Help with a stuck Minnie

[moose30273]

Folks, I messed up. Was shooting my Euroarms 53 Enfield yesterday. Was trying to work up a accurate load and was experementing with different lubes on my Minnie Bullets. So I had been shooting some with minimal lube and was getting good accuracy out of them. However the fowling with 2f was BAD. Should have known better but I just could not resist that last shot. So now I have a Minnie stuck about 20 inches into the bore. Of course I tried to seat it with the range rod But I think I only managed to deform the bullet and make things worse. So I killed the charge with wd40 and filled the bore with oil to hopefully seep past the bullet and make it's removial easier. I could not find any Zerk fittings or Schrader valves that would fit the nipple hole to use air pressure or grease to push it out. Is there any other option beside trying to put a screw in the bullet and pull it out? I can't think of one but this site is full of information. Thanks

 

[paulvallandigham]

Normally, if all that is causing the ball or bullet to stick in the barrel is a build up of crud, pouring simple WATER down the barrel to work around the ball or bullet will dissolve the crud, and free up the ball or bullet. I don't know what you have done with that oil bath. Is the oil now gone from behind the ball? Sometimes a bit of liquid soap added to the water will speed up the process of dissolving the crud.

 

[moose30273]

I used the oil because I had a problem at work come up and I wanted to prevent any sort of rust from forming as it will now be a couple of days before I can mess with it (lots of rain here). But the water thing makes a lot more sense.

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

The screw sounds like a good idea to me. This may be the best alternative at this point!

Dave

 

[Tumblernotch]

If the above fails you can take a long drill such as what you would drill a ramrod hole with (a bit brazed to a drill rod) and very carefully drill through the bullet using a breast drill or if you're real careful in centering you can use an electric drill at low speed. Make a fairly large hole. Then you can take a steel or brass rod and a hammer and collapse the bullet in on itself enough to loosen it. Then drive it on through. You will have to un-breech the barrel unless you can weld a large screw such as a lag screw onto a rod and pull it. Before you do this however, unbreech the barrel and try to drive the bullet towards the muzzle. I had to use this method to get a .69 Minie out of a smoothbore once that had a little too much fouling in it. It's a lot of work, but it worked for me.

 

[ozark57]

Find out what thread you have on the nipple and if at all possable hydraulic it out with a grease gun. Zerks are available in 1/4-28.

 

[smokehouseman]

Perhaps I'm missing something but have you tried a CO2 discharger?

 

[moose30273]

Update. The lazy man three day oil soak has worked. The bullet now moves freely. It is just not out yet. Should be able to get it out without incident from here. Thanks for the input.
Moose

 

[William O.]

Hadn't been following this thread until today, I'd be interested in finding out when the bullet gets removed and what was the cause of it getting stuck.

 

[Zoar]

I love my ball/bullet pullers. Bought them from TOW. They make quick work out of stuck situations. Thread them on the end of your ramrod. Quick and easy.

 

[moose30273]

For Bull3540 and anyone else interested here is the whole story. I had shot Pyrodex for years. Only began to shoot Black when I went to shooting flintlocks. Continued to shoot the Pyrodex on hand in the Enfield until I burned it all up. Sunday was the first day I shot the Enfield with black powder. I have always filled the base of my Minnies with lube. This keeps the fowling soft and I can shoot a very long time without swabbing. However, I have never been too happy with the accuracy I had been getting. Sometimes I would recover bullets with some lube left in the base, sometimes not. So I got the great idea that maybe the weight of the remaining lube was messing with the flight of the bullet. So on my first day shooting Black powder I tried shooting some Minnies without lube. The accuracy was in fact better. However, they began to be hard to load very quickly. I was in the process of packing up to leave when I got the great idea to shoot the can of red spraypaint I had used to paint bullseyes. I thought 500 grain Minnie vs can of paint, "I want to watch". So I should of swabbed the bore or done "something". I tried to load a Minnie and it got stuck. Live and learn. I will stick to lubed Minnies. Anyway, I got the bullet out last night. It came out without any real problems. Just used a screw type bullet puller on the end of a ramrod. The oil bath kept the bore from rusting. However, the oil mixed with the black powder fowling made a very thick black gunk. Almost like tar. It was a chore to get all of it out of the barrel. I probably will not do that again. I have played with Muzzleloaders since the 80's. But only really gotten into them in the last 5 years or so. This was my first stuck bullet. I did not know how stuck, stuck could be. My thanks to all who gave suggestions or advise. Moose

 

[moose30273]

Here you can see the black gunk.

 

[texcl]

you need to get a co2 discharger from cabelas they are less than $30 and are priceless for stuck balls and minies, if you get the ball really stuck even a screw will strip out but a co2 discharger will shoot it right out.

 

[nkbj]

Oh wow, this could be an excuse for a new project...braze or epoxy an old nipple into an airhose fitting. Or maybe thread pieces of tubing stock to match the TC and Euro nipple holes and flash hole liners.

 

[Zonie]

Sometimes, a rubber nozzle on a air compressor air hose valve will work but often it just doesn't have the pressure needed to blow out a stuck ball or bullet.

Those little CO2 cartridges gas is compressed to over 700 PSI and that gives them the power that is needed to clear almost any stuck projectile.

 

[Dphar]

Folks, I messed up. Was shooting my Euroarms 53 Enfield yesterday. Was trying to work up a accurate load and was experementing with different lubes on my Minnie Bullets. So I had been shooting some with minimal lube and was getting good accuracy out of them. However the fowling with 2f was BAD. Should have known better but I just could not resist that last shot. So now I have a Minnie stuck about 20 inches into the bore. Of course I tried to seat it with the range rod But I think I only managed to deform the bullet and make things worse. So I killed the charge with wd40 and filled the bore with oil to hopefully seep past the bullet and make it's removial easier. I could not find any Zerk fittings or Schrader valves that would fit the nipple hole to use air pressure or grease to push it out. Is there any other option beside trying to put a screw in the bullet and pull it out? I can't think of one but this site is full of information. Thanks

Beating on a lead bullet just makes it a tight fit.
Next time use water. It will dissolve the fouling wd-40 won't.
You can't shoot bullets without enough lube to soften the fouling. Or a lubed felt wad over the powder.
Dan