tapered (belled) ramrod

[yip]

 I've made me first tapered ramrod, i hope i made it right. i need to know how they look, how the taper looks. is it a slight taper or more belled on the grip end. hope i made this clear enough.......yip        p.s. its 1/2 on the front end and 3/8 on the other

[deepcreekdale]

Others may differ but I leave the part ahead of the front thimble as thick as possible, I also make my ramrod thimbles so they go from larger at the front to smaller at the entry pipe. Then the rod is a straight taper all the way to the end. This makes the front part of the rod thicker and stronger when starting the ball and makes the ramrod less likely to hang up in humid weather. Since I usually use swamped barrels, it also makes the rifle look thinner in the middle and slightly accents the flare at the muzzle. 

[flehto]

Hard to describe  so inserted a pic....it starts as a 7/16 dia RR and after reducing the long part of the RR to 3/8 dia. , the straight flare is done by "eyeball" and ends up at 7/16 Dia. The flare is as long as the distance from the muzzle to the RR pipe and has a spherical radius on the end......I don't  increase the ID  of the front RR pipe....Fred

[Keb]

That looks perfect to me, flehto, so it's probably not. :/