Oh, do I need help

[Cornhusker77]

I'll admit, I'm relatively new to black powder, but I do have 3 .50 cal rifles and a .44 C&B revolver.
I've been incident free (mostly) until tonight after an afternoon of shooting my Thompson Renegade.
Cleaning it is where I ran into trouble.
I don't know if it's right or wrong, but I usually stick a patch over a .45 cal cleaning brush and it seems to do a nice job. Tonight I used some rags, cutting them into appropriately sized pieces and pumping water through the barrel.
I ran a dry patch down it to make sure the water was out and it had a little brown gunk on it so I decided to run one more "patch".
I must have cut it a bit big because it stuck about halfway down the barrel, and refused to budge in either direction.
I pulled as hard as I could and darned if I didn't pull the brush right off....not the threads but ahead of the threads.
Now I have a brush wrapped in a rag stuck halfway down my barrel.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
(I know it was a DA move, so if you feel the need to tell me so, go right ahead)

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Typical newbie manuever. I think everyone gets a brush stuck at least once. I would see if I could blow it out with highly compressed air. Pointed in a safe direction of course.

 

[Willie Sutton]

Unscrew nipple, thread in a zerk fitting, and use a grease-gun to force grease into the thing to push it out. Then all you will be worried about is getting out the grease... ;-)


Willie

.

 

[J-Bar]

Been there, done that.

I was able to put a dab of epoxy glue on the end of the rod and seat it down on the brush that was stuck in the barrel. Set it aside and don't touch it for 24 hours. That was the hard part. I successfully pulled it out after the waiting period.

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

That is precisely why jags were invented. They do not increase in diameter when changing direction. I would remove the nipple and try the compressed air trick first, the idea of pumping enough grease into a 1/2" diameter cylinder 30" or so long does not sound appealing to me. I wonder why it would stick halfway down, especially after you had already cleaned it? If the brush has pulled free from the threaded portion it might be best to remove the barrel from the stock and have a gunsmith remove the breech plug and knock it on through. I think that would be easier than cleaning up all of that grease....

 

[Crawdad1]

Oh brother, that's a tough one. I had a ball puller with the ball and patch stuck and I soaked the barrel in super hot water and was able to pull it out. But that was a ball puller not a brush. Hopefully compressed air can blow it out other than that I guess you would have to remove the breech plug or try the grease. Either way that's going to be a job.

 

[alexander45]

Looks like I need to buy a jag. You think they would put one in the starter kit

 

[Assault]

On my .50, I use a .45 jag to clean. My jag is one piece with the rod. I only use a .50 bush after I've used a few wet patches (water, Murphy wood soap, driller fluid mix). After cleaned, I run a patch of rig grease

 

[dividemt]

Are we talking a wire brush here?

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

I believe the Original Post said he uses pieces of rag over a .45 caliber cleaning brush. In my experience brush bristles that fold over when entering a bore generally do not reverse direction well as they need to expand their outer diameter to reverse direction.

 

[col.lemat]

No problem, Saw the barrel and stock off behind the plug, you still got the good half. Reason it got stuck half way is the barrel had a bulge in it.

 

[BCRider]

I've been using proper size brushes for cleaning. BUT.... I use them with a shotgun cleaning rod so that at the bottom of the stroke I can give the brush a twist which lays the bristles over to the side and lets me reverse the direction without any issue.

If you can get something similar and if you can possibly engage the wire ends into the ferrule you pulled them from you might be able to manage the same thing. A "bushing" of electrical tape wound around the cleaning rod would semi center the brush's ferrule in the bore and increase the chances of mating with the twisted stems.

Another thought would be to get a rod and drill an oversize hole in the end to catch the wire stubs. And again bush it with electrical tape so it rides in the middle of the bore. Fill the hole in the end with JB Weld or some other good brand of epoxy. Ease it in so it catches the wire ends. Now the hard part. Set it aside for at least two days to fully harden. Epoxy FEELS hard after a couple of hours. But it takes up to a week to reach it's full strength. So be patient since this is likely your only chance. Just set it aside for at least a couple of days. And the full week would be even better.

Now don't just pull straight back. Give it a good "tightening" direction turn while holding SOME rearward pressure on it. The twist will lay the bristles over and your simultaneous pull will complete the turn around and let you extract the brush.

Otherwise if the cloth patch wraps around the front of the brush then I'd go with the grease idea. Air won't work since it'll just pass through the patch and bristles. And even the grease won't work if it can't push against at least patch material.

 

[Cornhusker77]

What if I tried to burn the rag out?

 

[vagunmonkey]

There's a guy on the N-SSA sight (Bob Gorsky) that makes brush pullers for .58 & .69 caliber's. you may want to email him and see if he can make one in .50.

http://www.n-ssa.org/vbforum/showthread.php/9702-broken-brush-pullers-for-sale?highlight=Brush

I've also heard of taking a smaller brush like a .22 or .36 and trying to push it past the bristles of the stuck brush and then try "snagging" the stuck brush and pulling them both out...

 

[Steel Horse Rider]

If it is halfway down the barrel I think it would be hard to get it hot enough to burn without damaging the barrel. Maybe you could work 20 or 30 grains of FFFF powder in through the nipple hole, replace the nipple, cap and fire it in a safe direction. Either the brush will come out or it will shred the rag. Either would provide some relief for the jam.

 

[davepool]

That's what i did when i broke a brush off at the breech of my 50 cal Pennsylvania rifle, got maybe 3-5 grains in the bolster fired it into a soft pile of dirt, problem solved and lesson learned

 

[north east redneck]

Got a jag and patch stuck in a .54 once. I was out in the field and missed a shot, swabbed the bore and used too much patch. Thing wouldn't budge. Unscrewed the rod and removed the nipple. Few grains of powder in the drum, replaced nipple, capped and fired. Blew jag and patch clean out.

 

[mortonman]

You could try a Co2 discharger. Dixie gun works has them.

 

[44 Dave]

"Use powder" When I worked in an iron mine the old-timers on the powder crew told they would even put a charge under a tram car if it got stuck!

 

[Cornhusker77]

Thanks for the input guys.
I finally got it out, put about 10 grains in it and popped it right out

 

[Steve2md]

That was going to be my suggestion. A low charge of 10-20 grains and fire it into a good backstop. Problem solved and lesson learned. Glad to hear you got it taken care of