3 Reasons Muzzleloaders Fail to Discharge

As always, this muzzleloading blog is dedicated to modern, in-line muzzleloaders.  But I’ve been hunting with muzzleloaders for over 30 years, and I still have more time in a stand with a side lock than an in-line.  And I do still remember how fast a side lock will let you down in the critical moment you need it most.

Many of you reading this can recall a time like this: you’re on your favorite stand; it’s a still, crisp, quiet day and you hear something walking your way in the hardwood leaves; you reach for your semi-trusty side lock and think (if even for a moment), “I hope this damn thing goes off”.

Now there's only two reasons you would think that:

1. it’s failed you in the past or
2. you’ve had someone you know tell you about their rifle failing them, and you're letting that get in your head.

Let’s talk about the main reasons a rifle may fail.

• 1. The number one reason any firearm fails to fire is because it’s just simply not loaded, or in the case of a muzzleloader it’s not primed, or both.

• 2. Another, that’s pretty much unique to a muzzleloader is that the primer/powder or both has gotten too wet to fire.

• 3. But the most common reason among us muzzleloaders, is just poor maintenance. In other words, a lot of folks just don’t take cleaning their muzzleloader seriously enough.

All of these reasons you may notice are self-inflicted, and 100% preventable I might add.

So what are my suggestions of things to do?

First of all, pay attention. Make sure you are loaded and primed before planning to hunt. Do your loading procedure the same each time you hunt so that you have a system in place and you will be less-likely to miss a step in the loading process.   Take the time to drop your "marked" ramrod down the barrel to insure it's loaded and prime the rifle as soon as your butt hits the seat of your stand.

Secondly, 9 times out 10 when a modern in-line muzzleloader fails to fire, this is most likely where the problem lies: a dirty breech plug. (in my opinion, outside our selfs, the breech plug is the root of all evil). As much as my rifles are shot, I have a bench plug and a hunting plug. So when I get ready to load a rifle to hunt with, I screw in my hunting plug which is only used for hunting. When the season’s over, I put it away till next year. This is probably over-kill on my part because my rifles are cleaner than most, but it makes me feel good and gives me extra confidence when hunting. (I’ve written extensively on breech plugs and you can find articles all over my blog regarding this subject, but there are two specifically on cleaning the breech plug which you can see here: Part 1 and Part 2.

Naturally, the entire rifle must be clean, not just the breech plug. I have a very detailed post with cleaning instructions you can refer to: 13 Steps To Properly Clean Your Modern Muzzleloader.

Now while hunting in the rain, and I’ve hunted in some real down pours, I make efforts to keep the receiver under my rain gear. Beyond that I really haven’t found reason to do anything more. Course, after hunting in a real heavy rain all day, I choose not to tempt fate and will reload my rifle with a fresh load that night. But if it wasn’t pouring and I was sensible with my rifle, I leave the load in the barrel. (Maybe you’ve seen my extreme demonstration of a wet rifle in a pool in my CVA Accura video?)

It’s really not that difficult to have confidence in your modern muzzleloader’s ability to fire when you pull the trigger, these rifles are extremely accurate and dependable when properly maintained.

Keep your muzzleloader clean, shoot them enough to trust your load components, be sensible in the rain, and they will not fail you.

Breech Plug Cleaning Part 2: How I Do It

As promised I’m going to show you how to get your breech plug spotless, quickly and easily. Now it won’t be as fun as getting dirty or as quick, but it is what it is.
Here is what you’re going to need:

     •    Q-Tips (I like the long ones)
     •    pipe cleaners (I like the extra-adsorbent type)
     •    brass toothbrush
     •    1/8 inch brass or stainless steel tube brush (SS is the best)
     •    drill bit (either 1/8 or 3mm, depending on what rifle you're shooting)
     •    welding torch cleaner
     •    steel wool (OO is best, but any will do)
     •    cleaning solvent (course, I like MAX Cleaner)
     •    penetrating/lubricating oil  (ditto, MAX Conditioner)
     •    canned air
     •    rag

(seems like a lot, but we use this stuff for other cleaning chores already)

As soon as you start cleaning your rifle, remove the breech plug first, spray it with cleaning solvent and leave it for last.  Get it soaking. Carbon is hard and we need it to soften up.

