Hi Ron and all,

The design of Breech Plugs,

IMHO, BH209 is not the problem or reason for carbon in your Breech Plug, does your barrel build up with carbon?? Mine doesn't, IMHO the 209 primer is the problem!! The carbon is from the primer not the powder.

What was the 209 designed to do? The Standard Non 777 Modifed 209 primer was not and is not Designed to light powder in Muzzle Loaders, Rifles or ML Shotguns! It was designed to light Powder in a shot shell. In a Modern Shotgun all the garbage from the primer was blown out the barrel, not a big problem. How many of you know that there used to be more than 3 different physical sizes in Shot gun primers, How many of you still have Rem. 157 and 197 primers in your collections. Also, how many of you know that there is no standard for the length of a 209 primer. Hard to build a Breech plug that will perfectly fit all 209 primers when the are all different lengths from the different co. Not to mention variances in the same makes. Remember the shot shell is very forgiving!

The Breech plug you have in your guns was originally designed to light Black powder or one of the later substitutes, (The origonal substitute isn't supposed to be talked about.) All the designes will work well with straight old Black powder and caps. Now IMHO some %*&^%)( fool comes out using 209s in a Black powder gun and all kinds of variables come into play.

It is the gun owners choice as to what powder they use.

IMHO A good breech plug design is one that has all the attributes of the Savage BP. and Sabotloader has also discovered this and has nice photos posted.

1, replaceable vent liner, for consistency!

2, 5/32 dia. Flame path to vent.

3, Tightly fitted - seated, primer in it's chamber.

Now even this design can be changed for specific purposes, My Knight T-bolt was designed for Musket caps use. I choose to convert to 209s so I could use BH209. I am currently using the same BP that comes standard in the Vision. I have no use for plastic jackets. This plug is not stock anymore. It has a savage style vent liner installed and that is ressesed .6" from the tip of the plug, this leaves a .375 x .6 chamber in the nose of the plug. The Flame pathe is just .75" . IMHO this is a great setup for BH209. This plug setup is designed to hold and fire a Win. 209. The Only other primer that the bolt will close on is the Rem 209 4. all others are to long. The Rem 209-4 is .014 (Average) shorter than the Win 209. This is with all my current inventory, yours may vary, we are talking 209s, they aren't made to a very tight standard Period! Remember Shot shell technology and tolerances.
The 5/32 diameter just happens to be one of the sizes needed or available to thread for 10-32 threads, the savage vent liner is a 10-32 threaded screw. The carbon from the primers builds very hard. to clean the BPs simply run a 5/32 drill down threw it to your vent, if it isn't removable.

What is the purpose of having a vent in your 209 breech plugs even the fixed vents from the factory?

Why isn't the powder allowed to set right on the face of the primer?

I have shot my t-bolt with light loads and with out a vent installed, just using the 209s with an open 5/32 hole in the BP. The Rem 209-4 will fire BH209 just fine in this setup. In a shotshell the powder sets right on the face of the primer. Do you know why? Sabot loader explanes it very well it limits the amount of presure that is forced back to the 209, they are only designed to stand the pressure of Shot shells something much less than the PSI. of a Heavy sub load.

Yes, There are many different dimensions/ types of Breech plugs.

Most were designed to light Black powder, you/we choose to use something else.

I hope some of this makes sense, Sabotloaders photos should help.