Entering into the BP world

[DennisCA]

RE: http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=540006

I decided to go with new instead of used (just too many questons for me with the used gun)

Traditions Kentucky Pistol: Caliber: .50 Cal
(Not the actual gun - off the web site)

Would like some load recommendations, plus a tips you may want to pass along.
A freind of mine suggested I get the following:As a minimum, I would recommend the following supplies to get started:
.490 round balls
0.15 lubricated patches
Goex FFF black powder, or Pyrodex P black powder substitute
Ball starter
#11 percussion caps

Also when I shoot it do i clean it after each firing or how many?

Your (helpful) suggestions/comments are welcome!

[Pahoo]

Good choice and at your own pace, you can evolve from this. Other than the selections of the "paracticals", which I see no issues, you then pave to select the "particulars", to support what you have listed. ....
Bore Butter or equal
Extra nipples
Cap holder; inline or snail type
Cleaning, screw and worm jags
Bore brush and swab, Ballistol
Powder flask and calibrated measure.
Nipple picks
Throw in a flash-cup
Possibles bag
For now, forget about a loading stand.

Also when I shoot it do i clean it after each firing or how many?

Your new Kentuckian should come with a manual that has loading data, along with lots of good information, including cleaning. At the range, I clean between groups of rounds; some clean after each. When you get home, give a thorough cleaning. Don't wait till tomorrow.

Have fun and;
Be Safe !!!

[maillemaker]

Also when I shoot it do i clean it after each firing or how many?

Experience will tell you how many shots you can get off in between cleanings before accuracy falls off our loading becomes too difficult.

I have never shot patched ball so I don't know how that goes but with minnie balls I can pretty much shoot indefinitely when using good powder like Goex. Crummy powder like Shuetzen fouls much quicker.

Steve

[Rigmarol]

Congrats on the new pistol!

The world is full of suggestions here's some of mine:

Powder flask to hold your powder ready, don't use the bottle it comes in.

Powder measure to pour powder from the flask to get an exact charge load.

Never pour powder from your flask or your storage bottle. Think of a spark floating up and setting off the flask! (I've never heard it happen but it makes sense enough to me.)

Nipple pick to clear any fouling blockage.

A nipple wrench to remove the nipple without buggering it up. A proper wrench will give itself up before tearing up the nipple, you will eventually have more than one.

Cleaning jag, brush, non marring rod. I like two rods with a brush and jag on each to avoid changing them over and over.

Capper for easy capping, I like the snail capper personally but the inline capper should work and is cheaper usually. You'll probably end up with both anyway.

Ballistol is great, I've just recently discovered it. A few squirts or light spray will work very well as a pre-soak for cleaning when you get home. I've actually been a bad boy and left my guns for a whole week with Ballistol on them and they cleaned up just fine with soap and hot water when I was able to get back to them. Good stuff.

Never leave your gun dirty without at least pre-soaking with whatever you find works for you. I've had guns rust after only an overnight lapse.

The need to clean at the range will be dependent on your fouling control. If yo can keep the fouling soft enough to load the patched ball then keep going. If it gets tough to load, time to clean. Bring your cleaning kit and extra water if water isn't available where you shoot.

Disassemble your nipple every time you clean. A good technique for muzzle loaders is to take the barrel off, take the nipple off soak it, submerge the nipple end of the gun in hot soapy water and with a jag and patch "Pump" water in and out of the open nipple hole back and forth to get it nice and clean. You shouldn't need the brush unless you have some hard fouling or leading which can be address in how you load later. But if you have good fouling controls you should only need a jag and patch.

Dry, and lightly oil and you are good.

Exciting!!! I hope to hear how it shoots for you soon!!!

[wittzo]

Get some anti-seize compound to put on the nipple's threads the first time you remove it. It will keep it from getting stuck and make it easier to remove for cleaning.

[kwhi43]

Go with what your friend suggested . Powder charge, try 25-35 grs, either
FF or FFF will work fine.

