Touch Hole Liner Issue

[flintster]

I have two custom rifles that have touch hole liners and they both tear patches and hang up on the cleaning jags to the point I can"t pull out the rod. Is  this normal and should Im just use smaller jags. The breech face scraper won"t work at all. These are both 45 cal. Anybody else have this issue?

[Dennis Glazener]

Someone installed them incorrectly. They probably are too long, if they are removable pull them out and shorten them enough to fit flush with the bore.

Or you might be able to pull the breech plug and carefully file them down to where they are flush with the bore. Be careful if the person that left them too long built the linner's into the thread of the breechplug.
Dennis

[flintster]

Thank you for the response. I thought that might be the case. I'll take care of it,.

[smallpatch]

The other possibility is that the liners are actually in the breech plug, or at least partly.
The problem being, that you may not be able to remove the plug without damaging the liner.
Measure before you try to remove the plug.

[EC121]

  The liner only has to be the thickness of the barrel wall.  More than likely you will damage the liner removing it.  Might as well verify the thread size after removal and order another.  Then cut it down to the wall thickness.  You might also order one of those $12 borescopes for a look at the installation before starting.  Search for X000OG16D.  It is a 2mpixel camera.  Until you get the parts together use a breech face brush to clean the area.  It will spread out and ride over the liner.

[David R. Pennington]

I thought I had this problem in my .40. I pulled the plug and found I just had some hard crust that had formed at the breech near touch hole. Couldnt turn the scraper past it to break it up. It was catching the patch same way. I knew I had installed liner correctly and couldn't see how it could have moved. Cleaned it up good and problem solved. I think I need to redesign my scraper so it is more like a cutter on a tumbler mill? You don't have much leverage way down the end of a rod 44 inches down the barrel to scrape out crud.

[Standing Bear]

 Search for X000OG16D.  It is a 2mpixel camera.

A little help here EC, didn't find anything with that search. Too many 0s?

I bought one but inside the bore was out of focus.  Would rather no go thru that again.
Thx TC

[EC121]

Do a search for 2 megapixel endoscope.  They are all over Amazon and Ebay, and then read the reviews.  Mine doesn't do great at looking at the bore(everything in the bore is gray), but it is good for looking at the breech.  I put Scotch tape over the lights on the edge to diffuse the glare some and left a hole in the middle for the camera.  I bought the largest diameter that will fit the bore.

[Eric Krewson]

I second the cheap scope to see what is going on. I didn't know the touch hole liner on one of my rifles was threaded into the breech plug until I took a look with my $12 (shipped free) eBay scope.

[smylee grouch]

I have had the clean patch going into the touch hole problem before too, you might be able to deepen the groves in your cleaning jag some what so more patch material can escape into them as you reverse the direction of the rod. I did that and it seemed to help some what. I just deepened the groves and not the greater diameter of the jag.

[Nate McKenzie]

The quickest and easiest fix is to clean with linen tow and a tow worm like they did back in the day.  It is quicker, easier, and does a better job than patches. The tow can be washed and used over and over.
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=24312.0

[Standing Bear]

Do a search for 2 megapixel endoscope.  They are all over Amazon and Ebay, and then read the reviews.  Mine doesn't do great at looking at the bore(everything in the bore is gray), but it is good for looking at the breech.  I put Scotch tape over the lights on the edge to diffuse the glare some and left a hole in the middle for the camera.  I bought the largest diameter that will fit the bore.

I used a 5.5mm scope in a .54, .50, and a .40 they were all out of focus but the .54 was less bad.  I could remove the lens from the bore and get good focus 3'-30' away.  I like the clarity of the pics shown and would like to acquire the same but the X000Og whatever is not to be found.  None found using your suggested search criteria gave a focus range.

[Eric Krewson]

As you can see from my picture the focus is great from an inch or so away. When I use the 90 degree mirror attachment on the camera, everything is fuzzy but you can still make out rust and even minor pitting in a barrel.

[EC121]

That is a clearer picture than I could get with mine.  Mine will focus clearly with a good  color picture outside the barrel, but it doesn't do as well as Eric's in the barrel.  There are better ones out there, but they get expensive to just look at a plug face.  Eric, what is your model number?

[Eric Krewson]

If you pull up borescope on ebay I think the one I ordered is the 4th one down on the list sold by Max-buy.