Dangerous Situation

[Britsmoothy]

Actually, if you fill your barrel up with powder in all likelihood it will blow up. There is a point in the ignition that the abundance of powder becomes the projectile which causes pressure to build and that pressure builds rapidly causing an explosion. This explosion can obliterate your gun barrel and possibly you as well. So please do not do this !

Got any proof?

 

[jimairwin]

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

View attachment 110469

SERVICE CHARGE FOR 58 CAL SPRINGFIELD (OR OTHER) MUSKET IS 65 GRAINS MUSKET POWDER (ROUGHLY EQUIVALENT TO 2FG) UNDER A 575 DIAMETER ROUGHLY 500 GRAIN LEAD MINIE` BALL.

 

[Zapadach]

Got any proof?

Back in the early eighties I belive, I read an extensive article on that very subject in either muzzleloader magazine or muzzl blast. I do not have the information as to year or month of this article. However it covered in detail this subject as well of some experiences of single shot pistols exploding. Since that time I have always followed that advice so as not to have a dangerous situation. Since my last post I have seen the video of the two young men deliberately overloading a rifle to see if it would blow up. These young men went so far as to load smokeless powder as well. However, they did not use a thin walled musket or a smoothbore pistol. So then if someone would like to do what they did, they thus far have the freedom to do it. I though prefer to stay on the safe side. I have experience being blown up many years ago, and once was enough thank you.

 

[Zapadach]

Sure about that?

Please refer to my post to Britsmoothy. Thanks.

 

[Big Tom 52]

Glad No one was hurt and also glad I joined this group. I would of never thought to check things like that !

 

[Britsmoothy]

Back in the early eighties I belive, I read an extensive article on that very subject in either muzzleloader magazine or muzzl blast. I do not have the information as to year or month of this article. However it covered in detail this subject as well of some experiences of single shot pistols exploding. Since that time I have always followed that advice so as not to have a dangerous situation. Since my last post I have seen the video of the two young men deliberately overloading a rifle to see if it would blow up. These young men went so far as to load smokeless powder as well. However, they did not use a thin walled musket or a smoothbore pistol. So then if someone would like to do what they did, they thus far have the freedom to do it. I though prefer to stay on the safe side. I have experience being blown up many years ago, and once was enough thank you.

As much as I understand and respect your opinion. You offer no proof.
Alas, there is no common sense in brimming a barrel with powder in the first place and I don't even understand why it was brought up!

As for musket thin walled barrels, they are not thin walled at the important end. By the time anything gets to the thin walled muzzle pressure is way down.
A service charge for a BB was in excess of 100gns with something like a 400 to 500 gn ball ! Would anyone here suggest they were crass?

 

[Bad Karma]

Back in the early eighties I belive, I read an extensive article on that very subject in either muzzleloader magazine or muzzl blast. I do not have the information as to year or month of this article. However it covered in detail this subject as well of some experiences of single shot pistols exploding. Since that time I have always followed that advice so as not to have a dangerous situation. Since my last post I have seen the video of the two young men deliberately overloading a rifle to see if it would blow up. These young men went so far as to load smokeless powder as well. However, they did not use a thin walled musket or a smoothbore pistol. So then if someone would like to do what they did, they thus far have the freedom to do it. I though prefer to stay on the safe side. I have experience being blown up many years ago, and once was enough thank you.

Sam Fadala double charged (double projectiles too, patched round ball) a very thin walled barrel in an attempt to blow it up. It didn blow until he short started the projectile. Even then it only produced a walnut sized bulge on the first try with a single ball over 100 grains of 2f goex. it took a short start and double balls to split the tube. Our guns are much over engineered.

Oh yeah, the barrel was 1/2 inch type L copper tubing which has an internal diameter of .545” and a wall thickness of .040” …


Just edited to add that as much as it probably shook @Macman when he touched off that overcharged musket, he and the old girl were in no danger of obliteration unless the gun was in really poor condition. Good reminder though to check your equipment for the malicious touch of Murphy…

 

[hanshi]

Getting back to measures and mistakes I'll say I've avoided significant errors so far. I have several of the simple T/C brass ones and two measures that have the slide held by the pressure button. The only time I used those two with the marked slides is when I'm working up a load. I keep a sharp eye on that slide, too. When a load is settled on a fixed measure is made for that charge. I've used antler, river cane, wood and spent brass cartridges. That helps keep measuring mistakes much less likely.

 

[HiDesertHunter]

As much as I understand and respect your opinion. You offer no proof.
Alas, there is no common sense in brimming a barrel with powder in the first place and I don't even understand why it was brought up!

It seems I saw a vid on some guys intentionally destroying some ML rifles (safely) and one of the things they did was to brim the barrel with powder and fire it. All it did was blow the unburnt powder out of the barrel.

