A Little Puzzle for the Weekend

In my collection of vintage cleaning gear I have two objects which are puzzling me.

The first is a .22 steel(?) jag like thing which tapers to a sharp point and has a spiral thread all the way to the base. It has the standard PH female thread and mates(!) neatly on a PH rod. It isn't one of those plug things designed to push a circular patch through from the muzzle end. I wondered if it was an armourers tool designed to snag out a jammed patch?

The other is a simple brass rod with a PH male thread which mates neatly with any .22 PH brush or jag. I bought it in a lot which also included the screw thing, but the two are not necessarily connected (pun intended). It seems too short to serve any useful function?

Has anyone any suggestions, polite ones please. Indeed does anyone actually know what they are supposed to do?

I can't figure out the one on the bottom but the one on the top looks like the stuck ball remover from my muzzleloading kit. The ball screws into the lead ball/bullet.

Walter

The top one is a rag/broken pull-through drawing bit.



The lower one is a rod-extender, for when your rod isn't quite long enough. These are valuable, because they can form the basis of an adaptor to convert other rods to the P-H thread, which cannot be duplicated with conventional dies. You can also get a female P-H thread out of it, to adapt P-H rods to other threads such as 8-32 UNC which is a common American standard for brushes etc.



https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...standard-1.jpg
British No.7 rod, threaded for No.2 BA, converted to the P-H thread by this method.

Yes ... but it is only threaded at one end. The other is simply rounded off so it cant be screwed onto a rod.

The ball extractor for a muzzleloader seems the best bet for the other thing, the fact its steel rather than brass leads me to think its designed for robust use.

Looks like a barrel gauge to me. The bottom one

SCREW, removing broken pullthrough or obstruction. Issue to armourers shops but not used.

Thanks Peter, I was hoping you'd turn up. Was that for full bore or small bore?

We had full bore and small bore. I only ever remember having to use one once and that was in an AR15 where a broken pullthrough had become jammed up. But instead of walking down down from the company lines, the crunchies had tried to remove it with old nails and bits of welding rod and anything else you might care to mention. Nothing would remove it, not even the screwed tool on the cleaning rod. So Lauri Taggart (great bloke from Castlemaine and hung like a drovers dog.....) put a blank behind it and........... Not a good move as it virtually destroyed the top half of the rifle.

Thanks Peter.

From somewhere else I've been told "The first item was catalogued by Parker Hale in 1936 as a "Steel Rag Drawer Bit", i.e. a stuck patch remover. It's stated to be for use with a T-handled rod; obviously it won't work with a rod that has a ball-bearing handle."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

Not a good move as it virtually destroyed the top half of the rifle.

---

'Twas hooped anyway...but to remove and replace the barrel would have been better. I told the troops if they stuck something to bring it to me and the weapons shop before making it deeper...

Is the bottom a blunt for driving out a stuck bullet? Small bore lead I would think...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Is the bottom a blunt for driving out a stuck bullet? Small bore lead I would think...

---

Possibly, but if so it's for use with a rod which finishes with a "female" tread.

For instance...outers and US military rods finish female. I think only UK (PH) finish with male...well, not quite, it's a mix.

Uuum absolutely, I think this one may remain a mystery.