Muskets Blow Up !

[ole pizen slinger]

Everyone is going to die---but if you're dumb you'll die sooner.

ole pizen slinger

[Bumper]

The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that there is "no limit" to stupidity. Rbump

[omgb]

Capitol City Sporting Goods in Helena...they did the engine turing on my bolt and recrowned the barrel on my P17 Enfield Sporter back in 77. What a great place!

While I've never blow up a gun or tried to use smokeless in a BP arm, I did come close to hurting myself just a couple of months ago all because I failed to think. I was fire lapping the barrel on my Sharps using a 500 grn LBT slug and a small charge of 700X. I forget the exact charge but it was just enough to push the slug out of the bore. I was catching them in a big hunk of rolled carpet. Any way, as the bore gets lapped, the cartridge case loses it ability to tightly hold the cartridge as the lapping compound wears away at the case neck. This causes incomplete powder ignition and the slug sticks in the bore. (Using a new case for each lapping shot avoids this but I was too cheap to be smart) Any way, one hung up. I opened the action and just happened to be holding my head to one side. Good thing I was because that case (45-90) came whipping out of that chamber and slammed into the wall hard enough that it dented it...the wall that is. I happened a couple of more times but each of those times I was expecting it and held the action out and away form my body. Each time it sent the case clean across the yard...almost 100 feet. Geez, can I be dumb or what? Theologically, I'm a strict Calvinist amd as such am certain that there is but one time for eadh of us to die and that time has been pre-ordained before we were born. Maiming however seems to be completely at our own risk Oh well, it wasn't my time. #5 years of reloading and I was that dumb...how much trouble could a neophyte get into?

[TYRVR]

I do work for a few law firms in the state as a firearms consultant, investigation and inspection of personal injury incidents in which the integrity of the firearm may be at fault. I had the state House Representative from Botetourt County bring me a CVA rifle that had failed with injury to the shooter. It was their lowest priced entry grade hunting carbine, .50 Cal. percussion, the stock was of some wood other than walnut and was painted black. His constituent/client was injured when the little CVA split the breech of the barrel at the breech plug, the drum and nipple were missing...the threads that held the drum in place were rolled towards the exit route of the drum....indicating EXTREME pressure, in my examination I noted no residue akin to the type found after black powder or substitute has been burned. I swabbed the inside of the barrel and sent it to V.P.I. for analysis....it was a nitro-cellulose compound commonly sold for the reloading of handgun cartridges and shotshells. The House Rep. interviewed the shooter again after learning the results of the testing, the shooter when faced with that information confessed that he had used up all the powder that came with the rifle and had sent his wife to a store in New Castle to buy some more without telling her what was required, she had pulled a plastic bottle off the shelf-unscrewed the lid and saw "black powder" she had bought it without asking the store owner any questions. The shooter had fired twice with the new powder before the gun exploded sending gas and fragments into his face and hands. There was no legal action against CVA or the store owner and the House Rep. introduced legislation requiring ALL hunters to have Hunter Education classes before a hunting license is issued, including special courses for black powder hunters.

[IronSight]

the House Rep. introduced legislation requiring ALL hunters to have Hunter Education classes before a hunting license is issued, including special courses for black powder hunters

I'm sure to some, this sounds like a good reasonable idea but in reality its a sign of the times. What is the logical conclusion of all this slipery slope legislation? Whats it gonna lead to? The old quote, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" comes to mind.
Whats next? Licenses and mandatory education classes for using a ladder or a lawn mower?

Because of a few A-holes, the populus at large is being legislated, licensed, permitted, hassled, prodded, constrained and leashed adnausium. I remember when a person could buy a .22 pistol and go rat hunting at the local dump, all in the same day.

Ole Pizen Slinger has got it right.

[buffalocannon]

Dear TYRVR

One of the common beliefs out there and one I hear all the time is that it is impossible to blow up a muzzleloader if loaded properly with ONLY BLACK POWDER and if there is no bore obstruction etc. etc., no matter the amount of BLACK POWDER used, because the excess BLACK POWDER loaded in the firearm is expelled. Any truth to this? I am told that the accidental explosions we hear about are due to the use of smokeless or a bore obstruction, unclean barrel etc. etc. I had a friend who when developing charges for his muzzleloaders, fired over a white bedsheet. He said he could tell by the UNBURNED BLACK POWDER on the sheet after firing, just what the optimum load for that smokepole would be. Also, I am told that one cannot put too much BLACK POWDER in a BPCR. I have loaded my .45-100 with 100 grains of FFg under a 545-grain bullet. I had to compress the load about .400 to get it in the case. It fired fine and there was no damage to the rifle or the cartridge cases but the recoil becomes horrendous - 90 grains is as much as I care to go, and even that is a very healthy load using FFg. And I suppose I am including the substitutes in the same category as smokeless. If one is not using ONLY BLACK POWDER in these firearms originally designed for BLACK POWDER, I believe we are asking for eventual trouble. Which makes me ask another question? When the British and others started loading those HUGE black powder cases in their doubles with cordite, why didn't we hear of more of those rifles blowing up?