[Sure Shot Mc Gee]

Absolutely the best way is always a brand new purchase. Now all you have to do is find some time and a place to shoot. Curious now as to the distance you intend to start shooting out too DennisCA? Hopefully you'll post that first target for our viewing. Should be worth at least a thousand words as its said._

[Doc Hoy]

Mykeal related an incident he witnessed in which a flask of some sort exploded when the shooter went directly into a muzzle loading long arm. I don't remember him saying what kind of flask, nor the nature of the injuries.

This is very dangerous and accidents have happened.

Revolvers are slightly different but even that should be avoided unless ALL of the extra precautions are taken.

[Pahoo]

Never pour powder from your flask or your storage bottle. Think of a spark floating up and setting off the flask! (I've never heard it happen but it makes sense enough to me.)

I have seen it happen once and heard many accounts of such. I know that the NMLRA and Friendship, forbids it. .....

If you do a historical search, in here, you will find an account of a fella who almost lost an arm. The details escape me, for now ??

Be Safe !!!

[Doc Hoy]

I did as much research as I could think of about a year and a half ago.

I was looking specifically for instances of mishaps while loading directly from a flask to a recently fired revolver with the cylinder taken out of the revolver.

I was able to find no instances of such a mishap. CVA did not know of any. NRA had no record of any. Both recommended avoiding the practice which is no surprise given the exposure they would face if something happened to go wrong. Also no surprise it is part of the rules at sanctioned events. At that time, no one on this forum had heard of or witnessed it happening (loading a revolver with the cylinder taken out). Possible someone has seen it happen with the passage of the eighteen or so intervening months.

Loading a recently fired muzzle loading single shot pistol or rifle is an entirely different matter. All kinds of stories both documented and not documented are out there.

For anyone who shoots I recommend against the practice unless you completely understand the risks involved and are willing to take the potential consequences.

[Pahoo]

Loading a recently fired muzzle loading single shot pistol or rifle is an entirely different matter. All kinds of stories both documented and not documented are out there.

Doc, the one I was referring to was the one involving a long-gun and not a revolver. The guy almost lost his arm and the thread was full of other instances. We teach that regardless of what you are loading, you never load directly from a flask. Other than chain firing, I can't don't recall any serious accidents involving a C&B. ....

Be Safe !!!

[maillemaker]

I have seen (well, heard) cook-offs at N-SSA competitions. My team commander has had it happen to him twice.

I heard it when I was on the firing line. I could not see it as it was down the line from me with another team. But the sound is unmistakable. Big whOOOSHPUT! sound.

Some people think it has something to do with the kind of lube you use but others, and I tend to agree, believe it is a result of incomplete cleaning, particularly using a bore scraper to scrape the carbon off the breech face. If you do not do this you will end up with a coke buildup on the face of the breech that, during rapid fire, can start to glow like an ember. This can generate a cook-off.

I have also heard of the possibility of ill-fitting breeches that end up with a gap between the face of the breech and the start of the rifling. This ring gap can likewise fill with fouling and is almost impossible to remove without removing the breech. It can also start to glow.

So cook-offs can and do happen when putting powder down the barrel. Whether it has happened while putting powder down the barrel from a flask is another question.

But cook-offs are a real issue especially in rapid-fire shooting and so it is probably not a good idea to load from a flask or other large powder source.

Steve

[Doc Hoy]

Yep I agree with you. And no more pertinent precaution is out there than not loading a hot front stuffer while holding quarter pound of explosive in your hand and close to your face.

I want to emphasize though that I was referring only to revolvers loaded with the cylinder out of the revolver using a press. (The way I always shoot.)

I don't shoot CAS or N-SSA and I shoot and load very slowly. I look into the chamber (which I can see very well since it is out of the revolver.) I almost never shoot more than about sixty rounds with a given revolver and I clean after about three of four shots from a chamber. If I see anything whatsoever in the chamber I stop and clean it out. (blow it out, swab it out, pick it out, dump it out)

I never load a single shot front stuffer from the flask because I don't own any single shot front stuffers. But if I did, I would load probly from a telescopic measure.

