I was talking to a friend the other day and I commented to him that I still needed to shoot the bullet out of my CVA Optima (break-open model) that was still in it from late season that ended a few weeks ago here.
He said that what he did in this situation was to just open the breach, take the plug out, remove the powder/charge from behind the bullet and then just PUSH the bullet from the breach to the muzzle of the barrel instead of shooting it out.
My question is can following his method in any way cause damage to the gun's riflings, assuming that I am cautious in the process of pushing it up the barrel ?
And I am not really concerned about the bullet but would like to avoid the length process of cleaning after shooting if possible (I would clean any way but would be much easier if the charge had not been shot down the bore).
I have always just shot it out. His way does make some sense and I don't think the ram rod will hurt the barrel. My only thought is why push it all the way down the barrel when it is only an inch from the breach plug?
While in college, way back in the last century, I worked at the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum on campus. We had hundreds of muskets and rifles in the back rooms that had to be prepared for exhibition, lots of them were loaded, most memorable one had 12 loads stacked one on top of another. I certainly didn't care to fire that thing, so we developed a tool that would screw into the old loads, and carefully removed them one at a time. It was basically a very long drill and worked pretty well. I was impressed to find several old rifles and muskets still loaded, and never really felt comfortable doing that chore. Got a large pile of black powder as a result and bunches of Minie balls. The local Sheriff's department took care of all the BP, not sure where the lead went.
The powder was pretty wet, we did all this with a lot of water in the barrel first. It also helped as a lubricant.
I had a bad nipple on one of my cap locks. FTF was all the time. I had to pull the ball at least 3 times before I bought a new nipple. I have done this maybe 10 times in my life with no problems. It is a little unnerving every time.
Removing the breech plug isn't an easy task on a smoke pole that's been fired much. I've seen a device that screws into the drum on a cap lock (remove the nipple) and it used a CO2 cartridge to expel the powder and ball instead of firing the gun.
This is an inline rifle, breach plugs are designed to be removable and should be unscrewed, cleaned and oiled every time you clean the gun after firing it just as you would do with the nipple on a traditional sidelock ignition.
I would go behind our house and shoot it out - nobody would complain. Or, I would take it into my shed, and fire it toward the ground out a window - the shed acting as a giant silencer. Otherwise, take it to the range the next time you go.
You must live down state. If I shot it out in my back yard I would have swat here in 3 minutes.
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