Hang fire after swabbing the bore at range

[chironomidkraut]

I'm having hang fires after swabbing the barrel after about every 3 shots, I just use a little spit on a cleaning patch,
And also I have a 50cal hawken woodsman flintlock with fixed sites, if I'm shooting a little low which way do I turn my elevation screw to get er back to center! Thanks guys

 

[reddog97]

I don't recall fixed sights having an elevation screw.If you have an adjustable rear sight, move it to where you want the ball to hit( raise the rear sight to have the ball hit higher, lower the sight to have the ball hit lower).

 

[Len Graves]

It is likely that you are pushing some residue to the breach when you swab the bore. Do you pick the vent after swabbing?this might help with your problem. I know of a shooter who leaves a vent pick in his rifle while loading or he has this lag problem also. This answer is only going to work for flinters, however the same thing will occur with cap guns especially with patent breach. Possibly cleaning g with a patch on a worm may help. Or a small ( .30 cal.). Brush to clean the smaller channel in the breach. It is difficult to. Know your exact problem long distance. Good luck

 

[Aran]

As to the hangfires after swabbing, I'd say it's because your jag/cleaning patch combo is too tight a fit and thus is pushing down black powder crud into the breech of your bore as you push the ramrod down. This in turn causes the ignition to slow and with subsequent swabbings to perhaps even cause a misfire. I'd say the solution to this would be to grind down your cleaning jag a little or use a thinner cleaning patch, or both. The ramrod should go quite easily on the way down and give more resistance on the way up, pulling the crud out of the barrel.


Let me know if this is helpful to you,
Aran.

 

[don hepler]

As for the hang fire........when you run a swab, patch or whatever, down the barrel, you're also pushing fowled power down, in front of the flash hole. I use a flash hole pick to clean out the hole before loading the next charge. I like to reach in with the pick and touch to new charge of powder, not to push it back, but just gently touch the grains. Wipe the frizzen, the pan, and the flint, to remove fowling. I carry a dry rag to clean with. A clean flintlock, free of oil, and fowling, fires more reliable and faster. You can establish a routine and it will become automatic.

Look's like several of us posted at the same time, with same answer. But we all agree.

 

[Walks with fire]

I have a TC PA Hunter rifle with the patent breech and I call it Eureka because I couldn't get the dang thing to group worth squat until I started swabbing out the patent breech area and running a pipe cleaner through the vent after every shot. Shoots like a dream now but it went on for a long time before I figured it out.

Keeping it clean of fouling, dry and the flash channel clear every time in every rifle is the only way I do it now. When not shooting to check groups and just having some fun shooting I don't worry about swabbing every shot but if I need to be 100% sure it will fire I do the whole routine. Nothing of course is 100% but then again I can't remember the last hang fire I ever had if I do the routine.

 

[Dphar]

Use LESS water on the wet patch. It should only be "heavily damp" not dripping.
Use an somewhat under sized jag and and oversized patch. This may take some experimentation to get it right. I used on damp patch one stroke with each side then a dry patch both sides and reload.
This allows the patch to pass over most of the fouling then pull it out the muzzle when the patch "bunches" on being withdrawn.

A tight patch pushes all the, now wet, fouling to the breech where it can set and slow or prevent ignition of the charge.

Dan

 

[Hans74]

I know that I will get a lot of tongue lashing for saying this and this is one reason I don't shoot at matches much anymore. I blow down the barrel after every shot I fire and I never need to wipe my bore so I can seat a tight patched ball. Doing this you are softening the fouling and this also leaves the moisture low enough that the powder will drop with out sticking on the bore wall. The fouling will get pushed down on the powder charge when I seat the ball leaving a clean bore and it will not plug the flash hole and I see no difference in the accuracy.
This has been done way before I was born and it works quite well. The only draw back is the taste :grin:

 

[M. De Land]

Yeah, I have read it was common practice back in the day when one had to do this to keep alive but makes little sense now when safety at the shooting range trumps fighting off a horde of enemies
.
I see no problem with blowing if your by yourself though. It's more the idea of going against all safety rules we have been taught than the actual practice in my mind.
Actually it can still be done safely with a bit of rubber tubing and a flange offsetting ones head to the side of the muzzle.
Blowing down the barrels was especially popular with the buffalo hunters and the big Sharps black powder cartridges. Mike D.

 

[Dphar]

I know that I will get a lot of tongue lashing for saying this and this is one reason I don't shoot at matches much anymore. I blow down the barrel after every shot I fire and I never need to wipe my bore so I can seat a tight patched ball. Doing this you are softening the fouling and this also leaves the moisture low enough that the powder will drop with out sticking on the bore wall. The fouling will get pushed down on the powder charge when I seat the ball leaving a clean bore and it will not plug the flash hole and I see no difference in the accuracy.
This has been done way before I was born and it works quite well. The only draw back is the taste :grin:

I blow when using a oil or tallow lube in the field. But for the matches I usually shoot I wipe. Doing otherwise reduces accuracy and in a string measure rest match one needs all the help he can get.

Dan

 

[Dphar]

Yeah, I have read it was common practice back in the day when one had to do this to keep alive but makes little sense now when safety at the shooting range trumps fighting off a horde of enemies
.
I see no problem with blowing if your by yourself though. It's more the idea of going against all safety rules we have been taught than the actual practice in my mind.
Actually it can still be done safely with a bit of rubber tubing and a flange offsetting ones head to the side of the muzzle.
Blowing down the barrels was especially popular with the buffalo hunters and the big Sharps black powder cartridges. Mike D.

Blowing was always popular and even turned up in Hollywood westerns but they did not know why of course. Blowing in a ML at a match is problematical from the accuracy standpoint. Its hard to get a uniform bore condition as the barrel heats. This is easier to deal with in BPCR since these allow better air flow and 2 breaths in a cool barrel and 6 or more in a hot one is easy to do. But wiping is still a better idea if its workable.
Modern range safety is built around the breechloader and if strictly adhered to would prevent all ML shooting.

Dan

 

[Hans74]

I would think only a feather brain would try to blow down a barrel with a charge of powder in it. I would doubt that he would even get a puff through the powder anyway. I guess I was brought up during the wrong time but I never needed to carry damp patches or soak them in my mouth except to load or a rod with a jag on it to wipe the barrel sitting under oak trees shooting the heads off squirrels. But then again that is unsafe too for guys not knowing to have a limb behind the squirrel to stop the ball from traveling.
Y'all be safe now! Butch

 

[don hepler]

Blowing down (a empty barrel) is very routine for black powder cartridge rifles. In fact they sell a blow tube just for that purpose. However you would be blowing through the open breech, and not down the muzzle. They say it softens the fowling between shots, and makes them more consistent.

I for one do not like an empty rifle even pointed in my direction, let alone, blowing down the business end of a rifle. Maybe a big curved tube, would work. But I'll stick with my routine, of "not" doing it.

 

[Billnpatti]

Turn the adjusting screw clockwise to raise your rear sight. Raising your rear sight will raise your POI. Conversly, lowering your rear sight by turning your adjusting screw counter clockwise will lower your POI.

 

[Dphar]

It is impossible to load a ML without covering some part of your body with the muzzle, can't be done. Blowing? its been done untold millions of times and I have heard of one accident caused by the guy loading for his wife and not paying attention to what was going on when she had a misfire and did not keep the rifle pointed down range long enough. NO RANGE SAFETY OFFICER apparentlu either or not enough. Probably no safety briefing before the match either....
Safety? Where is it?
American ML shooters are notoriously cheap. They will pay 250 for a barrel made of cheap materials by someone with a 9th grade shop class mentality (and workmanship) but will refuse to buy a barrel for 400 that is made of certified steel by someone who makes world class barrels that are carefully rifled, lapped and TEST FIRED. Trust me I KNOW this is true.
People are statistically more likely to be injured shooting the substandard barrels that are far too common in MLs in America (in American "custom" barrels are virtually all made of a steel the steel makers specifically say is unsuitable, documented way back in the 1980s and there are failures and INJURIES some life changing, but the average "expert" thinks its from loading improperly because "barrels don't blow up with BP" a myth that has maimed people over the years). Then we have the "re-enactor grade" guns, the unbelievable manure coming in from India, two failures I know of with BLANKS. Then we have the improperly assembled percussion and flint guns that puke out nipples and the drums break off, flint guns made by people who should know better (and do but don't care) with vent liners that blow out perhaps only held in by the lock plate, cause the fool that made it does not do things in a workman like manner (don't care) and will not even proof the barrel.
But people will gleefully shoot this cheap manure but then tell me that blowing down an empty barrel is unsafe. There is no choice if its the rule for the match so one makes do. But there are far more dangerous things done every day, shooting the pipe bombs for example, than blowing down an empty barrel which is about as dangerous as a kid blowing bubbles in chocolate milk with a straw. In general its safer to shoot an Italian reproduction than a $5000 American custom with a barrel made of leaded screw stock. The Italians at least use better grades of steel.
So tell me again about "safety" when a lot of people here put a cheap piece of steel that is mill run, not certified in anyway, not recommended for gun barrels or any other "pressure" vessel use being designed to make cheap screws in an automatic screw machine, right next to their face then shock load it to 10000-20000 psi. The steel generally used is also SHOCK SENSITIVE BTW (one of many reasons its unsuitable for barrels).
Most ADs I have read of come frome heavy fouling accumulation in the breech area, poor quality locks, thinking a percussion is "unloaded" after the cap it removed or doing rapid fire re-enactments and dumping powder on a hot ember in the excess fouling produced by shooting blanks.
Yeah blowing down the barrel is dangerous...

Dan

 

[Snakebite]

:hatsoff: Very well said!

 

[Vaino]

Whether on the range or during hunting, I just wire brush and dump the loosened debris. In all the years, never had a "failure to fire".

Also, never used a vent pick and in fact don't even own one.

Shooting MLers is easy....because of keeping it simple......Fred

 

[Col. Batguano]

Are we back on the 12L14 thing again?

If we asked Rice, Colerain, Oregon, Getz, FCI et. al., to produce barrels from ordnance steel would they? And what would be the price? It seems to me that a $150 premium is not that big of a price differential for the added safety margin when you're investing 200-300 hours in a project.

 

[M. De Land]

That is one of the main reasons I'm a GM barrel fan. I believe Dan has it right.
I read GM only use 4140 for their black powder cartridge barrels, which makes sense as they are often loaded with smokeless or duplex charges.
I never could figure out why anyone would use barrel steel that metallurgist say is unsuitable for impact loading although it does machine wonderfully.
It is supposed to be a good deal better in this regard if hot rolled instead of cold and most likely is the saving grace in many of these barrels. Mike D.

 

[hanshi]

The hang fire issue is the main reason I don't like to swab the bore during a shooting session.