doubleset
50 Cal.
This is just a matter of curiosity about one aspect of cleaning the Traditions Crockett rifle. I'm sure that most people have never noticed this because it requires a bit of excessive inspection of the barrel, but I do wonder if anyone has noticed it and done anything about it ...
To begin, I shoot with genuine black powder (Swiss) and clean the rifle in the "old way": Remove the barrel, bucket of hot water with Simple Green, flush the barrel, etc. Not a problem. Works great and is much easier/quicker/more effective than you might think once you develop the habit. In fact, this is the method described by Traditions in their "Safety & Instruction Manual," though that manual is generic across all their sidelock muzzleloaders, mentions nothing specific about the Crockett, and in the cleaning instructions makes no mention of either the nipple or the cleanout screw.
The cleanout screw (an M4-0.7 x 6mm slotted pan head) is on the opposite side of the barrel from the nipple. It's inaccurately referred to as a "Tang Screw (Side)" in the Traditions Crockett Rifle schematic: it's not in the tang!
Because I'm a bit compulsive about my firearms and tools in general, I recently got curious about what all this looked like, and got out my little (Ebay) endoscope. Everything looked as expected EXCEPT, the cleanout screw protrudes noticeably into the combustion chamber (for lack of a better term). I haven't tried to measure this exactly, it looks as though about 3mm of the screw is sticking out into the chamber. You can see the threads quite clearly.
I don't think there's any danger to this, but I do wonder about degradation of the end threads on the screw over time since they're exposed to the ignition of the powder. My guess is that many (most?) Crockett owners won't care about this -- very likely because (my guess again, but from threads I've read) few of them ever remove the cleanout screw. On the other hand, maybe it just doesn't matter because I DO remove and clean the screw every time I fire the gun. And I guess that the portion of the screw sticking out into the combustion chamber doesn't have any effect on combustion of the powder.
Has anyone else noticed this? Any thoughts? I've been thinking about filing the screw down so it doesn't protrude, but looking at what I've just written here, I now wonder if it's worth the effort.
To begin, I shoot with genuine black powder (Swiss) and clean the rifle in the "old way": Remove the barrel, bucket of hot water with Simple Green, flush the barrel, etc. Not a problem. Works great and is much easier/quicker/more effective than you might think once you develop the habit. In fact, this is the method described by Traditions in their "Safety & Instruction Manual," though that manual is generic across all their sidelock muzzleloaders, mentions nothing specific about the Crockett, and in the cleaning instructions makes no mention of either the nipple or the cleanout screw.
The cleanout screw (an M4-0.7 x 6mm slotted pan head) is on the opposite side of the barrel from the nipple. It's inaccurately referred to as a "Tang Screw (Side)" in the Traditions Crockett Rifle schematic: it's not in the tang!
Because I'm a bit compulsive about my firearms and tools in general, I recently got curious about what all this looked like, and got out my little (Ebay) endoscope. Everything looked as expected EXCEPT, the cleanout screw protrudes noticeably into the combustion chamber (for lack of a better term). I haven't tried to measure this exactly, it looks as though about 3mm of the screw is sticking out into the chamber. You can see the threads quite clearly.
I don't think there's any danger to this, but I do wonder about degradation of the end threads on the screw over time since they're exposed to the ignition of the powder. My guess is that many (most?) Crockett owners won't care about this -- very likely because (my guess again, but from threads I've read) few of them ever remove the cleanout screw. On the other hand, maybe it just doesn't matter because I DO remove and clean the screw every time I fire the gun. And I guess that the portion of the screw sticking out into the combustion chamber doesn't have any effect on combustion of the powder.
Has anyone else noticed this? Any thoughts? I've been thinking about filing the screw down so it doesn't protrude, but looking at what I've just written here, I now wonder if it's worth the effort.