Weird day at the gun shop

Nice looking flinter, MAK. It's great to see somebody who doesn't do the fake inline 'muzzleloaders'. Zoli makes nice stuff. I have an O/U 12 gauge drom them.
When I was in high school, we lived in the village of Old Mystic on the CT coast. Everybody's house had an old civil war rifle in some corner. It was great granddad's issue rifle that he brought home from the was. Every single one was reputed to still be loaded. "Because you can feel the bullet with the ramrod."  I guess it never occurred to them to measure. They were feeling the breech plug, of course.
Kind of like here in the Swamp. Everybody knows somebody who has seen a 'black panther'. Doesn't make any difference that there is no such thing in the New World. They know it's true. My personal opinion is that the old slaveholders made up tales about black panthers and h'ants to discourage runaways. We have had a small family of cougars on the place since I have been here (11 years). Seen them several times, and they are all dun colored as they should be. 
Anyway, let us know how it shoots.

Mike

In any case, I have quite a few traditional black powder weapons, including a Cabela's Traditional Hawken percussion rifle, a Pedersoli Pennsylvania percussion rifle in .32, a Pedersoli Kentucky percussion rifle, a Remington New Model Army, an ASM Colt 1849 pocket-pistol, a Pietta 1851 Navy, a 2nd Gen Colt 1851 Navy, a Spanish made Philadelphia Derringer, and a "colonial" pistol of indeterminate make. All picked up cheap from a lgs, or through horse-trading.

I have one commercial one. It's a Traditions 50 cal percussion, and it's nice and light. My other two rifles I made. One is a plain Pennsylvania half stock 45, and the other is a 54 cal Gibbs target rifle. A friend made all the hardware and I whacked the stock out of tiger stripe maple. I wanted a spirit level front sight, but in the '80's they were hard to find, so I made my own ouw of an old Redfield receiver sight.

I used to make a lot of my parts too. Hated not being able to find stuff I needed so I went to the shop and made what I needed! My collection is a CVA 58 caliber Hawken, a 45 caliber deringer kit and a homemade 32 caliber dueler. I took a deer with the Hawken but nothing else. Chris S

 with no powder. And it's rammed down real good. This could be a real pain in the rump. But for what I paid, I'll put up with a little aggravation.

backyard and pick a rock off the ground.

Get a good flint from Track of the Wolf. Try to worry some FFFFg through the flash hole, and light her off. I have done that many times with percussion guns.
Resist taking the breech plug out until it's a last resort.
Good luck anyway. It's a nice looking piece.

Mike

not being 100% sure what's in there already.

Perhaps pouring some Kroil down the bore and through the flash hole will help ease it out as you try the puller method. Just a thought. Chris S

Probably.

Lots of greasy dirt, but no rust to speak of yet. No idea what the breech end of the barrel looks like yet, though.

Huh;
I, for one, would like to know what you find out about the bore, breech, etc. Also shooting results. I need to get out my own smokepoles and use them more. Maybe your experiences with that rifle will inspire me.
 
Mike
 

 until tomorrow evening. And waiting on a shipment from Track of the Wolf.

including a couple different styles of bullet pullers. 

Squirted some Muzzle Magic Cleaner down the bore and let it sit a couple hours. Screwed a bullet puller onto one of my one-piece cleaning rods, started it with a rap from a rubber mallet, and screwed it home.

Tied the handle of the rod to a post in the yard, and yanked back on the rifle. Heard a pop and it felt like the rod pulled free, but when I pulled the rod out, the ball was on the end of the rod.

And is it odd looking...

It looks a bit like some sort of shotgun slug seated down the barrel flat side forward. The patch it was wrapped in feels like felt. Scrubbed the bore down with hot, soapy water until the water came out clear. Then dried it and oiled it.

Now for the test firing (Who knows when I'll have time for that, though I got in a batch of British flints from TOW this morning)

That was quick, Huh. Looks like maybe it was a round ball that got pounded flat when it was seated. I was dubious about using a bullet puller, but you must be strong (or determined). Keep us posted.
Mike

to get out and shoot it.

Back when I was a kid , in the last century, folks would break down a shotgun shell and use the powder in original muzzle loaders-once. Other times folks would unload the muzzle loaders to find a charge of smokeless powder. It's not unusual to find muzzle loaders in pawn shops that are still loaded. My last adventure in this direction was pulling two round balls out of a 12ga. Pedersoli SxS. A friend of mine shared a story about his adventures with "unloaded" muzzle loaders as a youngster. The ML shotgun had been in their household for untold years. The kids would pop match heads on the nipple. During one of these episodes the gun discharged in the kitchen with the charge distroying  the screen door and taking out most of the chickens in the adjacent chicken hours.  Point being-use a ball puller and do not fire gun with unknown charge. Make sure the things are unloaded.