Free: Contests & Raffles.
I believe he is using the #11 caps, my gun uses the musket caps with the four tangs or "wings", and his caps are much smaller than mine and have no "wings". I am new to muzzleloading so my education on identifying a cap is limited, sorry. I think he said his caps were winchester brand, his caps were quite a bit smaller than the ones I use, mabey his pellet powder and those small caps are not compatible? But he shot it last year with the same combo and it worked for him, my suspicion is after he let it sit uncleaned since November, something is still dirty or corroded and causing a problem not letting the cap ignite the powder even though he said he got it clean. Seems like most peoples problems with muzzleloaders stem from the guns lack of maintenance and cleaning.
I will have him verify what caps he has, another question is on this gun can you look through the nipple and bp to see if they are clear? I can on my gun but I did not personally look at his. Thanks for the helpful reply's.
Went shooting today and my friends muzzleloader only fired once out of half a dozen or so try's. Wondering if anyone might have some insight on this problem, he is shooting a TC Northwest Explorer 50 cal. He did not clean the gun after shooting it last November, the gun was pretty corroded up but he said he managed to get it clean. Today first shot only the cap went off, did not ignite the powder, he checked that the nipple was clean and it had a clean opening to the powder, re cleaned the nipple and breach again and tryed it again this time it fired, next try only the cap fired again, he was using 150 gr. of pyrodex pellets, switched to Jim Shockey pellets and same thing, no fire only the cap fired, tryed some of my Jim Shockey Gold super sticks wich was working just fine in my gun today and still no fire, only the cap went off, he was using winchester caps, the caps for my gun wouldnt fit on his or we would have tryed that. I think his gun uses the percussion style cap, after every try he would clean the breach and nipple passages to make sure they were clean, we are both new to muzzleloaders so any help on this issue is greatly appreciated, any one run into a similar problem? The powder and caps he was using today did work in his gun last season, but are a year old. Is it possible they went bad? or should he be looking for an issue with the gun?
Just trying to save your friend a trip to the hospital; that gun's max. load is 120grains not 150. Could be especially dangerous since it has had seven months for the fouled powder to corrode the threads on the BP.
I have the same ml also, i've heard only loose powder with the #11 caps. Triple 7 fffg with magnum caps works great in mine. Has anyone found any good loads for their NW Explorer? mine shoots a pretty tight group with 250g hornady sst with 100g 777 fffg. Don't think I would ever hunt with this round though, I've seen some bad reviews.
Went out shooting again and this time my friends muzzleloader only did not fire once but we discovered it was due to a bad cap. This time he extensivley cleaned everything before we went shooting, verified he is using the magnum caps, and cleaned the gun after every 3 or 4 shots, and fired a couple caps after cleaning. Gun worked as it should and even put up some decent groups on the target at 100 yards. He was using 100 grains of pyrodex pellets this time and hornady bullets, should make him feel a little more confident now that the gun will actually fire before going hunting! Lesson learned that blackpowder is very corrosive and you need to keep the gun clean for it to work properly. Lol
Switch to T7 - not near as corrosive... And in a cap gun I would suggest T7-3f...
Wash.hunter Just asking a question... when you put the Pryro pellets in... you are putting the dark black end in the barrel first and against the breech plug correct?
I have the same gun and went out shooting today. I use loose powder, but am shooting ff. I am pretty new to the muzzleloading scene, and was told in the beginning that with this gun, I coudn't use fff. I guess I was wrong and will switch.I have been shooting 100 grains of ff with 320 grain maxi balls, found that the gun really likes this combo.
I've got a NW Explorer. I've had it misfire many times, and found it was usually something to do with the firing pin. After a couple shots of pyrodex it doesn't slide real easy. After a few more shots it just gets stuck. So I oil it every couple of shots and work it back and forth with my finger. One time the firing pin assembly got loose (un-threaded a bit) and then it wouldn't fire at all; just put a little dent in the cap. It still doesn't set off the cap every once in a while, but if you pull the hammer back a fire again it almost always goes off the second time. Best to keep the whole gun very clean...like an m16. Neither gun works well when dirty.
