Lyman GPR cleanout screw

[J.D.]

Having a cleanout screw that is easily removable does come in handy if you ever dry-ball.

If I dry-ball and want to dump a little powder into the flame channel to shoot the ball out of the barrel it is handy to just unscrew the little "clean out" screw, dump in a bit of powder, replace it, cap the gun and "pop" the ball goes hopping down the shooting range.

Maybe I should start calling that little screw a dry ball screw?? :grin:

Dryball screw? I like that. :haha:

Don't "trickle" pydrodex and other large grain powders into the flash channel to remove a dry ball. I one helped a young kid who had a misfire. He had loaded with powder, patch and ball, in the correct order, but apparently had not cleaned the oil out of the breech.

His "friend" trickled pyrodex into the flash channel, compressing that mass of powder into a solid mass when the nipple was reinstalled. That solid mass of pyro would not take a spark,

I had to remove the "dryball" screw :bow: and pick an opening into the solid mass of pyrodex. The rifle still would not fire. The "dryball" screw had to be removed, again, and the rifle fired with the screw out. The solid mass of pyro fizzed like a large bottle rocket as the solid mass of compressed powder burned down to the main charge.

The rifle fired once the main charge was ignited.

So, a word of caution is in order when blowing out a ball or igniting a wet charge with synthetic powders.

 

[Rikeman]

HMMMM I use pyrodex and have done this exact thing with no issue. I always clear out anything that might be in the channel first then add ffg equivelent pyrodex. Maybe because I always leave enough room for the "dryball scew" to be placed back in keeps me from having a problem. Just thinking through it though, if packed pyrodex had a problem igniting, would that not hold true every time I rammed a ball down on the charge?

I am still rather new to this sport so I may just be missing something!

 

[Dave K]

IMHO, that clean out screw is not really for cleaning out as much as it is there to plug a hole that was used to machine the vent hole to the breech. Like a frost plug in an engine. I think I removed my "clean out" screw once back in 1981 or there abouts. Haven't since though. Put the breech of this barrel in a bucket of water and start working the patched jag up and down. If there are nasties in there, they will come out. Then make sure it is dry and lube it to prevent it from rusting. If you have an air compressor, blow the barrel and bore dry, then patch and lube it. It isn't that hard. :wink:

 

[tg]

I might just drill a hole down from the top of my fusil barrel and add a cleanout screw and leave the screw prowd with the slot inline with the bore, probably couldn't see the thing anyway.

 

[Zonie]

Darn! I just thought of something else that the dry ball screw is good for.

A lot of folks have bought nipples or have factory supplied nipples that have an excess length of threads on them.
I mean, their thread length may be just fine for some guns but in others they are just too long.

If they are too long, when they are screwed in place they end up blocking off most if not all of the flame channel hole.

By removing the dry ball screw and looking down the flame channel hole you can see if your guns nipple is doing this.
It's OK to have the nipple blocking off up to 1/2 of the cross drilled hole but if it is blocking off more than that you should remove the nipple and take a file to the end to shorten it a bit.

That will do a lot to reduce the number of mis-fires the gun may be having.

 

[ohio ramrod]

I have found that areo kroil beats all other oil solutions for removing rusted threads. I cleaned up a friends black powder revolvers earlier this year and found that one overnight soaking in kroil was equal to three weeks of all other penetrating oils tried.Spray on's long term anti rust spray is the best rust preventive for black powder guns I have found in over fifty years of shooting and trial and error (lots of errors )

 

[J.D.]

I might just drill a hole down from the top of my fusil barrel and add a cleanout screw and leave the screw prowd with the slot inline with the bore, probably couldn't see the thing anyway.

:rotf: :rotf: :rotf: :hatsoff: