• 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

Charge not going off, help

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I thought I mentioned that back in post #35 of this thread.
Lol
Good Luck, let us know what happens..... You are sure theres powder behind the ball?

If so you can feel it with the pick, crunch it ,move some around too allow a few grains too get in there.... It may take a couple tries ,but I bet it'll shoot!
 
I thought I mentioned that back in post #35 of this thread.
Lol
Good Luck, let us know what happens..... You are sure theres powder behind the ball?

If so you can feel it with the pick, crunch it ,move some around too allow a few grains too get in there.... It may take a couple tries ,but I bet it'll shoot!
Definitely is, I loaded it with a cartridge so powder went in first. I think there's a touch hole liner, so I can't really feel in to the charge. But I will still fill up the touch hole and see how it goes.
 
A Loyalist Bess will have a large touch hole. The Loyalist Arms touch hole on my Bess is drilled. There's no removable vent liner there. You can do quite a bit of poking around in the touch hole and you should be able to get quite a few grains of powder through the touch hole.
 
When I did this first time around my immediate thought was that this put a different light on the idea that a little water from the patch would have significant bad effect on the powder charge. I then wondered if that might include oil. So, I repeated the test on paper using oil. I stirred oil into a charge until completely wet, and it fired up even better than with the water, ignited quicker and left less residue. I didn't try oiled powder in the gun, but I don't know why it would behave any differently.

There's not much chance clearing a wet gun in this way will ever have any practical application, but I think it's reasonable to think of contamination of charges as less of a problem than some would have us believe.

Spence

Bear in mind that powder is made wet and then dried. It never loses ll of it's water content, so it actually contains some water.
The glazing and graphiteing give it some water repellentcy, but since all the components are hygroscopic it will eventually become waterlogged if soaked in water. Potassium nitrate is water soluble, and charcoal acts like a sponge.
 
Why do you bring up motor oil and 3 in 1? I never mentioned either. You said to use Ballistol. Ballistol is mostly mineral oil. Mineral oil is made from petroleum. You said Ballistol is good for your bore, but don’t use any product containing petroleum in your bore. Can’t have it both ways. Just quoting your posts.
QUOTE="Crow-Feather, post: 1691462, member: 297"]
A mixture of ballistol and water does a darn good job of preventing this problem. Never ever put oil, or any product containing petroleum in your bore.
[/QUOTE]
Why do you bring up motor oil and 3 in 1? I never mentioned either. You said to use Ballistol. Ballistol is mostly mineral oil. Mineral oil is made from petroleum. You said Ballistol is good for your bore, but don’t use any product containing petroleum in your bore. Can’t have it both ways. Just quoting your posts.
QUOTE="Crow-Feather, post: 1691462, member: 297

Some people are dumber than rocks

11__14156__54689__18323.1324358787.220.220.jpg
 
Last edited:
SUCESS!!!!! Filled the touch hole with probably 20 or so grains, went off with a hiss and boom. So relieved. Cleaned it as soon as I got home, now it's oiled up and should be good to go. Thank you everyone for helping out, and for suggesting this rather than me waiting for the ball puller to get here.
 
A Loyalist Bess will have a large touch hole. The Loyalist Arms touch hole on my Bess is drilled. There's no removable vent liner there. You can do quite a bit of poking around in the touch hole and you should be able to get quite a few grains of powder through the touch hole.
You're absolutely right. just had to shake it around a bit and the powder went in no problem!
 
SUCESS!!!!! Filled the touch hole with probably 20 or so grains, went off with a hiss and boom. So relieved. Cleaned it as soon as I got home, now it's oiled up and should be good to go. Thank you everyone for helping out, and for suggesting this rather than me waiting for the ball puller to get here.
Gratz on the longest dryball I’ve ever heard!
If you’re anything like me you’ve over oiled the barrel and stored it butt down. Next time out run a patch or two down the bbl and fire 2 or 3 primed pans Before loading.
My first trail walk with an oily barrel made for inconsistent ignition, lots of frustrating misfires and it was over 100 deg. in the sun.
My new club members were seriously reconsidering their votes to let me join!
Now I store MLers muzzle down, let extra oil migrate away from touch holes, drums or snails.
Have fun!!
 
