• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Breech with chamber

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The primary advantage is in the manufacturing process. You can have one inventory of rifle barrel and have an assortment of breeches, right and left, percussion and flintlock. For the shooter, the ball will be stopped above the flash channel so powder can be added to remove a ball loaded without the benefit of a powder charge.

Let's look at several styles of breech configurations.

1681564202074.jpeg


The chambered breech has a smaller than bore diameter chamber that is threaded to the rifled barrel. Care must be taken while shooting to prevent fouling residue from entering the chamber and blocking the flash channel. This can be done with a jag custom fit to the chamber or a brush that is the size of the chamber to pull out the fouling.

Below the chambered breech is the Modified Nock's Patent Breech. It was designed to allow a small amount of powder to enter the smaller chamber by the flash channel. On ignition, the smaller chamber ignited sending a forceful jet of hot gas into the powder charge for faster ignition of the powder charge and that pressure kept the breech fouling to a minimum. This meant less wiping of the bore to remove fouling and also reduced the need to wipe the bore. Very important to shooters of fowling guns as they were reloaded often during a hunt and needed reliable ignition.

The CVA/Traditions style breech is designed to have extended threads of the touch hole with liner extend through the breech plug and lock the breech plug in place. The breech plug is drilled to form the powder chamber in the breech plug and connect to the flash channel.

There is no chamber in the traditional breech. The flash channel/touch hole connects directly into the barrel and the powder charge. In this case, we can use a vent pick to keep the touch hole clear of fouling and we can wipe the bore between shots to keep the condition of the barrel consistent from shot to shot.
 
Aside from the manufacturing benefits listed, they are also supposed to be capable of better accuracy.
 
IMHO there is no benefit for the shooter using a "patent" breech. I don't like them and prefer the standard traditional breech. I have one (1) rifle with a patent breech I've owned for many years and it has been problem free. In fact I've never had any of the patent breech rifles I owned in the past to have a misfire or clog traced to the maize of twists & turns. But I don't like them at all.
 
The primary advantage is in the manufacturing process. You can have one inventory of rifle barrel and have an assortment of breeches, right and left, percussion and flintlock. For the shooter, the ball will be stopped above the flash channel so powder can be added to remove a ball loaded without the benefit of a powder charge.

Let's look at several styles of breech configurations.

View attachment 215048

The chambered breech has a smaller than bore diameter chamber that is threaded to the rifled barrel. Care must be taken while shooting to prevent fouling residue from entering the chamber and blocking the flash channel. This can be done with a jag custom fit to the chamber or a brush that is the size of the chamber to pull out the fouling.

Below the chambered breech is the Modified Nock's Patent Breech. It was designed to allow a small amount of powder to enter the smaller chamber by the flash channel. On ignition, the smaller chamber ignited sending a forceful jet of hot gas into the powder charge for faster ignition of the powder charge and that pressure kept the breech fouling to a minimum. This meant less wiping of the bore to remove fouling and also reduced the need to wipe the bore. Very important to shooters of fowling guns as they were reloaded often during a hunt and needed reliable ignition.

The CVA/Traditions style breech is designed to have extended threads of the touch hole with liner extend through the breech plug and lock the breech plug in place. The breech plug is drilled to form the powder chamber in the breech plug and connect to the flash channel.

There is no chamber in the traditional breech. The flash channel/touch hole connects directly into the barrel and the powder charge. In this case, we can use a vent pick to keep the touch hole clear of fouling and we can wipe the bore between shots to keep the condition of the barrel consistent from shot to shot.
a pity that there is no advantage for the shooter.
thanks for the good explanation of the different camera types.
 
When I first heard about a breech with a chamber, this design immediately came to mind.
Have they already tried something similar?
IMG_20230415_191343_491.jpg
 
I think the old traditional breeches were better than modern ones. I have taken down several shotguns, old ones. Most of the breech plugs had a severe cone shape with the base of the nipple actually visible, with a light and some squinting. The best shape was shaped like a big acorn, according to a old book I read.
 
Sandro, there might be a problem with the design in your drawing. If one were to absentmindedly load the ball without the powder first (do you call that 'dryball' in Brasil?) your ball could go past the rifled section and then be rolling around loose in the larger chamber.
 
Funny thing is, I was just searching for posts about this yesterday and found the diagram that Grenadier posted. I have the chambered breech in my Uberti Santa Fe Hawken and was wondering if I was cleaning it well enuf.
My thanks to everyone on this forum. I find that I do not have to post questions at all because someone else has already asked them and received numerous answers (sometimes of opposing opinions and 'facts' - grin).
 
Powder bridging around the rim of the chamber mouth prevents much of the charge from reaching the touch hole. Unless the mouth is chamfered to the diameter of the bore, that problem will persist. Polishing the chamber is also a good idea. IMHO they're more trouble than they're worth.
 
IMHO there is no benefit for the shooter using a "patent" breech. I don't like them and prefer the standard traditional breech. I have one (1) rifle with a patent breech I've owned for many years and it has been problem free. In fact I've never had any of the patent breech rifles I owned in the past to have a misfire or clog traced to the maize of twists & turns. But I don't like them at all.
Exactly ...if you want problems get a patent breech or the like ... If you want little to no problems get a traditional flat breech .... Too many nooks and crannys , corners or small spots where you can't get a ramrod or cleaning rod to clean or dry it out ....your just asking for troubles and ignition problems . ...plus compounds breech removal problems for any reason . I won't even attempt to remove such a breech for someone .
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20230416_115215.jpg
    IMG_20230416_115215.jpg
    3.8 MB · Views: 0
  • IMG_20230416_115225.jpg
    IMG_20230416_115225.jpg
    3.5 MB · Views: 0
Most of my guns are patent breeches T/C, CVA and my wife shoots a traditions. I have no problems with them and use a slightly damp patch to swab whether every shot or every 5-10 shots. As long as I remember to put in powder it goes off. I have removed the T/C breech plug with no problem, I haven't removed the CVA plug but would if I had to. I clean with the barrel in a bucket with soapy water and then plain water, wipe dry with alcohol then a rem oil patch to coat the bore. Another alcohol patch before I shoot, I've been shooting for almost 30 years and my cleaning routine has evolved over the years. I haven't had anything but normal shooting problems, no powder stuck ball and the like. If the nipple is shot out and goes to half cock (I got a green mtn barrel for $40 because of that) I replace the nipple. The patent or "Nock's patent breech" was invented to eliminate problems with existing barrels a few hundred years ago. If you can't remove your barrel to clean the patent breech if that is your problem just use a smaller caliber brush(22-38) and a solvent or water patch to clean.
 
Sandro, there might be a problem with the design in your drawing. If one were to absentmindedly load the ball without the powder first (do you call that 'dryball' in Brasil?) your ball could go past the rifled section and then be rolling around loose in the larger chamber.
There will definitely have to be a lot of attention from the shooter as the bullet has to be in the right position.
other than that, I believe it has some advantage, as modern rifle cartridges have evolved into this bottle format. If there was no advantage, they would have stayed with the straight cartridge, simpler to manufacture.
Maybe it wasn't fashionable among muzzleloaders because it wasn't fool proof...kkkk!!
 
Smokeless powder and black powder have completely different characteristics. Modern bottleneck cartridges are designed for smokeless powder, if you look at the bottleneck cartridges that were designed for black powder you will see that they were designed for a certain capacity at a certain length to fit into the rifle or pistol and 100% of them were breechloading designs. When loading from the muzzle the length of the powder column isn't an issue and there won't be any benefit to the bottle shape. Cleaning a bottle shape in a muzzle loaded barrel will also be a problem that doesn't exist in a breechloader.
 
The primary advantage is in the manufacturing process. You can have one inventory of rifle barrel and have an assortment of breeches, right and left, percussion and flintlock. For the shooter, the ball will be stopped above the flash channel so powder can be added to remove a ball loaded without the benefit of a powder charge.

Let's look at several styles of breech configurations.

View attachment 215048

The chambered breech has a smaller than bore diameter chamber that is threaded to the rifled barrel. Care must be taken while shooting to prevent fouling residue from entering the chamber and blocking the flash channel. This can be done with a jag custom fit to the chamber or a brush that is the size of the chamber to pull out the fouling.

Below the chambered breech is the Modified Nock's Patent Breech. It was designed to allow a small amount of powder to enter the smaller chamber by the flash channel. On ignition, the smaller chamber ignited sending a forceful jet of hot gas into the powder charge for faster ignition of the powder charge and that pressure kept the breech fouling to a minimum. This meant less wiping of the bore to remove fouling and also reduced the need to wipe the bore. Very important to shooters of fowling guns as they were reloaded often during a hunt and needed reliable ignition.

The CVA/Traditions style breech is designed to have extended threads of the touch hole with liner extend through the breech plug and lock the breech plug in place. The breech plug is drilled to form the powder chamber in the breech plug and connect to the flash channel.

There is no chamber in the traditional breech. The flash channel/touch hole connects directly into the barrel and the powder charge. In this case, we can use a vent pick to keep the touch hole clear of fouling and we can wipe the bore between shots to keep the condition of the barrel consistent from shot to shot.
So going off of the above diagram, what style of breech does a Traditions Crockett Rifle have?
 
I have several rifles that have Patient breech, yours would be one as its a Traditions. Generally the hooked breech models you can drop into a bucket of soapy water are much easier to clean. Flintlocks no so easy more of a pia, n that is the main reason i will not buy another Factory Flintlock.
 
Back
Top