When your rifle is clean, go to work on your breech plug.  To begin, twist the proper drill bit clockwise into the fire channel.  Just 2 to 3 turns and it’s done all it’s going to do.  You're done with that. 

Point the powder end of the plug up and spray more cleaner in the fire channel to flush some of the junk out.

Turn the 1/8” SS or brass tube brush into the fire channel, turning it around 6 to 8 times; now you’re really cleaning!  Carbon cannot survive what this brush has to offer. 

Spray some more cleaner in the hole, again holding the plug upward.

Now to clean one of the hardest areas, the transition area of the flash hole and the fire channel.

Pull off two small pieces of steel wool and twist them into long pieces that can be pushed into the fire channel.

Start one in the hole and then push it down to the bottom with your drill bit or you can use the end of one of the long handled Q-Tips. Turn the steel wool around in the hole 6 to 8 times.  I repeat this process a second time, then you're done with that.  The steel wool will be stuck in the Fire Channel, but not for long.

Next, take your welding torch cleaner and put it in the flash hole from the powder end.  Scrub the sides of the flash hole and when it’s clean, push the steel wool out the fire channel with the torch cleaner.  Steel wool is good stuff and also does a good job inside the powder cup on the face of the plug when carbon’s playing hard-to-get. 

Now take your steel wool, if needed, and scrub the inside of the primer pocket hole. Most of the time just a Q-Tip and a little bore cleaner will do the job here. 

Now spray a little cleaner all over the outside of the plug. Take your brass toothbrush and scrub the entire outside of the plug and scrub it good. 

Flush the plug again, inside and out with bore cleaner. 

Now take a pipe cleaner and soak it with bore cleaner then run it back and forth in the fire channel 5 to 6 times. Repeat with the other end of the pipe cleaner if needed. If it don’t come out clean the first time, it will the second.

Now take your rag and dry the plug off as best you can, then use your canned air and finish drying the plug, inside and out.

After drying, follow the steps in Part One of this article (Breech Plug Cleaning Part I: Why & What You Need) and you're good to go.  One perfectly clean, ready-to-go breech plug!

Something noteworthy if you're cleaning a TC plug that has a rubber O-ring:  If you are using a solvent-based cleaner, it’s best to remove the O-ring because some of these cleaners can swell the rubber making it useless. The brass toothbrush won’t help it a lot either. Just a tip. Also clean around the gas rings in this type of plug good. When dry, these rings should rotate freely around the grove they fit in.

This process only takes about five minutes and like I said, it’s as clean as the day it was born.

Muzzleloading is all about a process; learn the process, do it the same every time and you will always get the desired results.  In this case clean.

Breech Plug Cleaning Part I: Why & What You Need

Several issues have been brought to light by the newer and more improved (yeah right) breech plugs. 

First ignition, or the lack of, and what to do about it has, without a doubt, been the biggest.

Second, I think we can all agree, has been the cleaning of it.  And the clean part really applies to all breech plugs, not just the new and “improved” ones.

Shooting as much as I do has given me quite a bit of time and opportunity to reflect on the matter in a practical, hands-on kind of way.  I’m going to tell you in two parts what I’ve learned and what I’ve done about it.  I’ve been a problem solver most of my adult life for one issue or another and it’s not just a simple deal for me.  I mean, I can look at a problem and in almost any case, and come up with a fix almost immediately.   Oh but I can’t stop there, oh no.  I’m a “cause and effect” person, just a simple fix and go on your way is just not an option for me.  Sometimes I wish it were.  So here’s what my “cause and effect” sickness has taught me about breech plug cleaning:

First, burnt powder residue (let’s call it carbon) is going to build up in the fire channel, that’s a fact.  To be honest with you though, once we get off the bench and in the woods, who cares. Mine is spotless when it counts and I’m sure yours is too.  Anyway, I think we can control to some extent how much carbon builds up and at what rate.  If we can control the rate, then we somewhat control how much.

