Hang fire and misfire

[frontiergander]

Remove the nipple and pump warm soapy water through the barrel. Thats all I have ever done to my sidelocks. I actually soaked mine in ballistol for a few hours today and then ran a brush down, nothing dirty came back out so that tells me the soapy water is doing the job.

 

[MEHavey]

In your observation, where is the root cause for most all the ML-FTF experiences posted to the net ?
(...by guys who believe they have reasonably cleaned their rifles)
The blogs seem to be full of them.

 

[frontiergander]

Black powder sub powders. The bulk of the granules that clogs up the powder channel and doesn't allow powder to get in under the nipple, sub powders in general that require 700-800* spark in order to reliably ignite.

I was and still am a big fan of Pyrodex. Its a great powder that's consistent and reliable but even I know now after shooting Goex for well over a year now, it is much more prone to hang fires or fail to fires simply due to the reasons above.

Sub powders also degrade. How many times have we seen, I have a pound of pyrodex or triple 7 thats 8 years old... Is it still good?

Introduce swabbing between shots and it all adds to the FTF.

 

[EljaySL]

Interesting. Having it that narrow strikes me as being a pain to clean but I guess if you have something that fits in there it doesn't really matter.

 

[MEHavey]

Agree all (`cept the damp swab between shots. Never had an FTF from that. (emphasis in "damp").

BP substitutes are another matter. When 'Range Officering' I don't know how many times
I've had to introduce 4-5 grains of 4Fg into myriad other shooters' flash channels to clear their
barrels after inumerable/useless caps.

- The real fun is when they've never ever pulled the nipples when cleaning...
- Exceeded only by "... well, I've successfully used this same Pyrodex on first day muzzle-loading
for the past ten years. `Still have half a can left and don't want to waste it...."

I usually donate the next 5-6 loads of real BP to their educational experience.
They then never fail to see the light in Holy Black thereafter.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Great pictures Frontiergander.