doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Greenhorn Muzzle Load Question

Suggested reading,

Starr

Couple of miscellaneous tips (you've had some very good advice in this thread): (1) Don't put a lot of pressure on the wads once they're down on the powder. There's an old tradition to bang the rod on the wad till it bounces--don't do it. W. Greener in 1835 published his findings on this and found a wad simply touching the powder resulted in a much cleaner burning gun with noticably faster ignition. (2) If able, use bronze nipples, they don't wear the iron threads on your breech as much.

Recommended reading: W. Greener's book, "The Gun", 1835. Found at Google Books and can read online.

Good shooting! I'm envious of your WR.

The alcolhol swab method sounds interesting and well worth a try. I too am just getting into muzzle loaders with a 16 bore and an 18 bore both single barrel percussion. Lagopus.....

Note that the snapping of a couple of caps after swabbing the oil from bores is a long standing tradition among ML'ers. It is quite suffecient as long as the first shot is fired soon. My problems surfaced when hunting where I would load as soon as leaving the truck & some time might pass prior to getting a shot. In spite of my best efforts at swabbing out the bores A little oil could remain at the base of the nipple which was not reached, resulting in a misfire under those conditions, so I worked up the alternate method.

I certainly do not want to leave the wrong impression here, OldFarmer's post was a most excellent one & certainly worthy of studying for its overall excellant advise on the subject. I am just offering this one small alternative which has worked well for me over many years.

Most of what you have been told above is good, but it is very very incomplete. If you were located in the US I could direct you to a trained muzzleloading instructor from the NMLRA. I train such instructors and shooters as well. I don't know if there is a parallel organization in the UK. If there is, contact them. If not I suggest two courses of action. First contact the National Muzzleloading Rifle Association (we do shotguns too)at www.nmlra.org and request the Student handbook for Muzzleloading. I think they will send it for a nominal fee. If not contact me again and I will get one to you. Then find an experienced shooter in your vicinity to go with you to the range. (Many "experienced" shooters are self taught which means they are still learning the hard way so give greater weight to the handbook's instructions than the shooter where they vary.) After you learn the safest ways if you want to deviate,as many do, that is at your risk.

I know you are probably pretty anxious to start so the best I can do quickly is send you a couple copied pages to assist. Contact me at jvlape@cox.net so I can email the pages for you. Then if you have questions email them to me and I will help you along.

Thanks Jerry, email sent!

This may help: http://www.mlagb.com/ Lagopus.....

Yeah thanks heaps found em.

+1 on Miller's alcohol procedure. It works 100% of the time.

A couple of tips that I didn't read above (or may have missed) that I have learned over many years of shooting these BP guns, if shooting clays, doves, or any game where it is feasible. Shoot BOTH barrels before you reload. It is much more economical to reload both than just one. Of course, that isn't always feasible, so when you reload just one, and the other remains loaded, REMOVE THE CAP FROM THE NIPPLE ON THE LOADED BARREL before you even put the butt on the ground. Someone mentioned putting one thumb over the loaded barrel to prevent accidentally loading another charge in it. I use my loading rod to do this. Soon as the butt hits the ground I remove the rod from the thimbles, if using the gun's ramrod, and drop it down the barrel while I load the other. Of course, making a dedicated loading rod for casual shooting, not walk up hunting, is better. I make them by using a straight grained hickory rod and fitting an old solid brass doorknob to one end. Some of them are very nice looking and it really makes an attractive part of your shooting kit. Get a capper. It's a handy tool that holds your caps and dispenses them one at a time, making it much easier to cap the nipple as well. Big or cold fingers are not conducive to easily handling a little no. 11 cap. Tedd Cash, here in the States, makes the best ones I know of. I have used his forever with perfect results. I put it on a lanyard and hang it around my neck while hunting or just shooting.

Good luck, John. I'd like to see the grin on your face the first time you touch one off.

Stan

Henry Kranks in England are a good source of all that is muzzle loading. They will send a catalogue free of charge if you log onto their website and request one. They sell cap dispenser as mentioned by Stan. Lagopus.....