Well as 2007 comes to a close, I have yet another wonderful experience of breaking a cleaning jag off in the bore of a ML. This will be the fourth in my illustrious career of murphy's law and"chit" happpens.[:@]

This time it's a cleaning brush that is marooned at the breech of my .45 T/C Hawken barrel. Bummer, I was all excited about carrying the 37 year old kit T/C .45 this coming weekend. I knew the instant Igave the rod a little "twist" what was going to happen. Took next to nothing to break the little devil off. [>:]

The irony is that I asked Santa to please bring me new brushes for all my ML calibers this Christmas. According to Santa's little helper, she said that Ihad be pretty good this year and Santa has my wish list so I stood a good chance of getting what I asked for. I replace my brushes normally every year.

So, in this caseI will be sending the barrel back to T/C for them to remove the breech plug, retrieve the broken brush and reinstall the breech plug and return the barrel along with a new brush.

By the way, all of which save shipping will be covered under T/C's lifetime warranty as was a T/C brush that broke.

Tahquamenon

Are you going to try and fish it out? There must be a way to get the brush out of that barrel without sending it back in. Might be fun to try.

It never fails that when you think things are going well, something like this happens... I can not remember ever going after a brush, but I would figure out some way to MacGyver that thing out of there..

To get a brush out of a .50 caliber barrel - take an empty 45-70 shell case, file the rim off, drill out the primer pocket to accept a 10-32 screw, use a 1/2" 10-32 screw to mount the case on the end of your ramrod, push it down and force it over the brush so that the brush is inside the shell casing, slide the whole works out.

I tried the coat hanger bit for a couple of hours last night. Time now is becoming quite valuable, more so than fishing with a coat hanger.

All done, not going to fool with it any longer. The breech plug has been there for 37 years and will tank the warranty if I fiddle with that so nope I'll let T/C handle it.

I have plenty of ML's to hunt with, I just wanted to get in the woods onceagainwith my very first ML. Try to get the old .45 kit out everyyear.

All the years ive been using a muzzleloader, ive never had one break. Course i just jinxed myself but i have strong faith that it will not happen

A novel idea, what size shell casing might be good for a .45 bore?

It's not just an idea - I've done it and it works. You can accomplish the same thing with a piece of thin wall copper or aluminum tubing that is close to bore size. You might take the barrel to the hardware store and see what they have that may fit.

Might give it a try if I have time.

I already have an RMA to send it back to T/C so will likely just let them fool with it.

You might want to try Semisane's technique with a 410 primerless shotgun shell casing which is .410 diameter.
Good luck with it.