To start with, the inside wall of the fire channel is not that smooth, it is a little rough from the machining process.  Just think about running a cotton ball across a piece of glass and then a piece of sandpaper.  It’s not that rough, but you get the idea.  This carbon also builds up quicker sticking to its self than it does to a smooth surface.  So once there’s a layer of carbon on the inside of the flash channel it’s like rabbits multiplying.

Here’s what I do now prior to shooting.  I think it helps with reducing the amount of carbon build-up over a shooting session and I know it makes the cleaning process easier at the end of one.  What I use is a good penetrating oil/ lubricating oil and a pipe cleaner.  There are a lot of super lubricates on the market that penetrate your guns' metal, lubricates and all but disappears, but it’s still there.  I (of course) like our MAX Dead On Condition, but there are others.  Miltech is also a good one.  

Saturate one end of the pipe cleaner and run it back and forth in the fire channel a few times.  Then rub the pipe cleaner all over back of the breech plug to include the primer cup, anywhere you get carbon build-up.  Let it set five minutes or so, put a good coating of breech plug grease on the threads, install and start shooting.

Back to the part about it building up or sticking to itself quicker:  First, the above process will slow the  build-up somewhat because carbon won’t stick to well-treated metal as well.  But if you start shooting with a breech plug that has any carbon, even the smallest little bit that was left behind from the last cleaning, it will start building up on those spots first.  Another bad thing about not getting all that carbon out every time, is the problem of rust and corrosion; that will certainly give carbon a place to build-up.  It’s hard to get all that carbon out of that little hole and no one makes a tool that does a perfect job; one does not exist.

In Part 2, I will show you how to get a breech plug SPOTLESS, every time.  I will show you how to do it quick and with little effort.  Your breech plug will be as clean as it was the day it was born. And the best part is that you most likely already own most of what you need, and if you don’t, it's  pretty easy and cheap to get.

Can you tell I have the “cause and effect” sickness?

3 Things to Look at in Breech Plug Primer Pockets

Last in the series on breech plugs is the area where the ball starts rolling, the Primer Pocket. This little area is often over-looked but can tell us a lot about what is happening with the components of the loads we are working with.

This pocket is simply the recess in the breech plug where the primer sits. In all the breech plugs I’ve measured, there is very little variance from one manufacturer to the next. The best plan would be for the primer to fit this pocket as tight as possible. But being that we are using a primer that’s designed for something else (shotgun shells) and we’re using it for something other than that, that’s just not going to happen. As we all know, when 209 primers are put in a shotgun shell, they have a tight friction fit in the primer pocket of the shell. They are put in the shell with a press and removed by a press. In fact, at times shotgun and metallic case primers are so hard to remove that de-capping pins can break while removing them.

With all that said, the fit of the 209’s in a breech plug primer pocket is sloppy in comparison to the way it fits in a shotgun shell. It has to be in order for us to be able to get the darn things out after the rifle is fired. But this loose fit adds to a little issue we know as blow back. It was hard to write this article without getting into blow back issues too much because blow back is really its own topic, and there will be more coming on that headache later.

With the primer pocket, there were three areas I looked at:


          1) The Diameter
          2) The Depth
          3) And what the Length of the primer has to do with the head space, blow back and fire delivery.

First: the Diameter. The diameter is what it is and there wasn’t a lot of difference in that dimension between any of the manufactures. The CVA has a little looser fit than TC or the new BH209 plug.

The diameter of each is:


          CVA - .248
          TC - 245
          BH- .245


Our main concern with this dimension is how it relates to the diameter of the primers we put in in the hole. For the past few weeks I’ve started working with and testing primers much more in depth than ever before. The first thing I done was to measure all brands and types from top to bottom. I’m going to share all the information about the primers at a later time, but for now I just wanted to show you two of primer dimensions.  As it relates to the diameter of the primers, .238 was the smallest and found in 13 types all the way up to .244, the largest found only in Fiocchi 209’s.

During my primer test, removing the fired primers was not a problem, as expected, but lets wait and see what happens when I put about 100 gr. of juice in front of them later. I’m betting something is going to change with that.
 Second: The Depth.  Depth is next and in my opinion a big factor in both accuracy and making the rifle go bang. This is where we start getting into a little thing called Head Space. Now there’s going to be a few opinions out there about where head space lies on a muzzleloader, and I’m not going to say that my findings are the final answer, but I think it’s a good one and practical.

I’ve been reloading rifle ammo for 30+ years and I’m well aware of what head space is and where it’s checked on the different rifles and types of cases, but it’s a little harder to get a grasp on and control over with a muzzleloader. One reason for that is because of the difference of the length I found in the 13 different primers I’m testing. This dimention is much more critical than the diameter.  Let me show you what I’m talking about with a few measurements I’ve taken.


Primer Pocket Depth:

          CVA QRBP - .221
          BH 209 - .200
          TC Speed Breech - .200

Third:  Primer Lengths.  The longest primer measured was .302 and the shortest was .290. That’s a difference of .012 between the 13 different types, and that’s a lot when it comes to head space and how it translates to blow back to us muzzleloaders. In head space world that’s about 1.69 miles.


The way to look at it is like this; the longer the primer, the less travel space the primer has to the rear when the rifle is fired, therefore the less blow back we have and we have more fire going down the fire channel. The shorter the primer, and we can expect just the opposite.

Now the other part of head space is how close the back of the primer is to the frame or breech of the rifle. In TC’s, Bellm Custom has a set of shims that can be placed between the frame and the firing pin block. What this does is to move the firing pin block closer to the face of the primer. In CVA’s, I’ve read and been informed several times about using a larger “O Ring” behind the firing pin block. I’m sure this works because the new ring is thicker and will take up the gap between the block and the primer. One of the problems with doing this is that if you use a solvent based cleaner, the O Ring will swell and weaken and need to be replaced more often than metal shims. Just like the O Ring on the TC plug needs to be replaced when using these types of cleaners. I’m working with a company now to come up with a shim set for CVA rifles. I know that part of the purpose of the O Ring is to keep blow back out of that firing pin area, but to tell you the truth, that little ring really don’t do a great job of keeping that area clean anyway.

The problem with moving the block of either rifle closer to the primer is that if you want to try another load and use a shorter primer, you have to start all over again because the fit will be loose again. Another problem with moving this block is that you can move it to much and the rifle won’t close. The very first Pro Hunter with the new Speed Breech I put on my range had the problem of not closing with the Winchester Blue Box 209’s. That was only because those primers were longer than others. I’m sure a lot of you may have had the same problem.

Below is a list of the head space that I found from the primer to breech plug fit only, it has nothing to do with the primer to the face of the breech head space at all, but its all relevant, and  good to know.


These measurements were found by putting an un-fired primer in the primer pocket. Then I laid a 5/16 brass punch pin across the back of the breech plug and over the primer. I then used a set of feeler gages to measure the gap between the face of the primer and the back of the breech plug. 

As these measurements will show, the CVA plug has a little looser fit than the other two.

The TC has a tighter tolerance in this area and this is one of the reasons that TC’s have no problems with igniting BH209.


Out of the two dimensions I’ve talked about, the depth of the primer pocket is the most critical and there’s two things we can do that will help 1) be mindful of the primer we’re putting in it and 2) move the firing pin block.

The length of the primer at the end of the day is what makes the difference. I’ll have an entire article about primers coming soon. I’ve been surprised about what I’ve found so far and I believe you will be too. I can tell you for a fact that the fit and type of the primer we use has a lot to do with ignition and accuracy.