[maillemaker]

Yeah it's hard to imagine a cook-off situation with a revolver. They are so slow to load it's hard to imagine any ember staying around, and they are also much easier to clean and visually inspect so it's hard to imagine any coke build-up in the chambers.

There was some problems historically with consumable cartridges leaving debris in the chambers, and if you are using some kind of consumable cartridge it might be a good idea to run a damp patch in the cylinders between loadings.

I always have my ammunition made up in little "cartridges" using rubber cap tubes full of pre-measured charges of powder so I would never be measuring out powder on the line.

Steve

[B.L.E.]

In over 30 years of attending muzzleloading shoots, I have not seen a single cookoff during loading, but it only has to happen once. However, it's a good reason for between shot cleaning. I usually run a damp cleaning patch downbore before reloading.
With muzzleloading shotguns, I don't clean before charging the gun but there's a walk back to the loading table to put some time between the shot and the loading.

[Hawg]

I saw a 6 lb. Napoleon cook off once. Same thing, bigger scale.

[B.L.E.]

Isn't it a strictly enforce rule for cannon crews to wet swab the bore before reloading?

[Hawg]

Yes and I don't know what happened. They do not dip the sponge in water every time so maybe it was too dry or maybe he didn't go all the way to the bottom. All I know is when he rammed the charge in it went boom and the ramrod went sailing off to the Confederate lines and the rammer went sailing off to the hospital in an ambulance.

[maillemaker]

Here's me helping run a cannon crew a couple of weekends ago at our group's N-SSA skirmish:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnKZOcoZXz0

I don't know much about cannons - I just got pressed into service again to be the trigger man. It's fun to operate a crew-served weapon where every person has to do their job at the right time to make the gun operate.

They run a wet sponge down after each shot. Also the charge is wrapped in aluminum foil. A prick is put down the vent prior to placing the friction primer to open the foil.

Steve

[44 Dave]

paterson flask.JPG
What about Colt's Paterson flask, by the time you pull the cylinder there could not be a spark any where!
And it charged all cylinders at once!

[maillemaker]

It all comes down to how confident you are that there is no smoldering ember in the chamber.

Steve

[Snyper]

Regardless of "embers' you shouldn't pour directly from most flasks into a barrel simply because it's not possible to get ACCURATE measures of the powder.

The one exception would be metered flasks with a tube spout which always dispenses the same amount

[B.L.E.]

The National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (NMLRA) and nearly every black powder shooting club that's sanctioned by the NMLRA forbids charging firearms directly from the powder flask. I sometimes use a flask with a measuring spout to measure charges but I dump the charge into an empty rifle cartridge and then transfer that charge into the muzzle. When shooting my .36 caliber rifle, an empty .223 case used as a powder measure is just about perfect, in fact, I have not found a more accurate load than that measured by a .223 case.
There is a separate thread in this forum about using empty cartridges as powder measures and how much powder various cases hold.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=432112

[Chestnut Forge]

I bought a flask with a 30gr spout. Perfect for loading .44s, right? And for the walker just tip it twice. The other day I finally checked it with a measure. It throws just shy of 25gr. Not a big deal to me, just means my loads ar a little light. Plus It saves on powder.

[B.L.E.]

I bought a flask with a 30gr spout. Perfect for loading .44s, right? And for the walker just tip it twice. The other day I finally checked it with a measure. It throws just shy of 25gr. Not a big deal to me, just means my loads ar a little light. Plus It saves on powder

Were you measuring actual black powder or BP substitutes?

The substitutes are less dense, which is why they should be measured by volume and not by weight. You can weigh them as long as you understand that when the manuals recommend a given number of grains, they don't mean it literally. They mean the amount of volume that a black powder charge of that weight would have taken up.