maillemaker
New member
ive only shot my bp pistol twice first time I cleaned with typical gun cleaners, maybe balistol dont remember
"Typical" gun cleaners, like Hoppes #9, are solvents for smokeless powder and don't work very well if at all on black powder residue.
Ballistol works great on black powder residue though.
when I went to go shoot it next time all percussion cap holes were blocked
I got really worried I wasnt going to be able to shoot the loaded cylinders, but I added new caps and thankfully that worked
guess cleaning it somehow clogged the holes
Many black powder shooters, particularly with muskets, will "snap caps" prior to loading a live charge. That is, you fire a couple of percussion caps with no charge down the barrel. This blasts any crud/oil out of the nipple and fire channel that might cause a misfire.
Revolvers tend to be a bit more forgiving - I never snap caps on them but then I don't saturate my chambers with oil, either.
In any case if a chamber fails to go off following up with a second cap will often do the trick, as you discovered. Failing that if you clear out the nipple with a nipple prick, as described above, you can usually open up things enough to get a cap to ignite the charge. If you don't have a nipple prick a sewing pin will do.
If all else fails you can carefully unthread the nipple and remove the charge out the threaded hole. Once the charge is out you can drive the ball out using a nail from the rear that fits down the threaded hole while the cylinder is sitting on a block of wood with a hole drilled in it for the ball to drop into/through.
Steve