Out of all this Breech Plug issue and talk these are the four things that will help the new longer breech plugs ignite BH209, and all powders:


          1) The face of the breech plug having a nice dished out shape


          2) The primer fitting as tight as possible to the bottom of the breech plug primer pocket during firing.


          3) A nice transition area from the fire channel to the flash hole.
     
          4) a good quality primer (more on that soon)


Longer is not better, but it can be dealt with.


I’m not sure what’s next because I’m working so much good stuff. I’ll get one thing on my mind and then something else takes over!! If there’s something ya’ll want to know about, let me know and if I have it ready, I’ll do it and if not, I’ll look into it.

Breech Plugs: the Flash Hole & the Face of the Plug

It's been pretty hard to break the Breech Plug down into six features and talk about them each independently....

1. The Primer Pocket
2. The Fire Channel - that hole between the primer pocket and flash hole.
3. The Transition Area - the area that connects the fire channel to the flash hole.
4. The Flash Hole
5. The Face of the Breech Plug
6. QRBP: the Length - and this is what has been the driving force in causing us to have to pay more attention to the other five features.

So one GOOD feature works with the the next and so on and so on, but one bad one in the mix...refer to the bad apple story we've heard all our lives.  But the best way I found for me to understand where the problems were was to break it down and look each feature.  At the end of the day, everything is relative.

And one bad apple....

To begin:  the Flash Hole

Only two things to look at here: 
     1.  Diameter
     2.  Length

Diameter seems to be a big topic in the industry.  You'll find conversations on blogs and forums all over the internet about this small, but pertinent hole.

Most of us want to make it larger, but others are fine with it the way it is.  I'm one of those guys.  Many have found that making it larger, especially in the case of the CVA Quick Release Breech Plug, does not necessarily fix an ignition problem.  So in some cases, bigger is not better.

Flash Holes seem to run from around .026/.028 all the way (with our intervention) to .035.  Why then do some work flawlessly at .026 and others fail at .035?  For the answer, it's as simple as going back to the bad apple story.  One breakdown / flaw in the fire flow from primer to powder and the bad apples wins.

Just what should the diameter be?  From what I've seen in testing, smaller is better if it works.  Reason being is because in most cases, a larger Flash Hole opens the door for more blow-back (same as blow by, I call it blow back).  There are cases where this is not true, but there are a lot of factors that determine how much un-wanted blow-back a larger Flash Hole can cause, or not.

One manufacturer tells me they're worried about increased pressure levels on the frame at the firing pin / breech face on alloy frames from the larger holes.  If they're concerned, I am too.

The next factor with the Flash Hole is it's Length. 

In the case of the Thompson Center Speed Breech XT, that hole is .150 +/- and the CVA Quick Release Breech Plug is .138 +/-0.  Which one is optimal?  Well, again - all things are relevant and everything this hole sets between matters.  From what I've seen, the length of this hole is not a huge factor if everything else is right - with no bad apples.

Now comes what I've called "the Face of the Breech Plug", which I'm going to call the Powder Pocket from here on out. 

In my opinion, a breech plug that has a Powder Pocket or one that doesn't have one is a big factor.  The one that HAS a recess to hold powder will always have my vote. 

One of my readers has asked why I haven't mentioned the Omega Breech Plug and so for him, I have now.  It is one of the most trouble-free factory breech plugs available, always has been.  In large part, I believe because of the nice powder pocket design (and it is shorter).

I like this Omega pocket for two reasons.

          1.  the powder seems to be exposed to more fire as the fire exits the Flash Hole
          2.  it moves the powder closer to the primer

This pocket is one factor that allows the Thompson Center Speed Breech XT to out-perform the CVA Quick Release Breech Plug for reliability in ignition.

Whoa there, hold on!  Hear me out and look at the photo of the two side by side.  At first glance, it looks like the CVA breech plug should have less problems than the Thompson Center, I mean, it is a lot shorter.  A closer look shows this:

The difference between the two breech plugs is that the Thompson Center has to deliver it's fire .434 further than the CVA.