 

[DuncNZ]

The last Parker Hale P58 , 2 band , rifle I purchased was as new unfired in the box . It came with a bullet mould , 25 projectiles powder measure etc a tin of no 11 caps and 1 pound of 800x nitro powder . This took me back a bit , he told me that is what the sales person had given him , he had tried to shoot it with out a bullet just to make it go bang ,the caps didn't fit so it didn't work , it was too much trouble so he sold it to me for $500 . A near good by turned into a good buy for me Ps don't trust sales people , they don't always know what they are talking about unless it is a specialized business .

 

[Griz44Mag]

SERVICE CHARGE FOR 58 CAL SPRINGFIELD (OR OTHER) MUSKET IS 65 GRAINS MUSKET POWDER (ROUGHLY EQUIVALENT TO 2FG) UNDER A 575 DIAMETER ROUGHLY 500 GRAIN LEAD MINIE` BALL.

Hmmmmmmmm.....
Wrong caliber, wrong gun, wrong powder, wrong bullet........

 

[Baggy270]

80 grains in my .50 is a playing around load….

 

[Josephg]

Just checked mine. Mine is solid brass not hollow. Maybe I'm missing something in the OPs post? If his tube is hollow how did they stamp the numbers in it and make the lines without sqwershing it? Okay, I get it now, after reading it three times. It's early!

 

[powderhombre]

I would never admit any of this on a face to face encounter with anyone here, But as to dangerous behavior myself and comrades way back in the day did everything with muzzleloaders you are not supposed to do including drugs and alcohol while in the act of "Target Practice" . I mean we shot balls stuck half way down the barrel, full double loaded charges, Not just powder, but balls and conicles with powder. Just turned our faces away from the gun in case something went wrong. shot ram rods out of guns at least once or twice. Surprisingly nothing bad ever happed. Of course we never we're dumb enough to load smokeless powder only because we didn't have any. Otherwise who knows...Hmm. Side note a great testament to the barrels used by T/C back in the 70's. And oh yes I have changed my ways.

 

[gunnyr]

Getting back to measures and mistakes I'll say I've avoided significant errors so far. I have several of the simple T/C brass ones and two measures that have the slide held by the pressure button. The only time I used those two with the marked slides is when I'm working up a load. I keep a sharp eye on that slide, too. When a load is settled on a fixed measure is made for that charge. I've used antler, river cane, wood and spent brass cartridges. That helps keep measuring mistakes much less likely.

I do the same, this is good advice for anyone and fun too.
gunny

 

[HiDesertHunter]

how did they stamp the numbers in it and make the lines without sqwershing it?

The adjustable, sliding part is made out of solid square brass stock.

The round part at the top of this part becomes to 'base' that slides up and down within the tube to create the measured amount.

That part fell off allowing powder to fall to bottom of the tube and around the square slider and filled the entire tube.

 

[Josephg]

The adjustable, sliding part is made out of solid square brass stock.

The round part at the top of this part becomes to 'base' that slides up and down within the tube to create the measured amount.

That part fell off allowing powder to fall to bottom of the tube and around the square slider and filled the entire tube.

Yeah, I got it. It was early and my senior brain wasn't fully engaged.

 

[Dale Allen Raby]

@Johnny Tremain kinda has the right idea. I have a few adjustable powder measures, and I have used them, but generally I choose to use a fixed powder measure like the ones in the image below. They are clearly marked as to charge weight and these are even color-coded. Now, could I grab the wrong one? Sure, but it will still only hold it's internal volume, so the most I could possibly use is 70 grains, the volumetric measured weight that fills my largest measure, which is not an overcharge for any but my pistols and small-bore rifles. I think I would notice that the measure was a bit large for those guns.

The best thing an adjustable powder measure could potentially be used for is as a measuring tool to check the volume of more deer antler measures I might one day choose to make myself. These came from October Country, but I dyed them myself using food coloring (yes, there is a thread).

Yes, things like what happened to the OP have happened to me as well.

 

[Steve Wagner]

Sure about that?

First off, if the question to be asked is, "will it blow up" I am not trying it. That said, there are published loads for Titegroup, 45-70, 405 grain bullets. Max loads, IIRC, are 12 grains. [Don't believe me, look it up for yourself.] Period ! Not the whopping 80 they stuffed in that poor ML beast. I have shot many 45-70/405 loads at 10 grains and they are very mild. It is quite safe [Marlin 1895] in that cartridge bc Titegroup is position insensitive. But it still can be a dangerous practice bc of the small charge and the easier possibility of a double charge that would, most likely, be catastrophic. Will I attempt it in any muzzleloader ? Never, no way, no how ! Living with all my parts is still attractive to me.
I think if they really wanted to vaporize that rifle, a real tight double ball over 80 grains of imr 4198 would be interesting. I saw their full barrel BP double ball test and it looks to me like that could go either way depending on the rifle. You guys can try it multiple choice. SW

 

[Dobegrant]

Thanks for sharing