Ramrod wear on muzzle. Not buying it.

[rich pierce]

Good discussion. I’m not advocating for carelessness. Just surprised someone could wear a muzzle enough by loading and cleaning to really mess up the rifling at the muzzle.

Accuracy can be a delicate thing. Once a good load is worked up it’s a pain to make adjustments. As I said before my experience freshing old barrels that were pretty far gone is the basis for my questioning how rubbing iron with dirty wood removed much metal.

I’m not dismissing any examples shown that show selective wear on the land  closest to the bottom flat of the barrel. It looks real in those cases.

[Larry Pletcher]

Rich and all,
This is a good discussion, one that I didn’t see until today. I started Shooting BP back in the 70s when fiberglass rods were available. We were told they were too abrasive and would ruin a barrel. So, we used hickory and then went to stainless steel with guides for the muzzle. I have no rifle with worn muzzles, but have wondered about it.
Designing a test would be really tough. Think of all the variables you would need to deal with. I thought about making a variables list, and decided that was impossible. Let me just ask this.

Do guns that were shot leaning on a loading bench have different wear patterns than one mostly loaded in the hand? I’m not going to loose sleep over this.
Regards,
Pletch

[rich pierce]

In thinking about ramrod wear I forgot all about touch hole wear from picks. I’ve decided to be safe.

[Daryl]

LOL - I've got some of those in different sizes.

[David Price]

Larry,
I don't know if you read my posting on page two but the rifle I was talking about was leaning on the loading bench in the exact same spot every time it was loaded or wiped.  It was loaded,  fired,  and wiped thousands of times with a hickory rod.  I know the piece of barrel I cut off is in my shop somewhere.  I spent two hours looking for it today with no success. Both my son and I only use a STRAIGHT stainless steel  rod with a muzzle protector  since that happened.   I don't see this as a problem for a hunter, only a target shooter loading while the rifle is leaning against the bench, and loading and wiping  thousands of times.

If I find that piece of cut off barrel I will post a picture of it.

David Price

[Daryl]

Back in the mid 70's, I was shooting slugs (Lyman and TC) from a/the rifle I made using a .50 Bauska 36" twist barrel. I had aperture sights on the rifle & shot
mostly from the bench. I was using pre rifling engraved bullets & was loading with a fiberglass rod.  When the groups opened up to 2 1/2" @ 100yards, I would
cut 1/4" off the muzzle and re-crown it, and accuracy was restored to it's typical 1"@100yds.  This happened quite regularly at 200shots.  Yes - the bare fiberglass
(UNBREAKABLE) rod was almost like using a long rat-tailed file for loading.
At that time I was shooting a lot with double aperture sights & could easily match scoped groups when using them. Those were the days!
As to the pre-engraved bullets, I made a die out of a section of barrel & would press the bullets through it as the rifling was about .008" and I felt
obturation would not work well enough.  In use, the bullets shot much better when pre-engraved.

[Larry Pletcher]

Hi David,
It’s great to here from you. I still remember shooting the woods walk with you at Friendship. I hope you are doing well.

I read your post on page 2 and read it again. Your example of years loading from the bench with a hickory rod is what I was thinking about. My gut says that your example is the most likely one to exaggerate wear. I should say that my opinion and 50 cents used to buy you a Coke.
Regards,
Pletch

[Mike from OK]

Mike:  I think hyou may have touched on an important issue...wood contains some amount of silica naturally, and that is abrasive.  But in servicing muzzleloading rifles and pistols for serious shooters for the past fifty odd years, I have never seen a barrel worn to the point that accuracy suffered.  And I think that we shoot our ml rifles much more than they were shot in the 18th and 19th C's.

I see two things at work concerning the wear on original barrels... The first would be softer iron barrels. The second would be that most 18/19 century folk probably only had the ramrod for loading and cleaning... So that barrel may have had 20,000 shots loaded into it... That's 40,000 swipes (1 in, 1 out) for loading. But how many swipes to clean a barrel after shooting?

As for guns being shot less frequently back then... I don't know. They were a pretty big investment. If I pay a half year's (or a year's) wages for something I'm going to use it, especially if it puts food on my table. My car is a good example. It wasn't cheap and gets pretty well taken care of but I use it at least 5 days a week.I

I don't know if I'm wrong, I doubt I'm right. But that's how it looks from here.

Mike