Blackpowder Respect-

[Erzulis boat]

I have an assembly table at my shop that is covered with very short "outdoor" type carpet as to not scratch product.

I filled one of my priming horns at the table a few YEARS back. A little amount spilled, a Pixie Dust quantity. I hit the spot with a shop vac and got it all up....................

Fast forward to about 3 months ago. I was doing some grinding over a wooden sheet at the table.

An errant spark hit the spot- POOOOF! burned my hand, got a full flash in the face (thank God for safety glasses)and one Helluva scare.

The tiniest amount had remained, but it was enough.

Something to think about.

 

[smokehouseman]

First sorry about your mishap. I sure hope all members read and take note of what happened to you, there are probably very few of us who can say they haven't put themselves in your situation before. Thanks again for the heads up!

 

[agill]

I was always affraid that could happen. So, I have always filled horns outside. No accidents yet. Glad you're OK.

 

[musketman]

I have an assembly table at my shop that is covered with very short "outdoor" type carpet as to not scratch product.

I filled one of my priming horns at the table a few YEARS back. A little amount spilled, a Pixie Dust quantity. I hit the spot with a shop vac and got it all up....................

Good thing your shop vac didn't spark...

 

[Grizzled Roberts]

If there is loose black powder around a spark will find it! I was out in the woods many years ago squirel hunting with a flinter. I had a klatch
so I dumped out my prime and beat on my flint. I was very new to this it was my first flintlock.
So I decided to test the flint by snapping the lock without the prime ( did I mention it was my first flintlock! ) I had the barrel pointed at a big bank 30 yards away ( dirt not brick ) and when I pulled the trigger I watched a single spark
bounce around in the pan and fly right in the touchhole! The .36 barked and I had to have a change of underware! A very stupid thing to do but a learning and laundry experence!!!
I repeat, If there is black powder around a spark will find it. Unless you are aiming at a 12 point buck!!!

 

[longshot47]

:shocked2:

 

[MSW]

wow- it's downright scary when things go bang when you don't expect or want them to! ... thanks for the 'heads up' (nothing quite as instructive as a don't- do- like- i- did...)

 

[shmrck1]

As much as I would like to make a comment here!
I can't!
snake-eyes :surrender:

 

[Stumpkiller]

Similar outcome from a different approach. I pulled a charge (or two) coming in from hunting and tipped the muzzle over a wastebasket on my shop to catch the loose powder. It usually takes some breaking up with a breech scraper to loosen it all up.

At some point thereafter (weeks later) I wanted to start a fire in the wood furnace ( a big 'ol Royall indoor wood furnace) and didn't have newspaper handy so scrounged the wastebasket of paper and wadded up a bunch. Luckily, the "WOOF" occurred when I was gathering up the next size of kindling while seated on a stool in front of the furnace but twisting around to the woodpile we keep in boxes and not while I had my arm and face in the opening. It was probably less that 20 grains, but could have been more, and slammed the half-open iron door full open with a "CLANG".

Learned a lesson and now I dump the powder in a recycled tuna can and dispose of it outside (it's good for the lawn & flowers).

 

[10 gauge]

REAL MEN of genius.
BudLite salutes you Mr. cannon furnace inventer. Its a furnace, its a cannon, its a cannon furnace. Oh ya everyone has a furnace, but your the only one on the block that can send a 6 pound cast iron ball threw your neighbors house, with your furnace. Sure other men can heat their home, but only you sir can do it with a volley firing salute.
Safety, what safety, you own a live firing cannon in your own living room. Sure other men have burning oil, coal and wood furnaces, but yours is the only one powered by GOEX. :grin:

 

[Erzulis boat]

Here is the spot where the priming powder remained, and this was where my left hand was. It is in the shape of the African Continent BTW.

My hand has healed, but you can see where it ignited. The heat was intense. I was confused for a second after the flash, but then it all came back to me!

Trust me, it was a TINY amount.

Folks that are loading without a charger of sorts............

 

[ohio ramrod]

Yep simular thing happened yearsw ago I was rolling paper cartridges and spilled some on the table. Brushed it onto a newspaper and threw the newspaper into the trash. Latter I had some trash to burn in the outside trash barrel so I emptied the trash basket from the shop into the trash barrel and lit it. It was like a roman candle!

 

[renovato]

Good thing your shop vac didn't spark...

