And if that rifle had blown up they'd most likely blame the rifle. Talk about stoooopid

First round is easy to seat, 2nd round a bit harder, after that I run a patch or 2.

Bouncing yer ramrod does nothing.

When I got into shooting muzzleloaders (early 1970s) I often attended a local monthly shoot. At those matches it was home cast round ball loads, and almost everyone used a "spit patch" of pillow ticking. I've seen many amazing groups at up to 100 yards, and shot a few myself.
The bouncing the ramrod was not used often, but it would confirm the load was seated if the shooter was in doubt. The spit patch kept fouling down, but occasionally a load just didn't feel like it was seated right, and the bouncing the ramrod would remove (or confirm) doubt.
I never saw much effect on accuracy from just bouncing of the rod on the ball. The ramrod would be lifted up about half the barrel length and allowed to fall using gravity and it's own weight. If it made a dull thud and didn't bounce the load wasn't tight against the powder, if it "rang" and bounced everything was fine.
In those matches a complete miss wasn't counted, so if the ball had to be hammered down on the powder you could just miss paper & shoot again.

I am not sure I understand bouncing but I guess it is a matter of choice and as some said consistency. So I will keep doing it the way I did and make sure I do it at the range and the field.

And it was a fellow member here, I think it was cayugad that mention a mixture of 50 50 alcohol and washer fluid. I have been using it since and when on the range I do it between shots. When hunting once I finish I shoot the load out and wipe it so I can reload next morning or put in rack till next use.

I logged on to pose a question but this seems a more than appropriate place for it:

Finally received an aluminum range rod from Cabela's which is much more stout than the T/C I've been using for the past 8-9 years. The effect of this is that I am now seating the ball tighter w/ much less effort than before; NOT ramming, just pushing the rod.
The immediate difference, and the subject of my intended post, was that my shot groups changed considerably using this new rod!
Of particular interest was Semi's post re: PRB just touching his GOEX. I use 777 2f but assume the same hold true.
Clearly, using a hammer/axe head is excessive; I'd hate to be their neighbor should those guys in Ohio ever get ahold of a repro canon. But, how seated is "seated"?

Be careful of that assumption 3seasons. Triple Seven and GOEX have different burning characteristics and may not behave the same at all.

Even with GOEX this may be one of those things that are gun specific and one gun may like a little more compression than another. I pointed out my finding just to show that this is something worth experimenting with to see if it makes a difference in your gun. Consistency is the key regardless of what level of compression is used.

The only time I have noticed this action was around those N-SSA folks. They shoot mini balls and I thought that they did this because they wanted to seat the mini down and maybe help flare the skirt some to get a better seal.

A lot of you guys keep talking about running patches down the barrel. Well during a heated battle, I am sure those rebels and yankees didn't have much time to think about a patch and wanted to get that mini ball down their barrel to get the next shot off and kill something!

Now as to a hunting gun, not military type, I have never seen anyone slam the ram rod down on a load. Maybe others have, but not me. But as with everything else around here this is JMHO folks.

Gonna bet their barrel tolerances were not as stout as our highly accurate machined tolerances.

Pyrodex should be compressed to perform well. But you can easily do this by pushing the bullet onto the charge, then firmly applying pressure once the bullet contacts the charge. You will see the rod continue down about 1/8" or 3/16" with a charge around 90-100 gr. Try to do this as uniformly as possible.

Well I feel like a fool............
Back say 20+ years ago when I first started MLer hunting I borrowed my father in laws mler, he showed me how to load it and he did the slam the rod into the ball thing untill the ram rod bounced out of the barrel and he caught it, he said the ball had to be seated good on the powder. Also when I went on a few (Randavoes) or however you spell it, the guy's there were loading there mlers the same way, so I just always asssumed it was the way to do it.
I'd pour in the GOEX 3f, then the patch and ball, and then throw the ram rod down the barrel many times untill it bounced out of the end of the barrel and I caught it. My groups were always good and I killed a bunch of deer with his old mler. Had it not been for us being able to use Inlines and Sabots now I probably would have still been loading this way.
I was'nt going to comment on this and just feel stupid and keep it to myself. I guess you do learn something new every day.........
(BP)