So with all that said and keeping in mind that neither have great transition areas, why does a much longer, Thompson Center plug out-perform the much shorter CVA plug?

     1.  The Thompson Center's Fire Channel is a larger diameter

     2.  The Thompson Center plug has a much more defined Powder Pocket.

My vote goes to the Powder Pocket being the most important contributing factor here.

The reason?  I believe the fire is delivered in a much more efficient manner due to the Powder Pocket design.  The CVA plug is obviously designer to shoot pellets and it does a great job with those, if that what you choose to shoot (but we wouldn't be talking about this if it were, now would we).

The new plug that Western Powder has designed has a very deep Powder Pocket.

When I write the article on that plug, I'll tell you more about it (dimensions, etc) but the reason it's so deep was to overcome the added length.  It puts the powder around the same distance from the primer as the old-style , shorter plugs (namely the good ol' Thompson Center Omega plug!).

Just for the heck of it, I've thrown in some photos showing the above powder pockets full of powder:

For those of you not familiar with the CVA Quick Release Breech Plug, the shoulder you see around the top is not a Powder Pocket.  That shoulder is part of the plug design that allows it to  seal the plug to the barrel and keeps fowling from getting into the threads.  For that purpose, it's an excellent design, as you will never find fowling in these threads and can always get the plug out by hand.

In closing this segment, I believe the Powder Pocket is a bigger deal than the diameter or length of a Flash Hole.  Just as long as there's no bad apples in the mix, cause we all know that all it takes is one....

Watch for the last segment in this Breech Plug series: The Primer Pocket coming in a few days. 

Till then, An Apple a Day (cleaning, cleaning and more cleaning) Keeps the Breech Plug Doctor Out of a Job!!!



Quick Release Breech Plugs: the Fire Channel & the Transition Area

Continuing our breech plug discussion, the next topic in this series will be on the Fire Channel and the Transition Area.  Both work together (or should) so I couldn't really talk about one without including the other and really, they should be considered one in the same.

What I mean by "one in the same" is that I believe the Fire Channel should be just that, a channel to carry the fire all the way down the channel and into the Flash Hole.  But as you'll see in this article, on the most part, they are two separate things:  a Fire Channel and a Flash Hole. 

There really is no Transition as I see it, and I hope I can do a good job showing why I say this with my arts & crafts skills....

First, the Fire Channel.

As I talked about in my last post QRBP: the Length, today's breech plugs are longer.  But they all seem to lack having any noticeable Transition Area.  Because of this, there are three areas for us to take note of :  Diameter, Transition Area and the Cleanliness Factor.

Diameter:
The only two diameter's for Fire Channels that I've found on the market are 3mm and 1/8 inch.  Here's pretty much how you can tell (besides measuring) the difference:

American made = 1/8"

Foreign made = 3mm

1/8 inch is larger and delivers hotter and higher quality fire down the Fire Channel to the Flash Hole.  (So in this case, size does matter!)  The extra space has more oxygen and therefore allows the primer to burn better, providing more fire.  This is one of the problems with the CVA Quick Release Breech Plug (QRBP) design, which is of the smaller diameter.

Cleanliness:
The next issue that has become more pronounced with the added length is carbon build-up.  It was always there, just not to the degree we are seeing it now.  There is now a lot more surface area for primer and powder residue to hang it's ugly head.

If the Fire Channel is not properly cleaned after a trip to the range, or if it is an extra-long range session, you can have hang or mis-fires with the new longer plugs. Just a few shots can cause immediate problems with the CVA QRBP.  But be no mistake about it, if you fail to clean this Fire Channel in a timely manor, or if you don't clean it properly, you could experience problems with any powder.

The reason it causes us muzzleloader's such a headache is because it significantly reduces the diameter of the Fire Channel with it's hard, baked-on surface.   As many of you have already been been doing (from what I'm seeing on Facebook and in the forums), guys are using the proper-sized drill bit's to remove this carbon build-up. Not only are they experiencing how  hard the build-up is, they are also seeing how much residue is removed when the breech plug is cleaned out with a drill bit.

