Anyone had main charge go off while using ramrod ?

[sse]

well, sumthin made it go off........

 

[weirdjack]

I recently ran accross an older issue of MuzzleBlasts that had an incident written up in it. I think it may have been the same incident. If not, then there are TWO such incidents recorded in MuzzleBlasts! Most interesting.
As I recall, the incident I read about happened on a woods walk type shoot with a flintlock. The person had charged the gun and was ramming the ball home when it went off and sent the rod through his hand. I believe his hand was thrown clear of the ball's path by the rod. And no, the gun was not primed.
The article was basically asking questions...mostly asking whether one of two things had happened:
1. If perhaps a dieseling detonation had happened when the ball was being seated, igniting the charge.
2. If perhaps the air flow from ramming had fanned a latent ember into glowing more, thus igniting the powder.
And as I recall, no cause had been positively confirmed.
Both points 1 & 2 seem unlikely, but something set the charge off. He stated that he now loads with his fingers around the rod, not with his hand on top of the rod end.

BTW- I've also seen more than one person shoot his rammer downrange because he forgot to remove it. It happens.

Jack

 

[2172]

our club rule is no priming or capping until one is on the firing line...accidentally capping before loading would requre an almost incredible departure from standard behavior..Hank

 

[jim gray]

With a flintlock, you could get ignition by bumping the flint with anything made of steel. I know from personal experience that it os possible to fire a flintlock without powder in the flashpan.

My thought here is that if the hammer was cocked and jarred while loading, or if something struck either the flint, frizzen, or even flashpan and generated a spark the gun could have discharged.

I would think that if deiseling did occur with BP it would be a lot more common in C&B revolvers than any other type of BP gun.

 

[Zonie]

I don't believe a C&B gun has enough length of compression to ever approach the temperatures required by dieseling.

When I read the Bevel Brothers article about their experiments with dieseling, my first thought was, "They are using a short (about 12 inch as I remember) barrel. That won't give the results they are looking for" and indeed, it only fired a few times.

Dieseling depends on compression to generate heat.
In a modern engine, the compression ratio is about 20:1.
Putting this into prospective, that would be similar to compressing a 20 inch long air column to 1 inch.
It is quite obvoius to me that when ramming a patched ball down a 42 inch barrel over a powder charge which is only about 2 inches tall, a compression of 21:1 is possible if there are no air leaks.
Of course, this would take a great deal of force to acomplish rapidly but a 20:1 compression is not necessary to ignite black powder.

If done rapidly, just compressing air to about 100 pounds per square inch will raise the air temperature to about 800 degrees F., more than adaquate to ignite real gunpowder.
This pressure only requires a compression ratio of about 7:1.

I might also mention something about speed.
If the ramming of the patched ball is done slowly, much of the heat generated by the compression will be absorbed by the walls of the barrel. Also, much of the air pressure will be lost due to leakage at the nipple/vent and around the patch.

How much ramrod force would it take to generate 100 PSI of air pressure? That depends on the caliber, but if a .50 caliber patched ball were being used, it would be (.50/2)E2(Pi)(100) = 19.63 pounds.
For a .45 caliber patched ball it would be (.45/2)E2(Pi)(100) =15.90 pounds.
Both of these figures would be in addition to the force to drive the patched ball down the tight bore and are higher than most of us would ever use, but for someone who is in a hurry and unaware of the potential for disaster, it is possible.

I think the reason we don't see more of this sort of occurance is because most (if not all) of us take our time ramming the patched ball down the barrel, often doing this in short 6-10 inch steps and many of us make a point of keeping the vent open during loading.
:m2c:

 

[TexiKan]

I contacted the club member who had the incident I related and here is his reply. I see there were a few points I missed!
_________________

It happenened in 1986. I had double-charged my .40 cal half stock and decided to pull the ball with a screw type worm on the end of a stainless steel ramrod. I got the ball threaded on the screw and began extracting the ball by hooking the ramrod end on an overhead rafter of the covered
firing line and pulling down on the rifle. I was aware that the gun was loaded. The screw pulled loose from the ball after the ball had come about 1/2 way out of the barrel. I then put the rifle butt on the ground and shoved the ramrod back down so the screw could get a better grip on the ball. I did that twice. I was careful to keep my head out of the way of the muzzle. The second time I pushed the ramrod down the charge went off. The ramrod and screw stayed in the gun. The ramrod was bent like a corkscrew. The gun was fine. The ball broke up and came out the muzzle. When it did it hit the polymer ramrod guide and broke it up.