[The Montanan]

The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that there is "no limit" to stupidity. Rbump

Some people are born stupid, while others work hard at getting there

[13Echo]

I have three comments on the whole thing:

1. Nothing is ever fool proof because fools are so ingenious.

2. It may be fool proof but it isn't damnfool proof.

3. Most of our troubles with laws comes about from legislators making "rules for fools" into laws.

Jerry Liles

[omgb]

I am forever amazed at the amount of just plain wrong information there is out there. It can be little things such as a fear that nylon bristle brushes will wear out your barrel or it can be big things like using smokeless in a BP firearm. The list seems endless.


In many loading manuals there is the advice that to determine a suitable load for a ML, one places the ball in the palm of the hand and pours powder over it until the ball is covered. That then is the desired load. Admittedly that works most of the time. And with BP, I seriously doubt one could get into too much trouble. However, if the person did that with H777 the results could be really bad. True smokeless would be a disaster.

The young man who was killed when his musket blew up New Years Eve was using a very old gun...presumably from the late 18th century. That's what this custom is all about, using passed down guns to salute the year just as their ancesters did. There could be a whole host of reasons why that musket let go, bad steel or delaminated barrel windings would be my foremost suspects. From there I'd go on to too much or the wrong kind of powder or a wad not seated against the charge. The latter seems probable since the atmosphere of the even was questionable from a concentration stand point. Imagine the party atmosphere, the dark, drinking, shoving, yelling, grabassing etc. The likelyhood of a poorly placed load or a double charge is pretty high.

In the early 70s I worked for an outfit called Hume's Sporting Goods in Burbank CA. We had a huge rental business that was tied to the studios. Any way, a guy comes in one day and askes for a refill of white gas. That wasn't unusual because we carried it in bulk. Then he asked for a new wick for his Aladdin heater. he said the other one burned up in just a couple of weeks. This seemed odd to me and I got the boss. Turns out this guy was fueling his heater with white gas rather than K-1 kerosene...and he and his three daughters were all sleeping within 5 feet of it up at the cabin! How he survived is beyond me. Those heaters were clearly marked for kerosene only as are the lamps. The wick box says so, the fuel tank says so, only a fool or someone really not paying attention could make that mistake. This guy was one of those for sure and it almost cost him his family.

[TYRVR]

I recall that some years back a gentleman named Phillip Orem wrote an article for Muzzle Blasts,(The N.M.L.R.A. publication) in this article, Mr.Orem, a mettalurgist in the mining industry, used a standard barrel made by a U.S. maker to test barrel strength, a short synopsis of his findings was that to burst a muzzle loading barrel with black powder....you had to make it into a virtual pipe bomb! he tried every combination he could that a shooter might conceive of in loading, multiple ball...grossly overcharged loads.....the only way he was able to burst the barrel was to plug both ends with a breech plug, and drill the plug for a fuse as a ignition device, as I recall the barrel bulged once or twice before it burst......I have loaded salute charges in an old cannon made from a hydrualic piston shaft from a backhoe to within inches of the muzzle and fired it at night in a former quarry......very spectaular! a boom and flash at the muzzle and a column of burning powder for several yards in the air.......the theory of the initial exploding/burning particles of powder ejecting those ahead of the charge was pretty well proven, and it was FUN!
I don't encourage anyone to attempt to overload any sporting gun...black powder or smokeless, and, to use any but the proper propellant is dangerous and negligent and could lead to injury or liability.

[dlemaster]

TYRVR
Your story about the guy with the CVA rifle blow up started me thinking, so I went back and reread it. It sounds like maybe he is trying to spread some of the stupidity of his actions to his wife's buying the wrong powder (reasonable mistake for someone who knows nothing about firearms or powders). Then I realized that HE IS THE ONE who loaded it and fired it!
I would be willing to bet that if HE had gone and bought the powder he would probably have made the same mistake that his wife did, and the results would have been the same, don't you think?

Your comment in your second post about using two breech plugs to blow up a barrel made me remember that for many years in Dixie Gun Works catalogs they had a picture of a section of barrel that they installed two plugs in and a touch hole, they then filled it with a very large charge of black powder and a fire cracker fuse and touched it off. The pressure from the entire charge vented out of the touch hole with no damage to the barrel. They used this to illustrate the strength of the barrels they were selling.
Regards, Dave

[JAGG]

Sam Fadela if i spelled his name right did tests with steel seamless tubing and heavy loads of BP ! It finally blow up after he didn't seat the patched bal on the powder ! As for the guy who sent his wife for BP ! Did anyone check if she has a boyfriend ? JAGG