There is a practice I see from time to time on the reenactment field. Somebody has a problem with the flintlock musket firing. The proper procedure IF one thinks there was a flash-in-the-pan, is to prick the touch hole, reprime the lock, and dump the remaining cartridge contents onto the ground....
Sometimes folks for some reason dump their barrel contents, and then start the loading procedure from scratch.
Dumping the barrel is the last thing you do when you leave the field... so you only do it when you are done shooting the blanks, and IF you do it on the field by your decision instead of in formation by command, you have decided that while you may stay in formation, and continue to Present the musket as though you were going to volley fire, you are not trying to load nor fire it. Dumping a loaded musket after only a few shots, let alone a couple dozen, can coat the barrel walls, now caked with ash... with live powder. This is risking a ruptured barrel. 
IF one has a failure to fire and the prime is still in the pan, one should knap the flint edge or replace the flint, and might also replace the priming powder, followed by discarding the remaining cartridge powder by pouring it onto the ground. Then try to fire the musket. YET again folks sometimes "start from the top"....
Don't do this. It's a bad practice that has crept from where it should be used at the end of the simulated battle, onto the field during continued firing, where it should not be used, if you intend to keep shooting blanks.
LD
Sometimes folks for some reason dump their barrel contents, and then start the loading procedure from scratch.
Dumping the barrel is the last thing you do when you leave the field... so you only do it when you are done shooting the blanks, and IF you do it on the field by your decision instead of in formation by command, you have decided that while you may stay in formation, and continue to Present the musket as though you were going to volley fire, you are not trying to load nor fire it. Dumping a loaded musket after only a few shots, let alone a couple dozen, can coat the barrel walls, now caked with ash... with live powder. This is risking a ruptured barrel. IF one has a failure to fire and the prime is still in the pan, one should knap the flint edge or replace the flint, and might also replace the priming powder, followed by discarding the remaining cartridge powder by pouring it onto the ground. Then try to fire the musket. YET again folks sometimes "start from the top"....
Don't do this. It's a bad practice that has crept from where it should be used at the end of the simulated battle, onto the field during continued firing, where it should not be used, if you intend to keep shooting blanks.
LD
