Finally happened. Stuck a cleaning rod and patch. Really stuck.

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Kingcreek

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Well after 50 years of running various things through various bores, I did it. I bought a can of some new foaming bore cleaner copper remover and thought I would try it on my highest round count AR. Worked great. Moved on to an old Winchester model 70 .243cal that seemed to also benefit nicely.
It was getting later but I foamed my M1A and let it work a little while. Grabbed a cleaning rod I don't usually use (one of about 8 cleaning rods on my pegboard wall). Stuck a full size .30 cal patch on and gave it a stick in the muzzle end. Hmmm a little resistance right away so I gave it an extra push.
Dead stop. No movement. Stuck. Stuck hard.
Crap. I tried pushing and pulling. I must have cussed loud enough that my wife called down to ask if I was ok. Bloodied knuckles by this time.
I've learned that when I get frustrated enough I'll either get hurt or break something so I quit. Wasn't sure about leaving the product in the bore doing its chemical thing overnight so I hung the rifle muzzle down from the basement ceiling and sprayed the chamber and bore with Kroil and left it.
Next day I went back to it. Took it out to the shop and clamped the rod in a vice on the welding table. Pulled on the rifle until the welding table was going to tip.
I next made a fixture to clamp in the other vice (bench mounted) so I could slide hammer the rod into it. 3 times, each time successively harder, and it popped out.
The bore looks great. My knuckles are healing. Hope it's another 50 years before I do it again.
 
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I was seriously worried about separating the rod from the patch eyelet during the slide hammer maneuver.
On the M1A no less, where the approach is muzzle only without debarreling the receiver.
I had a bore brush on my good pro shot rod and got lazy. Instead of switching ends I grabbed another rod (mil surp) with one already on it.
 
What! No 50 ton presses and a welding jig to mig weld onto a ss rod stuck in a m700, then it ain't a story.

(Had a buddy get one stuck bad, so he welded something together to hold onto his rod, clamped it and used my press to pull it out.
I was so confused when I saw the rifle upside down in the press and the racket coming from the workroom, a six pack and my continuous laughing were payment enough)

I think everyone here has done something like that. (Not that I've done that with a Zoli Zouave .58 muzzleloader)
 
Kingcreek said:
I've learned that when I get frustrated enough I'll either get hurt or break something so I quit.
Click to expand...
Ayup, I think of that as Walk Away ... there is also a rather cruder two-word phrase sometimes expressed in the heat of the moment, but ... ;)

Return to it when you have thought it thru and your head is back in the game.

I recall (with a grin) being able to teach that to my 70 year old father when I was 40 ... after all of the many valuable "mechanical" things that he had taught me in my life. He accounted it an excellent lesson. :)
 
Kingcreek said:
Hmmm a little resistance right away so I gave it an extra push.
Click to expand...

Had a 243 bronze brush that was oversize. Could not pull it back. Had to force it thru the bore.

Bent my steel coated rod. Now i mic the diameter of the brush first.

Glad you got it out, with no damage.
 
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In my first experience with a charcoal burner I had a rod and dry patch stuck in a 45 Cherokee. I cracked the stock before it occurred to me to pour boiling water down the barrel. The dry patch now loose pulled out. The rifle wasn’t mine and I knew it’s owner would sell. I quietly bought the gun for $225 and stayed mum on the foul up.

Patches are easy enough it’s the dry balls, no powder, that worry me.
 
The ones that scare me now are the pull thru cables . I almost got a patch stuck using a Otis system .
 
I've learned that when I get frustrated enough I'll either get hurt or break something so I quit.
Click to expand...

Proof you are a very wise individual. Lots of people would have continued until they made a real mess of things before they tried to regroup.
 
this is what a whailing chair is for in a work room. when you're gong too fast and might hurt yourself or think you've broken it, or it just won't fit and you're going to apply to much force and break it or use an untested or unsafe method, you just go sit in the whailing, like crying chair, for 10 minutes and stare at the project and collect yourself. usually when I've done this, it is only a matter of minutes before the answer is clear. a couple times in 20 years, after 10 minutes I did not have a solution and walked away from it. One problem took me 2 years to find someone who knew how to do what I was trying to do - and I asked a lot of people. The guy who finally knew stated it so matter of fact, like it was obvious and it was - but, nobody actually really knew how to do it, because they had never done it, this guy had.
 
Captcurt said:
Quads?
Click to expand...

Bothers! We meet at last!
I have gauze for our knuckles!:D


film495 said:
just go sit in the wailing, like crying chair, for 10 minutes and stare at the project and collect yourself.
Click to expand...

Mine is a hot rod golf cart. A ten minute cruise around works really well.
Unless I’m working on an old golf cart...;)
 
I used to be that way. Many years of prayer and working in myself has helped me not get ramrods stuck anymore.;)
I'm still working on not getting frustrated.
 
I got a Caldwell pistol rod stuck in my S&W model 17-3 the other day. The guy at the store said “Yeah, it looks a little big, but it’s for .22s, I guarantee it.”
It may have been made for 22s and it was a little snug but what I didn’t count on was the brass adaptor at the end of the coated steel rod (I hate steel rods but bought it anyway) was canted ever so slightly.
As I pushed the “new” bronze brush in at about the halfway point, just after the end of the brass adaptor entered the muzzle, I knew I was in trouble. It was stuck. I ended up putting the revolver in a vice and forcing it gently forward with the help of a dead blow hammer and cursing under the breath patience.
When the brush exited the barrel I could not unscrew it so I had to pull the rod out with the added resistance from the brush. Getting it out was easier than getting it in.
After removal I could see just the slightest canting of the brass adaptor on the rod.

I decided to wait a week to return the rod so I wouldn’t be tempted to go off on the store clerk out of frustration.
 
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