Goo wrote, "perhaps I should put marks on my ram rods," to let him know when a ball is seated. I am sure we have all done this at lease once...dry balled.So, I have two marks on my ram rods. One indicating where the bottom of the chamber is ( with a cleaning jag on the rod) and one indicating a ball seated on my minimum powder charge. I simply admit that I get distracted and some times do a dry ball. If someone starts to talk to me when I am loading, I ask them to hold off till I'm done...sometimes a bit snappy. Oh yes, I use stainless Steel rods, and always have a muzzle guard.
This leads to what do I do when I have dry balled. I use a CO2 ejector. I have found that with a long rifle, I need to clean any fouling out of the barrel to get the ball all of the way out of the bore. Fouling can make the ball stop about 3/4 of the way up the barrel.
