Hornady Great Plains Conical
 

Hi all

Have an issue. Shooting a .54 TC Renegade using pyrodex (70 grains) and Hornady Great Plains Conicals. They shoot fine but on the 3 different occasions I have shot them after about 6 shots the Renegade starts hang firing and I cannot seem to stop it from happening. I swab every other shot with isopropyl alcohol and a couple dry patches and also use a nipple pick. I am doing the same things each shot. It happened again over the weekend and ironically when it started again I switched to PRB with no hang fires.

What am I doing wrong?

Thank you

Mark

Mark,

My best guess is that because the Hornady conicals are prelubed with a heavy wax based lube, some of that lube is collecting in the flame channel between shots when you push your rod down the bore to wipe between shots and causing your problem. Swabbing the bore with alcohol doesn't hurt, but it probably doesn't help either when it comes to that type of lube. Try soaking the conicals in some water hot enough to strip that waxy lube off, then re-lube them with something not so wax based. You could also try a "hot shot" style nipple to ensure that your getting maximum ignition.

I would change the nipple first and see if that makes a difference...

BPS

A little trick you can do is about every five shots, pop one or two caps through the nipple on an empty barrel, with a dry patch down there. It will blow the gunk out of the bolster into that patch and then you can take it out. Be sure you swabbed the barrel and dry patched it before you do that. Then pick the nipple like you said, and try that.

Good advice Cayugad.

pushing wetness into the bolster and thats soaking the powder in the chamber, catching up the powder you pour down the bore on the following shot.

Agreed, swab the bore, dry it and on the last dry patch, push it down all the way, pop a cap, then load up.

Thank you all for your advise. I have made sure the bore is dry when swabbing and it makes sense the wax based lube could be causing issues, I actually wondered about that. I am using 6 wing CCI musket caps, forgot to tell you that detail.

Will make some changes and get back to you. For now with muzzleloading season just around the corner a PRB will be used since it is dialed in for those currently.

Thank you all again

Sorry to dig up an old thread but have an update of this issue. Started shooting the Great Plains conicals again and of course the hang fires started again.

What I did this time is bring a .38 caliber brush along to get down into the patent breech area to clean that out. After brushing the patent breech I hold the muzzle end down toward the ground and tap and a bunch of hard carbon falls out. I then will swab the bore and do one more quick brush of the patent breech and tap out anything that is loose. If this is done every shot, no hang fires.

Here is a video I made.

If it's the bullet lube that's causing his problem, what do you guy's suggest he relube the bullets with?

I don't think it is the lube I think it is how he is cleaning between shots.