A ramrod (or scouring stick) is a metal or wooden device used with

muzzleloading Muzzleloading is the shooting sport of firing muzzleloading guns. Muzzleloading guns, both antique and reproduction, are used for target shooting, hunting, historical re-enactment and historical research. The sport originated in the United States ...

firearm A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...

s to push the projectile up against the propellant (mainly

blackpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...

). The ramrod was used with weapons such as

musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually d ...

s and

cannon A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder ...

s and was usually held in a notch underneath the barrel. Bullets that did not fit snugly in the barrel were often secured in place by a wad of paper or cloth, but either way, ramming was necessary to place the bullet securely at the rear of the barrel. Ramming was also needed to

tamp A tamp is a device used to compact or flatten an aggregate or another powdered or granular material, typically to make it resistant to further compression or simply to increase its density. Examples * Small, handheld tampers are used to compres ...

the powder so that it would explode properly instead of fizzle (this was a leading cause of misfires). The ramrod could also be fitted with tools for various tasks such as cleaning the weapon, or retrieving a stuck bullet.

Cap and ball The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. This crucial invention gave rise ...

revolver A revolver (also called a wheel gun) is a repeating handgun that has at least one barrel and uses a revolving cylinder containing multiple chambers (each holding a single cartridge) for firing. Because most revolver models hold up to six roun ...

s were loaded a bit like muzzleloaders—powder was poured into each chamber of the

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

from the muzzle end, and a bullet was then squeezed in. Such handguns usually had a ramming mechanism built into the frame. The user pulled a lever underneath the barrel of the pistol, which pushed a rammer into the aligned chamber.

Naval artillery Naval artillery is artillery mounted on a warship, originally used only for naval warfare and then subsequently used for naval gunfire support, shore bombardment and anti-aircraft roles. The term generally refers to tube-launched projectile-firi ...

began as muzzle-loading cannon and these too required ramming. Large muzzle loading guns continued into the 1880s, using wooden staffs worked by several sailors as ramrods. Manual ramming was replaced with hydraulic powered ramming with trials on from 1874.

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External links

* Firearm components {{Firearms-stub