Guys and Girls,
I'd like to relate an incident that could have been a very dangerous situation. First I'd like to mention that as you can see I am new to muzzleloading and this forum. No excuse. About two weeks ago I found a small shiny round brass button shaped object on my garage floor. It was threaded on the back side. I had no idea what it was but it looked important so I threw it in my gun box. I discovered what it was the next time I shot my musket. Without knowing the button was the internal cap of the square measuring piston of my brass powder measurer. I measured my first load and dropped it and a ball into the barrel. I had a new range rod and marked the depth with a marker. When I shot the musket it kicked like it had never kicked before and let out a tremendous belch of fire and smoke at the muzzle. It kicked so hard it bruised my cheek. Well, come to find out without the cap on the measurer the tube filled up with powder around the square base of the entire piston. Later on I reconstructed the situation and found that I had unintentionally loaded 85 grains instead of the 45 grains that I generally use. Without the cap in place I had loaded about twice my normal charge. The cap had somehow unscrewed itself and fallen out. I know I should have looked into the measurer before I dumped the powder in. I have since re-screwed the cap with a little Loctite to hold it in place. I only report this so that this freak accident doesn't happen to anyone else. And I have notified TOW about the possibility of it happening with another unit, suggesting that they use Loctite also.
Phil
I'd like to relate an incident that could have been a very dangerous situation. First I'd like to mention that as you can see I am new to muzzleloading and this forum. No excuse. About two weeks ago I found a small shiny round brass button shaped object on my garage floor. It was threaded on the back side. I had no idea what it was but it looked important so I threw it in my gun box. I discovered what it was the next time I shot my musket. Without knowing the button was the internal cap of the square measuring piston of my brass powder measurer. I measured my first load and dropped it and a ball into the barrel. I had a new range rod and marked the depth with a marker. When I shot the musket it kicked like it had never kicked before and let out a tremendous belch of fire and smoke at the muzzle. It kicked so hard it bruised my cheek. Well, come to find out without the cap on the measurer the tube filled up with powder around the square base of the entire piston. Later on I reconstructed the situation and found that I had unintentionally loaded 85 grains instead of the 45 grains that I generally use. Without the cap in place I had loaded about twice my normal charge. The cap had somehow unscrewed itself and fallen out. I know I should have looked into the measurer before I dumped the powder in. I have since re-screwed the cap with a little Loctite to hold it in place. I only report this so that this freak accident doesn't happen to anyone else. And I have notified TOW about the possibility of it happening with another unit, suggesting that they use Loctite also.
Phil
Last edited:
to get your attention. I just checked my measure, different construction 
