Your cleaning procedure seems more than thorough enough. Before loading for the hunt, if the gun has been in storage a while, I always wipe the bore dry then remove the nipple and confirm the ignition pathway is clear and DRY. The cleaning process should have cleared it so just confirm it is absolutely dry. Now, when you pop a couple of caps, hold the muzzle near a leaf or some grass and the blast from the cap should move the leaf, confirming a clear ignition pathway. If not, prick the nipple and clear the pathway again. BP substitutes are generally considered to be harder to ignite than real BP so I use GOEX FFFg exclusively. If you must use the substitutes, then you can increase reliability of ignition by putting 5 - 10 grains of real BP down the bore before loading your pellets or whatever. I can agree that condensation around a fouled nipple might cause a problem but have never experienced it here in the dry climate of Alberta. However, the powder charge is sealed in the barrel and there is no way condensation could kill the main charge. I've kept my caplock loaded for several days during a hunt and never had a click when there should have been a bang - every night I remove the cap and let the hammer down on the nipple, effectively sealing the ignition pathway.
Won't go bang!
- Thread starter Bluffton Bill
- Start date
