Ramrod wear on muzzle. Not buying it.

[rich pierce]

Ive never believed that ramrods funnel muzzles. Anyone who has rifled or freshed a barrel knows it takes a sharp tool, a lot of elbow grease, and about 3 passes to gain 0.0005” on a single groove.

If you doubt this do an experiment. Take a piece of mild steel 1/2” thick and drill a half inch hole in it. Slightly crown the hole on one side. Cut through the hole to make a u- shaped trough and precisely measure the dimension from the bottom of the trough to the edge of the steel bar. Mill it if need be to get your measurement reproducible. Clamp it in your vise. Now take a 3/8” ramrod and bearing down like a grizzly bear run the rod through the hole focusing on “wearing” one part of the circular hole. Do 10,000 strokes a hundred at a time. Measure again. Of course you’ll go through a lot of ramrods.

Repeat with fouling soaked ramrods.

If that sounds too laborious, can someone then explain this? Why are not ramrods worn through when they are wearing out and funneling the muzzle? In my experience hickory is a lot easier to wear than steel.

I think this legend comes from seeing old rifles with deliberately funneled muzzles and not knowing these were deliberate.

[smallpatch]

Amen Rich!

[JPK]

+1

[Dave Marsh]

+2 for me.....

[flinchrocket]

I can't even imagine trying to smooth up the outside of a barrel with a stick, let alone wear out the inside.

[rsells]

I agree that metal is much harder than the hickory ram rod.  The first rifle I built from scratch was a TN rifle using a button rifled barrel.  I shot the rifle for eleven years or so at least two weekends out of each month and most times it was shot a bunch every weekend.  I cut the barrel back two inches and crowned it when I built the rifle to match an original I had access to during the build.  I am not sure how many rounds were fired through the rifle, but it was a bunch.  One side of the bore at the muzzle was worn slick when I sold it to a friend.    I have no idea how many rods were used during this time frame.  I never really seen any change in accuracy or point of impact on the target, but the change was so slow that I may have not noticed the change.  All of the rounds were shot free hand in matches.  My friend wanted the muzzle end of the barrel cut back before he picked it up.  I thought the smooth area in the bore had worn slick during the loading process because of fouling and abrasive material on the rod.  I never used any type of loading rod other than hickory.  I cut the barrel back a bit to remove the smooth spot and moved on.  That rifle is still being used to date to hunt with during deer season.  My friend is not a target shooter.  The rifle was built in 1978.  I shot another rifle after this one for twelve years without any  issue.  The barrel on this rifle is a GRRW barrel. I did start using a stainless loading rod with a nylon muzzle guard with this rifle when the rifle was shot at matches other than primitive matches.  This rifle is still in use today without a similar experience.  Just an experience I had in the past.
                                                                                                     Roger Sells 

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I agree with Rich regarding the use of a hickory loading rod.  But if you substitute a fiberglass rod, all bets are off. 

[Eric Kettenburg]

I agree 100% but I wonder if the concept of this type of wear originated with martial muskets using metal rods, and then somehow morphed from there?  Because a metal rod will indeed wear the muzzle albeit over a very extended period of time.  Hickory, nah.

[rich pierce]

I agree 100% but I wonder if the concept of this type of wear originated with martial muskets using metal rods, and then somehow morphed from there?  Because a metal rod will indeed wear the muzzle albeit over a very extended period of time.  Hickory, nah.

Didn’t think of this- no doubt iron on iron would wear both!

[hanshi]

Well, I've always been skeptical of that claim, too.  I use muzzle guards on all metal cleaning rods but just let the wooden ones have at it.  Never have I experienced muzzle wear on any BP front loader I've ever owned.  It would take far longer to wear a muzzle with a wooden rod than we will ever have the time for.

[Karl Kunkel]

I thought that I had seen pictures of original wrought iron muzzles that the bore was oval or sort of egg shaped, not drastic but noticeable.  It had been attributed to ramrod wear.  I'll have to try and remember where I saw them.

[rich pierce]

Karl, I’m guessing EK nailed it-  this could happen to muskets with iron ramrods, perhaps.

[Standing Bear]

I agree that metal is much harder than the hickory ram rod.  The first rifle I built from scratch was a TN rifle using a button rifled barrel.  I shot the rifle for eleven years or so at least two weekends out of each month and most times it was shot a bunch every weekend.  I cut the barrel back two inches and crowned it when I built the rifle to match an original I had access to during the build.  I am not sure how many rounds were fired through the rifle, but it was a bunch.  One side of the bore at the muzzle was worn slick when I sold it to a friend.    I have no idea how many rods were used during this time frame.  I never really seen any change in accuracy or point of impact on the target, but the change was so slow that I may have not noticed the change.  All of the rounds were shot free hand in matches.  My friend wanted the muzzle end of the barrel cut back before he picked it up.  I thought the smooth area in the bore had worn slick during the loading process because of fouling and abrasive material on the rod.  I never used any type of loading rod other than hickory.  I cut the barrel back a bit to remove the smooth spot and moved on.  That rifle is still being used to date to hunt with during deer season.  My friend is not a target shooter.  The rifle was built in 1978.  I shot another rifle after this one for twelve years without any  issue.  The barrel on this rifle is a GRRW barrel. I did start using a stainless loading rod with a nylon muzzle guard with this rifle when the rifle was shot at matches other than primitive matches.  This rifle is still in use today without a similar experience.  Just an experience I had in the past.
                                                                                                     Roger Sells

I’ve seen the piece cut off the muzzle of a friend’s long rifle that was obviously “ram rod wore”. I don’t recall what kind of rod he’d used but No guide or  centralizer. Only a good SS rod w a guide since. Don May still be able to find that piece of barrel for pictures.  I’ll see.

[Brokennock]

I've always doubted this too. Worn smooth, as in polished, maybe, but, I doubt it. Old original guns were of softer iron than the steel used for barrels now, but, still softer than hickory. If tow is tough enough to scrape away carbon during cleaning, is it abrasive enough to wear an old school forged iron barrel, over an extended period of time?

[Shovelbuck]

I wore out the first inch or so of a CVA years ago. Used nothing but wood for a ramrod for around 10,000 shots. I cut a couple inches off and was good to go again. Of course that CVA had shallow rifling to begin with.

[alacran]

The Bevel brothers did an article in Muzzle Blasts on this subject a few years back. The article was based on an experiment they conducted. They had rigged up a machine of sorts that would simulate loading a muzzle loader.  They used rods of different materials. Do not remember all the details but I do remember their conclusion.  A wooden ramrod turned out to be the least abrasive of all the rods tested. I don't quite remember if Larry Pletcher was involved with their experiment.

[WadePatton]

I never once thought that wood wore on metal.

But that wood (or soft metals) can hold grit and that grit, embedded in the wood-not unlike an intentional cutter, could wear on metal.  Do hickory rods pick up enough grit to do that? Can they?  I don't know, I try to keep mine clean.

Haven't some barrels been reported to be worn internally from rod flexing and rubbing the lands?  Pretty sure I read some barrel maker, or someone who appeared to be knowledgeable, report this sort of thing-where he found wear well inside the barrel, not at the muzzle and that it was apparently caused by flexy packing sticks (with grit--not just wood).

I think a fellow could in fact roll a rod in sand with pressure and get some grit to stick and make some marks on steel without a lot of trouble. But this is extreme and unlikely--unless you're coastal and then you've got the added constant corrosive factor of NaCl to contend with.

Of course bamboo with that crazy silica content is heck on tools and I'm sure could be detrimental to any metal it was regularly in contact with. 

[Standing Bear]

I don’t think it’s the wood either.  I think it’s the dirt, sand and other grit mixes with oils and sweat  from the skin that in effect make a wood roof into an emory board.

[Bob Roller]

Persistent poor rod handling will wear a barrel and the abrasives are an accumulation of
grit and other hostile compounds.I have seen a lot of old barrels in Bill Large's shop that
were worn on one side from possible poor loading techniques and even crooked rods.
Seeing that many barrels in one shop today would be rare and most of the ones that Bill
had were used to reinforce a concrete addition to the front of the shop.I gave one to a man
here in Huntington to make into a pry bar.
Bob Roller

[Hungry Horse]

 An old friend got involved in muzzleloading, and like everything he does, he went at it like he was killing snakes. A firm believer in that second place in anything just makes you the first loser, he pretty much shot every day. He had a quite rare engraved stainless steel mounted Tryon plains rifle in .54 cal., and he was hard to beat. Eventually I started getting pretty close to his scores, and eventually started beating him every so often. He told me one day he thought he’d worn the barrel out on his gun. I took a look at it, and thought the bore looked a little egg shaped. With a little measuring it became pretty obvious that the bore was egged out in one spot. I told him that cutting an inch off the muzzle was the old timers cure, so since that would have put the tail of the front sight beyond the muzzle, we cut off a little more, and cut a new dovetail for the sight. Problem solved, no more getting beat by old Hungry Horse.
 He cleaned that gun with the wooden rod, but he had soaked it in turpentine, and linseed oil, to make it flexible, it also made it retain grit. This, and always cleaning the barrel in the same orientation, lapped a wide spot in a muzzleloader barrel with a chrome lined bore. So if you think “This can’t possibly happen” you would be wrong.

  Hungry Horse

[redheart]

I never thought that a wooden rod would cause any appreciable wear, but I always thought that any dust dirt or fouling on a wooden rod  in addition to using bent rod would eventually cause enough wear near the crown to affect accuracy. Rather than having to cut my barrels shorter to restore accuracy I used to carry a cloth to wipe my ramrod every few shots, but I got tired of that and now I use a range rod with a brass crown guide.  So with great sadness and remorse, as usual I'm forced reluctantly to totally agree with Hungry Horse

[rich pierce]

Could be. In science there’s a difference between correlation and causation, and experimental data needed to draw a conclusion. Have at it draw filing with dirty hickory ramrods, I say.

[redheart]

Could be. In science there’s a difference between correlation and causation, and experimental data needed to draw a conclusion. Have at it draw filing with dirty hickory ramrods, I say.

Rich,
If you're going to use it for draw filing I think you're in for the long haul. 

[Robby]

Anything rubbing against anything will cause wear, just a matter of time. If hickory in itself is incapable of braiding a rifle barrel, how come it dulls my hardened steel plane iron's, knife, and axe. C'mon!
Robby

[alacran]

Anything rubbing against anything will cause wear, just a matter of time. If hickory in itself is incapable of braiding a rifle barrel, how come it dulls my hardened steel plane iron's, knife, and axe. C'mon!
Robby

Steel or brass will wear your planes, knives and axes a lot faster. I turn hickory down for ramrods on a draw plate. Basically a hole in a plate of  steel countersunk on one side. The hole doesn't get any bigger, while the hickory gets smaller. They are turned at high speed with a hand drill. Much more aggressive than loading a muzzleloader.