In the photos below, provided by Doug Phair, CEO of Western Powders (owners of Blackhorn 209), you can see how restricted that area becomes and just how much build-up gathers in the Fire Channel. 

The photo on the left is a clean breech plug.  On the right is the same breech plug after 10 shots with Triple 7.  (!!!)  Be sure to notice not only how restricted the Fire Channel is, but how "clogged" the Flash Hole is.

Unbelievable!  As it's been said: A picture is worth a thousand words.

With all the best logic applied, the only reason I can see why a rifle can keep firing with this kind of blockage is because the force from the primer is knocking the carbon build-up from the Flash Hole area.  ...not good....

Second, the Transition Area. 

What I call the Transition Area, Blackhorn is calling it the Flash Cone.  In reality, it barely exists in any manufacturer's breech plug!  With my crude, but (I think) effective visual aids below, you can see the area I'm talking about.

I got to give you a little explanation as to how I came up with the NOT TO SCALE angles I'm showing below. 

Originally, I wanted to make a cast of the inside of a Fire Channel to get a better idea of what might be causing the problems inside there.  I just had to find a way.  Well, after the internet search from H-E-double-hockey-sticks (!!!), I found a liquid rubber compound that I thought would work.  It was kinda costly, but as it turned out, very useful to me in finding one of the culprit's causing problems inside the Fire Channel.  Below you can see the castings I made of various breech plugs, and if you look at the angle of the Transition Area leaving the Fire Channel and going into the Flash Hole, you'll see where I got the models for my visual aids below.

The models below show my findings:

First is a fair look at what a CVA Quick Release Breech Plug Transition Area would look like according to my cast.

Next is a Thompson Center Speed Breech XT model according to the cast I made of that breech plug. 

As you can see, the Thompson Center is a little steeper, but not by much. But again, "not much" really matters.

 

The last model shows a much steeper Transition Angle.  As you can see, there IS a cast, so a plug MUST exist....

....and it does. 

  

This is the inside of the breech plug that CEO Doug Phair and his team designed, and will be available sooner than expected!

I just used common sense to draw my simulated "fire" going down the Fire Channels and into the Transition Area, then on into the Flash Hole.  I'm quite certain y'all all get the picture, I sure did once I saw my castings.  

As you can see, most of the fire in the CVA plug is hitting a (pretty much) solid wall.  A little more fire is getting to the Flash Hole in the Thompson Center plug, but not much.  And again, I can't stress how much "not much" matters in this case!

You can see what a difference the new Blackhorn plug will make in fire delivery to the powder, not with just their powder, but with all powders.

Looking at my models, you can tell why just drilling a Flash Hole from .026 +/- to .035 +/- will really only give you an increased "fire stream" going into the Flash Hole of about .009.  In this case, "not much" really doesn't matter much at all. As some of you know, a bigger hole does not always fix the CVA QRBP problem.

In my opinion, this little Transition Area correction alone could fix a lot of our ignition problems, all by itself. 

My pick, until Western Powders new plug is on the market, is still the Thompson Center plug.  The larger diameter Fire Channel and slightly increased Transition Area angle makes it currently the most reliable breech plug on today's market - for all powders. 

And don't forget:  Clean, Clean, CLEAN.  It's a big factor. We have a very effective breech plug cleaning process worked out with some recommend products that we will be telling you about soon.

Next up in this Breech Plug series, I'll be talking about the Flash Hole and the Face Of The Breech Plug ....watch for it in the next few days!


***I want to give Doug Phair a special thanks for allowing MAX to use the before and after photos of the inside of the breech plug.  They have an extensive test lab and I think the photos go a long way in proving just what is going on inside our breech plugs!  I'd also like to commend Western Powder for jumping in to correct a problem that didn't belong to them, or to us muzzleloaders, with the development of the new and improved breech plug they've designed.  I'm hoping to go back to Montana this spring and get a look at some of the other projects they are working on, first hand.