How to plug a large diameter touch hole

[wmrike]

I'd like to know how the rest of you do it.  

My rifle guns have touch holes that are drilled with a #51 bit, if I recall correctly.  Come time to clean them, I can stuff a toothpick into the touch hole and swab away.  Alternately, there's that C-clamp thing with the plastic tube.

With a Brown Bess, the barrel is too big for the C-clamp thing, and the touch hole is too big for a toothpick.  Cleaning ends up being pretty messy.  Then this evening I was sitting on the porch and looking at a hawthorn tree and there was the solution.  Hawthorns have that continuous taper from base to tip, and will fit any sized touch hole put before them.  Cheap, too.

[Daryl]

To clean it well, you can always take the barrel off and dunk the vent=-end in a bucket of water and pump away until clean, dry and oil and that's the CLEANEST it's ever been.  Most of us do it that way EVERY time.  There is no mess, no fuss and cleaning doesn't take as long as running multiple patches down and out the tube.

It takes one to get it clean, and about 3 to 5 to get it dry - then oil and one to flush the oil up and down and wipe the outside, then reasemble. Set her on hier nose and - Done.  That's about 10 minutes at most.  If I spend 6 hours shooting her, I least I can spend 10 minutes making sure she's sparkling clean & ready for next time, be it next week or 6 months from now.

[Pvt. Lon Grifle]

Plug the touch hole with a short section of bamboo skewer.   I like wally's bamboo toothpics and skewers for such uses. They are pretty cheap and bamboo is tough. Probably better than maple or hardwood toothpicks.   Lon

[hammer]

A feather.  They come in all diameters, plug the hole perfectly, won't swell or break off.   And they are free.

Peter.   

[Roger Fisher]

A feather.  They come in all diameters, plug the hole perfectly, won't swell or break off.   And they are free.

Peter.   

A good idea and welcome to the forum.....Need more from 'over there'

[jamesthomas]

 I use a pipe cleaner. Also as my rifle is pinned I don't take the barrel off. May take a little longer and use a few more cleaning patches, but I don't mind.

[Daryl]

Two of my most used flinters are pinned as well and I don't mind taking the barrel off to get them clean. It actually takes time than cleaning the barrels on the stock and also prevents getting water between stock and barrel.

[cmac]

I use old socks for cleaning patches because they absorb a lot and  one patch closed in the pan unless I'm filling the barrel up with cleaner. Mostly I just use water with a patch anyway

[blunderbuss]

Plug the touch hole with a short section of bamboo skewer.   I like wally's bamboo toothpics and skewers for such uses. They are pretty cheap and bamboo is tough. Probably better than maple or hardwood toothpicks.   Lon

When I eat chinease food I always save the chop sticks I have a whole pile of them they're tough I use them to plug holds ,for small dowels ,stir paint thinking of making a small cross bow that'll shoot them

[54Bucks]

 Most of mine have un-drilled white lightning liners. So a round tooth pick dampened before I insert it snuggly works well. I'll also in the near future try a feather/quill to plug the vent. And I never stress pin holes or keys, tang, or stock, by removing the barrel for cleaning. Like some others I'll use more patches rather than possibly stressing any part of a slender full stock.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]