Years ago I had that very thing happen. Vacuumed up some powder from my reloading bench. Mostly smokeless, but there was a little black powder among it too. It lit off in the vacuum and started the dust on fire. It didn't cause any damage but it ruined my shopvac. BP ignites very easily, be careful folks.

 

[Trench]

I can only imagine how that made you jump! I was igniting a small amount of powder in a tin in my backyard. I wanted to darken the brass on my .36 with the residue. I didn't figure on too much flash or flame since it wasn't compressed in a barrel. Duh! BP burns fast and bright! It made me jump and I was expecting it!

 

[Mad Professor]

glad you are O.K.

When I have powder to recycle, I save it for the 4th, get some cannon fuse and improvise some works.

 

[Stumpkiller]

REAL MEN of genius.
BudLite salutes you Mr. cannon furnace inventer. Its a furnace, its a cannon, its a cannon furnace. Oh ya everyone has a furnace, but your the only one on the block that can send a 6 pound cast iron ball threw your neighbors house, with your furnace. Sure other men can heat their home, but only you sir can do it with a volley firing salute.
Safety, what safety, you own a live firing cannon in your own living room. Sure other men have burning oil, coal and wood furnaces, but yours is the only one powered by GOEX. :grin:

And extranious body & facial hair remover, too!

 

[awp101]

REAL MEN of genius.
BudLite salutes you Mr. cannon furnace inventer. Its a furnace, its a cannon, its a cannon furnace. Oh ya everyone has a furnace, but your the only one on the block that can send a 6 pound cast iron ball threw your neighbors house, with your furnace. Sure other men can heat their home, but only you sir can do it with a volley firing salute.
Safety, what safety, you own a live firing cannon in your own living room. Sure other men have burning oil, coal and wood furnaces, but yours is the only one powered by GOEX. :grin:

Genius... :rotf:

That's right folks, it's masterful bon mots such as that which have put him where he is today.... :thumbsup:

 

[Charles D. Prokopp]

A high-speed way to clean out one's chimney. No creosote build-up there, by golly! Don't even have to shake out the ashes.

 

[Dave Rosenthal]

When I taught my then 15 year old son the joys of our BP heritage, safety came along for the ride too! Before we even got to the range, I took some powder that had spilled onto the paper toweling (that I lay on my kitchen table where I load my pre-measured charges prior to a range session) and carefully rolled it up, making sure to keep it "clumped" together for maximum effect :shocked2: . Put this paper towel into my outdoor fireplace which is open on all sides, and lit the corner of the towel furthest away from where the powder was in the towel. The towel burned very slowly until the heat got to where it needed to be, and then a big POOOOFFF, it went up in a flash :haha: .

He was then and there told to always respect BP. We did this procedure so many times, that eventually I let him demo this (with me just watching) in front of some of his friends that visit the house. The demo is safer than letting teens play with fireworks (which are a contained charge, meant to explode) and still gets the idea across that BP is to be respected at ALL times.

Now zoom forward a little to a Boy Scout Camp-out with my Eagle Scout son's Troop. One of the other dads had accidentally forgotten to look in a trash can to see what was inside of it other than wood for the fire. This same dad that brought the scrap pallet wood from work dumped what was left of the tiny scraps into the fire ring at the campsite. Only problem was that one of his fellow employees decided to get rid of a piece of fireworks IN THE SAME CAN. :shocked2: When the firework piece (a small one, thank God!) hit the hot burning wood it LAUNCHED ITSELF out of the fire ring, missing a building by a couple of yards :rotf: . Needless to say, we other dads busted his chops at EVERY camp-out for quite some time after that! :haha:

Dave

 

[Travis Gregory]

A good friend of mine got a can of "smokeless powder" in a trade one time. The can was marked as the type he used to reload .308win cartridges. When he got it home and opened it up it looked very diffrent than what he was used to so he took it outside and poured it in a pile and made about a 2ft line of powder to the pile. His 13yr old daughter was watching and while still believing he was dealing with smokeless powder he said the notorious words "Hey, wanna see somithing cool?". He lit it off and POOF! It was Black powder in the wrong can. He had to ride 1hr to the hospital, then took a helecopter ride to Arkansas Childrens Hospital where he spent the better part of a month in the ICU burn unit. He healed up well with virtually no scarring but it nearly cost him his life with his daughter watching. Be very carefull even doing "controlled" demonstrations.