brush, that can't come out the barrel, twist the brush when you change directions,
right for right hand threads, bristles bend sideways instead of backwards. lot less likely to get stuck.

If you think you need a bore brush use a nylon one. They don't get stuck and clean just a well as a copper one.

If all else fails use the jaws of life............ Just kidding, some great advice and ideas have been presented, I can add nothing more.

When I inherited the family Henry Nock 14 ga shotgun , I found that about 1/3 of the ebony loading rod was stuck in the barrel , I wasn't going to try to fire it out , the laminated twist barrel would have disintegrated . I found a piece of copper tube that was the correct internal diameter to fit over the broken end , pushed it down the barrel and gave it a light hammering to make a snug fit , I then poured 5 min Araldite down the tube and after a few hours I poured WD40 down the barrel . 3 days later I gave the tube a light hammer in and it moved , so I slowly pulled the whole thing out . twisted the tube off the rod , cleaned the glue off the rod and fitted it to its better half , all good . then scrubbed the barrel with 0000 steel wool , then shot it , works fine . I also stuck a brass brush down a barrel , I discovered an empty 44/40 case would fit down the barrel and over the brush , so I soldered it to a rod , pushed it down over the bristles then withdrew the whole thing . More than one way to skin a possum . I have never put a brush down a ML ever since . Using a penetrating lube to slick up the bristles is one way to help remove any stuck thing from a barrel , bullet , patch ,brush etc.

Cpt Flint said:

If you are going to give advice on this forum you need (first) to learn good English and sentence construction. Secondly, the use of the copper dissolving solvents that you describe must be used with caution. Ammonia dissolves copper. In the process it will etch barrel steel if left in the bore too long.
Brass bristle bore brushes stuck in the bore simply need a simple way to collapse the bristles and pull it out. In the case of a cheap factory barrel it won’t matter. Using a custom barrel needs a bit more care and knowledge.

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Of course folks with a custom muzzleloading barrel would not likely be silly enough to use the wrong brush....so your point is moot.

It was, after all, a last ditch suggestion, hence "when all else fails". I reread my post. Yeah, never said don't follow the directions. What my buddy used, I didn't note..., he said he left it in overnight. I will caution him. I shall ask him too, about what he used.

Of course..., they don't all use ammonia.... you might want to look at the products out there.

As for my use of language..., I shall review Strunk & White.... when I gets the chances.

LD

russellshaffer said:

Don't worry about good English and sentence construction or spelling either. We are muzzleloaders and mountain men and don't need no stinking English degrees. Keep up the good work and keep on posting. I know lots of people without much education who are very knowledgeable on many subjects. Don't be intimidated. We ain't stuck up. Bet some people take shots at me but they will probably miss.

Click to expand...

Yup.

ord sgt said:

Shoot it out instead. A bit more recoil will be felt. It will not harm the barrel. But it does save some extra work. A friend has sent two ramrods down range with the same rifle after being distracted during the loading procedure. The rifle still shoots well.

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Shot a ramrod out one time by accident. Boy, did that thing kick! No damage except to the ram rod. I would make sure it's seated and then shoot it out also.

Way too much effort going on to clean barrels. Remove barrel from stock...remove nipple...immerse breech end in very hot deep pan of water...use patched jag to pump hot water through bore until fouling removed. Get fresh very hot water and use same process to rinse barrel then several dry patches and oiled patch if storing. Note: If done properly, barrel will be too hot to hold bare handed...use glove or rag to hold.

For whatever it is worth... If you start to pull the brush back and it sticks- the bristles are angled toward the muzzle from being rammed down the bore- that's what is causing the jam. Push a little forward if possible to get the bristles back to before the jam and now start rotating the rod so that the bristles are now sideways to the the bore and then VERY slowly keep rotating and now pulling toward the muzzle so the bristles are pointing to the breech. Should then pull out okay.

I've had brushes get stuck and come apart in the bore, but always found they were easy to get out. I just grab something like a .30 caliber brush and push it down next to the stuck one. It will come out just fine and bring the bad one out with it.

To each his own. I haven't used a brush on a ml since 1974 due to having one stuck. Learned how to clean the gun the proper way. After all mountain men didn't have brushes, not even tooth brushes...

flashpoint said:

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! Oh man, I had visions that my hobby of muzzleloading was at an end. Deer season opens Monday and after sighting it in today I was ready to go and now this brush thing happened. I used my tow worm as suggested which has tight coils that ends in a sharp little hook. I fed it down the barrel and made a couple of turns and pulled. Out it came on the first try. Amazing! What was interesting was that the threaded end of the brush fit perfectly inside the toe screw coils so when I turned it, it almost threaded itself into the coil and it just came out easily. Looks like I'm going huntin' after all on Monday. Also, thanks for all the other suggestions, guys. Unfortunately, I won't be able to try them out as I am NEVER going to use a bore brush again!

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Great follow up. TY for letting us know...

One other point, if you use a bullet you'll get lead fouling, etc. but if all you shoot is patched round balls- probably don't even need a bronze brush. I can't recall any wire brushes ever being found with the original guns and yet the bores are often fine.

I have done the exact same thing in the past. I used priming powder, as much as I could get in through the touch hole and it blew the brush right out. Now I use shotgun brushes with a shotgun rod. This is much sturdier than a 10-32 set up and I have never had one pull out.

I was out of muzzleloading for a while, and got back in during the 1990's. I found there were caliber-specific cleaning kits available, so I bought one. It included a brass bristle brush. In retrospect, my dad had told me many years ago that these brass brushes are designed to be pushed all the way through the barrel and out the far end, meaning they should only be used in "britchloaders," as he described them, or in muzzleloader barrels that had the breech plug removed. Pushing it all the way through allows the bristles to relax and then reverse. However, dad was long gone by the 1990's, and I innocently pushed a brass brush down the bore of my new muzzleloader and could not pull it out. I ended up clamping the rod in a vise and jerking the gun off the brush. It came out, after blessing it with some most canonical execrations, as well as some comments regarding the parentage of the stuck brush, but I think I learned my lesson. These brass brushes, I believe, are designed and marketed by people who likely have very little real-world experience with muzzleloaders.

One of my references, dating to the 1930's recommended using a bore brush for cleaning muzzleloaders, but the author also indicated that bore brushes at that time were made of hog bristles. I guess you could call them "boar brushes." These natural fibers would be soft enough to reverse direction, especially if you give the brush a twist while you are pulling. As far as I know, natural fiber bore brushes are no longer available. Too bad. Seems like these would be another source of revenue for the swine industry, and we shooters would have appropriate bore brushes for our muzzleloaders, but I am still waiting for industry leaders to ask my opinion.

The best we can do now, if you are determined to use a bore brush, is to use one with nylon bristles. Even these can sometimes be hard to reverse, although if you clean your gun with hot water, dipping the brush in it for a few seconds will help soften the bristles a little. You want the kind that have the twisted wire securely fastened to the threaded base, like these heavy-duty brushes from Brownell's:



You can see on the bottom brush in the image how the wire is in one piece, and passes through the threaded shank. These won't pull off, although you'll want to make sure the threaded tip of your cleaning rod is cross-pinned.

I still use a nylon brush occasionally, although I don't necessarily think it would be required for a good cleaning. This is usually for guns that will be put away for a while.

Best regards,

Notchy Bob