Black Powder season opens here on Saturday so I’ve been busy getting things ready. One of the things I had to fix was my gun and the breech plug problem. I have an H&R Huntmaster that has a very small breech plug wrench. I had misplaced it and could not find it so I just cleaned the gun as best I could without taking the breech plug. Well I found the wrench but despite using the breech plug grease it was hopelessly stuck. I got some solvent and sprayed it down the barrel letting it sit a day or two but it didn’t do much. I tried a number of things but nothing seemed to work so I did a posting on a message board for some help. Well I got a variety of suggestions but most of the promising ones seemed to involve heating the barrel up. The majority seemed to involve using a torch with flashbacks to my early years in shop class I thought there has to be another way. A couple of folks suggested using hot water which is what I decided to try first.
With a hot tea kettle of water I went out on the back deck and gave it a shot. I filled the barrel and let it sit for a few minutes. Most of it leaked out through the breech plug and nipple but what didn’t I dumped out. After filling it 3 times the barrel was to hot for you to touch so I figured it was hot enough. It took a little elbow grease but I finally succeeded in getting the plug out.
Tonight I completed the cleaning job and reassembled the gun with some breech plug grease, that contains Teflon, that I picked up at Mace Sports. Hopefully that will make future removals easier but if not I’ll breakout the tea kettle.
Now I’m ready to go out and sight it in. Maybe if the rain holds off tomorrow after work I can check the zero. Saturday Morning will be here before we know it.
Posted by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose
