Ramrod needed

The best choice would be a good quality hickory blank. Track of the Wolf, Kibler's or one of the other supplies in the US would likely be your best source, but the shipping will be a killer. If you have a decent table saw and a well supplied hardwood supplier near you, you might be able to pick up a straight grained rough sawn hickory board and make your own. Ash can also make a good ramrod. A 1 x 6" rough sawn board will yield a lot of rod blanks. Just rip a square slightly over 3/8", then rip it into octagon and scrape/file/plane/sand it to size. Even a purchased rod blank will require final shaping. I find scraping, followed by sanding, works best.
 
The catch is that the wood needs to be straight grained. If blanks are split from the billet, you will know if they are straight grained. If sawn, inspect carefully. You don't want cross grain. Lee Valley sells 36" dowels in birch, cherry, maple, poplar, walnut and red oak. I just made a rod starting with one of the red oak dowels, and it should be good.
Also, look for unwanted hockey sticks and garden implement handles. Sometimes rod blanks can be split from these.
 
Hickory is unusual to come by in Canada - garden tools and hockey sticks are a good suggestion!
My order of preference would be Hickory, Ask, Oak ...

Your best bet would probably be finding someone ordering from a muzzleloader supply and asking to piggy back an order for some hickory rods on.
 
sean69 said:
Hickory is unusual to come by in Canada
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Cannot agree. You just need to locate a specialty hardwood supplier.
I recently picked up a rough sawn piece of 4/4 hickory with dead straight grain to turn into ramrods of varying diameters. As I recall, the price of the 4/4 x 6" x 4' was something like 20 bucks. With a little luck. that might work out to less than $1.00 per blank
 
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