Disintegrated nipple upon firing

[bpnelson]

Howdy folks, was shooting my .50 cal CVA Hawken today as usual, .490 round ball, .16 patch, 70 grains 777 FFg, my light target load. Now, I use the powder measure not the flask spout because I don't trust it, so I know I put exactly 70 grains down the bore. Completed standard loading. Fired.

The nipple seems to have completely exploded. No damage whatsoever to any of the parts at the lock or anywhere else after careful disassembly and inspection. Also it should be noted that at 25 yards supported the ball did not strike the 2ftx2ft plywood my target is on (unheard of).

My theory is a lot of the powder went out the hole left from the nipple breaking apart and didn't propel the ball hardly at all and it is in the dirt between the target and the shooting position.

Two questions:

why do you think this happened?

is it at all possible the ball did not exit the barrel (recoil and smoke and muzzle flash seemed normal)?

Thanks for any thoughts/comments if you've experienced this ever.

 

[tecum-tha]

Nipple or the drum? Can you post pictures?

 

[hawkeye2]

Triple 7 is hotter than black powder and 70 grains of 777 is not a "light target load" by any stretch of the imagination. I use 39 grains of 2f in my .58 with a 315 grain projectile out to 100 yards and I know some who use even less.

It is possible the nipple disintegrated but it's more likely the threads stripped and it blew out. In either case you are lucky to have avoided injury. I would have someone check the threads in the breech for damage before fitting a new nipple and shooting the gun again. If the nipple disappeared when you fired you should have seen a fireball at the lock that would have been much larger than the flash of a flintlock. "(recoil and smoke and muzzle flash seemed normal)"???

 

[Tom Compton]

Nipple probably stripped the threads and blew out. Lost lots of pressure causing low velocity and impact. If it were American I'd say a 6mm nipple was in a 1/4 thd but CVAs were metric.

Run a thread gauge you may need to go to a larger thread for safety.
TC

 

[bpnelson]

Literally just the nipple, it's like someone unscrewed it and threw it in the grass. No trace of it. Drum threads completely fine. Weirdest thing.

 

[FrontierMuzzleloading]

I'd say incorrect nipple thread.

Even with T7, 70gr 3f is NOT a heavy load.

Could be the last time it was cleaned, the nipple wasn't fully snugged down and it simply just blew out.

I'd run a 6-1mm tap and see how that fits. Could possibly have stretched threads.

Order a Knight red hot #11 nipple and see how that does.

 

[bpnelson]

Good insight, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah hot 777 for me means 90 grains. I actually ordered that exact nipple right after this happend

 

[mooman76]

I can't see the ball still being there but you can check easy enough. Just run the ramrod down the bore to check. Glad you weren't hurt.

 

[Pete44ru]

I can't see the ball still being there but you can check easy enough.

Just run the ramrod down the bore to check.

Glad you weren't hurt.

+1

One way to check for a bore obstruction would be to blow through the nipple/barrel to determine if it will hold pressure (aka: obstructed) or not (un-obstructed).

The 2nd way to check for a barrel obstruction is with a ramrod - just drop it downbore until it stops, then grasp it very close to the muzzle when it's withdrawn.

W/O removing the withdrawing fingers from their position, hold the RR alongside the outside of the barrel from the muzzle toward the rear - if the rear end of the RR is fairly close to the nipple end of the bbl, it's most likely clear, if it's shy, there's a blockage.

However, I've found that the only problem with the RR method is that, in some cases of a launched nipple, the boolit will move very little when the powder charge blows out of the rather large hole where the nipple was - which can make obstruction depth judging "iffy" because of some front-stuffer's design/construction differences.

 

[pa woods roamer]

A Friend of mine, We were at a shoot, kept complaining about powder residue kept hitting Him in the Face.This was a Percussion Thompson using a mild load. He loaded up and shot and His Baseball Cap flew off !! We finally came to the conclusion that the last time He cleaned if He just put the Nipple back in finger tight !!Lucky Guy..

 

[Rifleman1776]

Literally just the nipple, it's like someone unscrewed it and threw it in the grass. No trace of it. Drum threads completely fine. Weirdest thing.

Read again what 40flint just said. Best, and most consise answer yet. You need to make sure you have right nipple before replacing and/or retap to make sure you know what you have.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Clean and thoroughly inspect the rifle...
It's hard to say without having it in hand but, likely it had the wrong nipple or the nipple was cross threaded.. I've seen guys cross thread the nipple and when fired it comes loose.

If the threads are stripped in the bolster it will have to be re-drilled and tapped to a larger nipple...

P.S....I have had nipples break upon firing also....

 

[azmntman]

My old man blew his hat off n smoked one lens of his glasses with a nipple coming out. Funny as hell but COULDA BEEN WORSE. If he didn't have glasses on :shake: