Ramrod wear on muzzle. Not buying it.

[John SMOthermon]

I have read these posts and have come to the conclusion no-one is taking into account the fine dust, dirt and abrasive material on our hands transferred to the ramrod as we clean the bores. And yes you do leave particles on your ramrod unless you wash your hands every time before you use the rod. If at any time you believe it will not wear the bore at some degree then you don't believe jb bore paste, comet cleanser, valve lapping compound, diamond paste ect. won't do their job either. Just saying abrasives wear and they imbed into the wood and work on the metal long before the wood gets worn. the gent talking abt. wooden farm implements is spot on!! About thimble wear, one only removes and inserts the rod not slides it back and forth so they don't see as many moves in a cleaning cycle as the bore, therefore less wear.
coupe

That's exactly what I was talking about...
 
The oils from our hands being transferred too the rod causing sand or grit to become embedded.
Not to mentioned some finishes applied to the rods attract and hold debris like glue.

[hanshi]

Muzzle guards are used on all my range/cleaning rods & short starters but I don't put them on the wooden rods.  All my cleaning is done with a metal range rod.  As a part of the cleaning process I pay attention to the wood rod and clean it same as the stock.  The metal cleaning rods are continually wiped clean as I use them.  70-plus% of the loading is done with the wood barrel rod.  The prb are tight but rarely pose any difficulty being seated by a hickory rod; That's a prime requirement for me.

[WadePatton]

I do quite agree that hickory (or any other common rammer wood) itself doesn't wear any metal at all, same as the paper sheets underneath the glued-on oxides for sanding purposes doesn't wear on anything.  Both of them only hold the substances that do the cutting.

Ever run your hand across a wooden railing or handle that's had 75 or 100 years of service, with very few if any refinishes?  It's smooth, smooth like butter if it's like the ones I've experienced*.  It's way easy to see the effect on an object that gets handled more at one place and less otherwise. Human skin, even calloused, is softer than wood but it was hands that provided that polish on the wooden surface. It just takes time and a little bit of contamination.  Perfectly clean hands wouldn't polish wood, same as a perfectly clean rammer wouldn't polish or reshape a muzzle.  Problem is we and our rammers are rarely so clean. 

*I have to retell this one once again, sorry if it's a an old story already: When surveying one day we had the opportunity to enter an old barn. The interior doors didn't have handles of any sort on them but a single hole about 1.25" (30mm) across, without a thought I poked my finger in that hole and pulled the door open.  I was immediately shocked by the absolute fantastic smoothness of the inside diameter of the hole and the wood around it.  How many 10's of 1,000's of times had a finger or glove (soft but dirty) been poked into that hole? A million?

Unfortunately I didn't take pics or measurements--that hole could have been worn wonky too!      But I'll never forget how silky slick it was. And knew immediately that no furniture maker had polished it out, that it was made that way completely unintentionally.

[Dennis Glazener]

Was going to keep quite but wouldn't the carbon left from powder residue act as a lap and wear soft steel (12L14) over time.

Dennis

[Huckleberry]

Any thoughts on the effect of short starting the patch and ball?  I use much more force to start the patch and ball on an unrelieved barrel than ramming home with the rod.

[Daryl]

The muzzle of my .69 shows wear in one groove. It is visible in this picture. This is from loading with both steel
and hickory rods. mostly hickory.
You can see the groove worn, just to the left of one land & in the centre of all of the other grooves.  This has not
seemed  to reduce the accuracy - yet. It was caused by close to or over 5,000 shots fired since 1986 along wth cleaning.
Most of the cleaning was done with either (drill rod) 3/8" steel or I with the 1/2" nylon rod I've used for about 15 years. I
 do not use muzzle protecting devices on this rifle.

i

[rich pierce]

At last, a picture!!  Thanks!

I see some wear on the land but not a hog wallow yet. Here’s to another 5000!

[Eric Kettenburg]

I can't believe this thread is still ongoing!  I'm amazed because I just checked back in after I've been spending the past two weeks working a hickory rod in and out, in and out just to test this whole kerfuffle, didn't realize it was all theoretical and I thought we were all going to be running for the rods and barrels! 

Somebody should have told me because now my right arm looks like Popeye's, I've been overly excited and my wife is extremely p**sed off at everyone here. 

 













(Sorry couldn't help myself)

[Daryl]

LOL- I did a test some time ago, using an octagonal piece of b l. - TC I think. I chucked it up it in the lathe and used different material on a single point of the octagon & made a mere 40 strokes with each material, moving along the point.
then I measured the "wear".
from memory:
All 3/8" round dia.

Nylon no wear, didn't even wear through the bluing.
Hickory - wore through the bluing, no wear on the metal.
Drill rod .0005"
Stainless Steel rod - .001"
Fiberglass .006"

[Daryl]

At last, a picture!!  Thanks!

I see some wear on the land but not a hog wallow yet. Here’s to another 5000!

At the 11:30 position in the picture, you can see the groove worn into a groove. That land is also slightly worn, but as I said, no change YET in accuracy
when I bench it.

[WadePatton]

LOL- I did a test some time ago, using an octagonal piece of b l. - TC I think. I chucked it up it in the lathe and used different material on a single point of the octagon & made a mere 40 strokes with each material, moving along the point.
then I measured the "wear".
from memory:
All 3/8" round dia.

Nylon no wear, didn't even wear through the bluing.
Hickory - wore through the bluing, no wear on the metal.
Drill rod .0005"
Stainless Steel rod - .001"
Fiberglass .006"

Yes, but where are the oxides, residues, grit, and dust of real life?   I stand by my "abrasives needed" (and commonly encountered) coupled with heavy use over time theory.

[stretchman]

Walter Cline in his book The Muzzleloading Rifle Then and Now mentions that only the softest iron made the most accurate barrels.  After barrels were welded they were annealed.  I want to say, but couldn't find it as I scanned through his book that a “good” barrel was soft enough that a spoke shave could be used to start shaping the octagonal flats. 

I think a-lot of ideas of barrel wear can be traced back to the early days of muzzleloading.  Almost all the original shotguns with Damascus twist barrels are paper thin at the muzzle.  As for as modern made guns, I really don’t see this as a problem for the average shooter.

[lexington1]

How long would it take for a muzzle to be worn like this? 

[Eric Kettenburg]

Probably no wear at all through the honeymoon, but by about 5 years in, I'll bet it was starting to wear.....

[FlintFan]

  Have at it draw filing with dirty hickory ramrods, I say.

Using wooden sticks covered with oil and abrasive grits was a common way to polish metal going back centuries.

A dirty ramrod is not that far removed, but few people shoot that much to probably have it make any difference.

[rich pierce]

A friend sent me this picture of a Sheets rifle that saw a lot of use and was converted to percussion.

[FlintFan]

Unless it is an optical illusion from the photography, it sure looks like there is an issue with the land at the 6 o'clock position.  Also, do we know how many times that barrel has been "freshed" in it's lifetime?

[rich pierce]

Unless it is an optical illusion from the photography, it sure looks like there is an issue with the land at the 6 o'clock position.  Also, do we know how many times that barrel has been "freshed" in it's lifetime?

I went in my time machine and followed it from its creation. It’s been freshed 3 times. 
Obviously that would be a factor.


I’d sure not worry about a little shine on one land. If that’s what folks are worried about I agree 100% that barrels should never be loaded or cleaned from the muzzle with anything but a freshly wiped down food grade stainless steel rod with a muzzle protector.

Anybody here ever shoot original barrels? You might be surprised at how well they can shoot though they do not look pristine. I belong to a club that has members from the early days when parts were not available and there are a lot of rehabbed original percussion guns that are enjoyed and show up on the line now and then on match day. Depending on who is shooting they compete with the spidermatics and Rice and Rayl and Getz and Goodein (spell) and Colerain and so on. Will a barrel with some shine or even wear on a land shoot inconsistently?  If so, why?

[FlintFan]

sigh....

We are talking about more than "shine".  It looks like half the land is worn away next to the groove at 6 o'clock.

Bottom line, load your rifles however you want to.  If you don't think it makes any difference I'm not going to try and convince you otherwise.

I also won't regale you with the numerous stories I have about selling replacement barrels to shooters who have worn lands down to groove depth on one side of the muzzle, and wonder why they can't hit a basketball sized target at 25 yards anymore.

[Daryl]

That's what I see as well, guys. 1/2 the land is gone.  As far as  not being able to hit a basketball sized target
at 25 yards, anymore, perhaps the passage of time, is more "telling" than muzzle wear.
I did find stainless steel rod to wear the corner of the octagon twice as much as than the tool steel (drill rod) & that
was only 40 strokes, mind you.

[Clint]

When you consider that flints wear out, frizzens wear out sears break and ram rods scrape our muzzles out of round, you might think about just hanging the rifle up on the wall. Most old blacksmith and gunsmith ledgers describe a lot of repair work and a smattering of new work. Today we can go online and order a new tumbler for a given lock or a new anything. We buy new tires new screen doors tooth brushes etc, so why do we expect our flint lock rifles to last for ever? There are different degrees of accuracy to consider, hunting accuracy 10x accuracy and combat accuracy. If 10x is your goal, consider a creedmore style with a false muzzle, or call green mountain and buy a new barrel. They will be thrilled.

[Panzerschwein]

How long would it take for a muzzle to be worn like this? 

I guess it’s made to take them little heart shape candy things with the cute notes on em? LOLOLOL

[Mike from OK]

I was reading an article (or watching a video) about sharpening my turning tools. They claimed that as trees grow they pick up various amounts of dust, dirt, grit, etc... that become embedded in the wood. And this embedded grit (along with friction) is the culprit for wear on woodworking tools.

Seems a little "out there" to me but weird stuff happens I guess.

Mike

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

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.

[Bob Roller]

I may have been the instigator of this thread and I remember Bill Large talking about funneled muzzles
from ram rod wear and also my maternal grandfather said he had seen worn muzzles caused by loading
and cleaning.Other than military muzzle loaders,what else used a metal rod and why are no Springfields
or Enfields or contract rifles found with a worn muzzle?
Bob Roller