Gratz on the longest dryball I’ve ever heard!
If you’re anything like me you’ve over oiled the barrel and stored it butt down. Next time out run a patch or two down the bbl and fire 2 or 3 primed pans Before loading.
My first trail walk with an oily barrel made for inconsistent ignition, lots of frustrating misfires and it was over 100 deg. in the sun.
My new club members were seriously reconsidering their votes to let me join!
Now I store MLers muzzle down, let extra oil migrate away from touch holes, drums or snails.
Have fun!!
It fired lots before the misfire occurred so it probably wasn't the oil causing it per se.. but I am definitely guilty of that lol. I'll be sure to swab it out before I shoot next time and store it barrel down from now on.

Ugh, that sounds like a royal pain, but I guess just like this was for me, it was a learning experience and you know better from now on. Thanks!
 
You more than likely got the powder wet by using the water I'm assuming on a soaked patch to get it down. I think your only option at this point is to pull the ball. It's probably going to be tough to pull so get someone to hold the gun while you pull. Put some water into the flash hole if you are concerned to make the powder completely inert, however Ive pulled balls from dry bores many many times. As long as youre careful and don't put any part of your body in front of the muzzle you will be ok.

Next time if it gets hard to load, swab the bore before loading the next round. This time of year you might be swabbing every shot or every two shots. Humidity can be a bear.

Good luck.
ALWAYS - anchor the rod on a ball pull and pull on the gun. It's a lot easier with a good grip on the gun and a lot safer than having a rod in your chest or worse....
I use a T handle brass rod and tie it to the pickup bumper with a rope- then jerk the gun off the rod....
 
ALWAYS - anchor the rod on a ball pull and pull on the gun. It's a lot easier with a good grip on the gun and a lot safer than having a rod in your chest or worse....
I use a T handle brass rod and tie it to the pickup bumper with a rope- then jerk the gun off the rod....

I use a steel range rod I made myself with a brass T handle. On a dry unfired bore, I've never had a problem pulllng on the rod instead of the gun. I lay the gun on my work table, hold it with one hand on the barrel and pull with the other. Had a few balls come off the screw but nothing a few more turns on the screw to get a better bite on the ball wouldn't cure. Then ball goes back into the pot to be made into a new one.
 
I tighten a 1/2 inch open end wrench in my bench vice, insert range rod, pull ball, easy peasy. You definitely have more leverage pulling from the rifle end than the ramrod end
 
ALWAYS - anchor the rod on a ball pull and pull on the gun. It's a lot easier with a good grip on the gun and a lot safer than having a rod in your chest or worse....
I use a T handle brass rod and tie it to the pickup bumper with a rope- then jerk the gun off the rod....
Yep! I've stuck the rod in the vice, and in the crotch of trees or tied them to a tree. :thumb:
 
At our range we have a bracket on one of our upright posts, a vise anchored on a loading bench and a CO2 tank for use in unloading an unfired ball. They do work as I have tried all of them as well as getting powder behind the ball and shooting it out. We haven't used the crotch of a tree since we moved to the new range 19 years ago.
 


Some people are dumber than rocks

View attachment 39178
[/QUOTE]
Agree completely. From the SDS sheet for Crystal Plus. 100% petroleum.
1597293525312.png

But yet, for some reason you say.....
There are patch lubes that will prevent your present problem. You can shoot all day without swabbing the bore. A mixture of ballistol and water does a darn good job of preventing this problem. Never ever put oil, or any product containing petroleum in your bore.
So which petroleum product that you should never use in your bore are you suggesting that we use in our bores?
 
Some people are dumber than rocks

View attachment 39178
Agree completely. From the SDS sheet for Crystal Plus. 100% petroleum.
View attachment 39752
But yet, for some reason you say.....

So which petroleum product that you should never use in your bore are you suggesting that we use in our bores?
[/QUOTE]
white.jpeg
white petroleum jelly.jpeg


OK children, story time.
Now sit down and sound out the longer words. Petroleum starts out as a dark liquid taken from the ground. From this liquid, smart people make many useful products. the plastic sippy cup you drink from comes from petroleum. Oil used for lubrication and rust prevention comes from petroleum. Gasoline and diesel fuel comes from petroleum. What is left over is used for products that sometimes are safe to eat and put on a baby's skin. What mommies and daddies do is decide what is safe for certain uses and what isn't. When you grow up, you will learn that also. Until then, Oh wait' nap time ...... go get your mats and pillows.
 
Back
Top