Pieces of the ball, ramrod guide and black powder went into my right hand mostly near the heel of the thumb. I also had flash burns on my right hand and on my left fingers that were holding the ramrod guide in place. The hard plastic knob on the end of the ramrod held in the palm of my hand deflected a lot of the debris that could have caused more
damage. One or more pieces of the ball/rod guide went right through the metal roof of the firing line above my head. My right arm/hand felt like someone had hit me hard on the elbow with a ball bat. Al Hahn took me to the doctor (Dr. R...) in Overbrook (we got him out of church). He x-rayed my hand and wrapped it loosely and sent me with the x-rays to Stormont.

At Stormont, Dr. Hutton (a hand specialist) did about 3 hours of surgery on my R (dominant) hand and wrist. He took out 13 pieces of lead and ramrod guide shrapnel. I was awake with a local antisethic and watched this operation in a mirror. (My choice.) He would extract some piece and
hold it up in the forceps and ask me what it was. That is why I know what he took out. The largest piece was a chunk of the ramrod guide. Luckily, there were no broken bones in my hand even though some pieces of the ball/ramrod guide were lodged right up against the bone. One or two went clear through. I had a lot stitches and a cast on my arm and hand for about a month. Some muscle in the heel of my thumb was removed.

There was concern about infection but luckily that did not occur. For a year or more shrapnel kept popping out of my hand. I had pieces of the ball/ramrod guide and black powder blasted past the cuticle under my fingernails. I still have some scars but the wound healed nicely. I
still have the photo of my hand taken at Stormont when I arrived.

I'm not sure how the gun went off. Heat generated by air compression is a likely suspect. Also, the research after the explosion on the gun turret of the New Jersey indicated that possible alignment/friction of powder grains under excess compression may cause spontaneous ignition.
Anyway, one should never attempt to unload a charged muzzleloading gun like I did. The only safe way is to physically get the powder out or to deactivate the powder by washing it out with water ( I don't know if this will work with Pyrodex) before trying ot extract the ball. The CO2 ball extractors also work, however I am concerned about what could happen if there was ignition while the CO2 had only pushed the ball and charge part way out?

Hope this answers your questions.
____________________

Now we have the REST of the story!

TexiKan
________________

If you continue to do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got.

 

[Bountyhunter]

This is an interesting post.

I shoot both muzzleloaders and BP Cartridge rifles. When I load the .45-70s for my original Springfield TD, using the 500 gr bullets, I have to compress the 70 grain powder charge almost .5 of an inch. The figures that I have read indicate that the compression on the powder at that point is almost 200# using the RCBS powder compression die.

This is standard loading proceedure for anyone who shoots the original rifles. I guess my point is that if it were dangerous to compress the powder, the BPC loaders would not recommend that.

In the front loading rifles, we always compress the powder as much as possible before starting the ball. We also blow through the nipple until there is no smoke out of the barrel before loading. Then when we seat the ball, we seat it tight enough that the ramrod will bounce when dropped.

On the chronograph, the compressed loads will give about 150 fps more velocity, much less fouling, and almost no smoke. I never never never put my hand over the end of the ramrod. I have enough strength to grip the ramrod and put my full weight on it. That gives me 200# on the rod. In all my 30 years of rendezvous shoots, all the shooters I shot with did that and I have never seen a rifle prematurely fire. I have belonged to and attended BP clubs in Kansas, Colorado, and NM.

I hunt most every season on my ranch in Kansas, and these techniques give me the most power and accuracy in my .53 Hawken. Dont know if this is PC, but it works for me.

Bill