Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Breech Plug

I have a .45 Pedersoli Kentucky flintlock rifle.
The rifle is quite accurate and I am happy with it.

I have seen my friends remove the breech plug to clean their rifles and thought I would do the same but I can't get the plug to move.

By reading here I have learned that not all plugs are just threaded into the barrel and can't be removed easily.

Is mine one of these?
Thanks in advance.

Glenn

Do not remove your breech plug. It's not meant to be removed for cleaning.

Your friends remove the BP from sidelocks, or inlines?

not intended to be removed! You'll end up with a broken barrel and no way of fixing it.

Glenn
For the most part , on a Traditional muzzleloader , the breech plugs are not removed for cleaning . About the only reason one would remove the breech would be a stuck load that cant be pulled or to work on the breech itself .

With your Pedersoli , it has what�s called an improved breech Or patent breech design . As such you flash hole liner , while screwing into the barrel wall , also screws into the breech . This ends up locking the breech plug and must be removed prior to attempting to back the plug out . The other issue that can happen is that because the flash hole and on percussion rifles , the drum bolster threads are tapped after the plug is set to the barrel. This raises burrs and thus you can bugger up the plug and barrel threads.
Though notably Pedersoli normally does a good job of cleaning those up . So the issue isn�t as great as say on a traditions or CVA rifle .
When cleaning your rifle , you do need to use a small 17-22 cal bore brush so as to clean out the breech

here are some photos of what the breechplug looks like on a blueridge , frontier ........ rifle
This plug I removed for a customer who was experiencing inconsistent ignition of his blue ridge flintlock . IE it would flash the pan but not ignite the main charge . Once the plug was removed , it was very clear why .




This is what the plug looked like after it was cleaned up .
notice how much fouling had built up on the breech face . thus restricting the powder from entering the breech.

Guys ,
Thanks for the replies.I'm talking flintlocks.

My friends built these guns themselves.I'm not sure where they got the barrels.They disassembled their guns,pulled the plugs and pulled the soapy water up the barrels to clean them.

Captchee,thanks for the tip on using the .22 brush to clean the breech.

Glenn

are you sure they are not pulling the nipple and then pulling hot soapy water up the barrel ?
if the breech plug is properly set . IE its faced so as to seal correctly , then there is no reason to pull the plug to clean the rifle as repeated wear from pulling the plug and the reseating it could possibly start to damage the shoulder , which would then cause the plug to leak fouling into the breech treads .
Pulling the plug now and then shouldn�t hurt anything . But to do it as part of the cleaning process ?????/
Frankly I see no need

Flintlock is even easier Cap. Just suck the soapy water through the vent liner.

I'll email and get an explanation of why/what they were up to.

Glenn

yep thats how i clean my rifles a few times a year . you dont have to pull the nipple on a cap lock eather but some do .
but with the rifle in question , what happens is that gradualy Rock hard ,carbonized fouling builds up in the breech .
water wont flush it out . infact i have seen it where it had to be drilled out . the above breechplug was infact very close to being that way

Sort of why I like the Hawken style. Much easier to clean.

Well that took a while.
The answer I got back was that they just like to do it that way so that they can see everything is clean.Their plugs stop short of the vent so it doesn't lock the plug in.

I had never thought of pulling the breech plug on mine and was curious as to how it would be done.

I had wondered about the best way to care for the breech end of the barrel.I believe captchee has answered that concern.

I run hot water from the sprayer hose at the kitchen sink down the barrel and out the vent.Just let it run until you can't hold the barrel in your hand.I then patch dry it and give it a coating of bore butter.

Glenn

You can also use a bucket of water/soap. Just put the breech end in the water, and run a tight patch up and down the bore. Ir will pump the water in and out with some pressure. Then repeat with clean water to flush out the soap.

If you do that everytime you shoot, the breech plug/bore will stay squeaky clean.