Gun left loaded for how long???

One more thing . a spit patch left in the barrel WILL cause a rust ring!!!! Ask how I know. After a lifetime spent with black powder guns I have found all sorts of things stuck down LOADED barrels. One barrel I personally dipsticked and measured prooved to be still loaded, due to a cupped breech plug. The burn is still on my shop floor. I was using heat to remove the plug and bang. The burn serves to remind me . :rotf:

 

[Archer 756]

I just read the following post and was really suprised that ALL fogot the first rule, A GUN IS ALWAYS LOADED.


:nono:

 

[Mad Professor]

The old wives tale of corrosive salts being formed, on firing, is pure myth.

:hmm:...gonna have to do better than that to convince me...
:grin:

I can taste the salt in BP residue on my fingers...and if I get a little residue in a nick on my finger from a sharp flint, it burns like...well...salt in the wound
:grin:

BP is 75% potassium nitrate (KNO3), which is a salt. Further the nitrate ion is a good oxidizing agent. However for a salt to cause corrosion MOISTURE must be present too :winking:

 

[sidelock]

I have left my T/C .50 loaded for 8 mo. without missfire. If I leave it loaded for over --say, a week--- I place a slip of paper under the hammer saying "LOADED" just to remind myself, and possibly others of the situation. Good luck from Montana :thumbsup:

 

With all due respect, I just read all of the answers to the question of keeping a gun loaded and Roundball is the only one that used good old fashioned common sense. Why take a chance that someone not familiar with your rifle, or pistol, or the fact that it is loaded might pick it up and do something stupid, by mistake. There are so many ways to empty a rifle today without firing it that it should not even be a question. I personally know someone who left a rifle loaded between hunting seasons and the next year when he discharged it, by accident, he almost killed his wife. "He forgot it was loaded". I have also had an 1842 Springfield that was loaded and when I unloaded it the powder did burn. There is no substitute for careful and proper handling and storage of firearms.
Mark

 

[laufer]

Perfect use for a wife, try a gun that you are not sure if it is loaded on her, and if it is, ooppps, I forgot that it was loaded. :winking:

 

[sequoia]

I seem to remember reading an article about a gun writer who was examining a civil war display in a town museum and found that something like half of the guns on display,both rifles and pistols, were still loaded! The woman who was the director almost had a stroke when she found out. :shocked2:

 

[tg]

I have left guns loaded for several months with no ill effect to the barrel and they fired as normal when I did shoot them....as usual caution is the key word with a loaded gun around the house, some individuals situations may not allow this to be done safely.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Don't meddle with old unloaded firearms. They are the most deadly and unerring things that have ever been created by man. You don't have to take any pains at all with them; you don't have to have a rest, you don't have to have any sights on the gun, you don't have to take aim, even. No, you just pick out a relative and bang away, and you are sure to get him. A youth who can't hit a cathedral at thirty yards with a Gatling gun in three-quarters of an hour, can take up an old empty musket and bag his mother every time at a hundred. Think what Waterloo would have been if one of the armies had been boys armed with old rusty muskets supposed not to be loaded, and the other army had been composed of their female relations. The very thought of it makes me shudder.
- Mark Twain ~ Advice to Youth speech, 4/15/1882

Assume they're ALL loaded. :winking:

 

[Legionair]

Left my 58 rem loaded for 6 months once,
when I finally got out to shoot it (after adding caps - I'm not stupid), it lit up fine.
No problems...

Legion :thumbsup:

 

[rmark]

If I recall correctly, I saw an article suggesting that fired black powder residue is alkaline, not acidic, and that much of the pitting in or on old guns was caused by corrosive percussion caps.

 

[RedFeather]

Read about a family brought a gunsmith an old double-barrel shotgun that had been sitting in the closet for severl generations. He gave it the ramrod test and found it was still loaded. Pulled the loads and they were wadded-over with what appeared to be a French newspaper from the 1870's. Call it 100+ years. I always drop the rod down the bore at gun shops, shows, pawn shops, et cetera. People look at me as if I'm daft but it pays to be safe.

RedFeather

ps - Before the Virginia Civil War battlefields were incorporated into the National Parks, my uncle used to go dig up stuff. He had an assortment of artillery shells, one of which he took to a friend's farm where they shot it with a high powered rifle to see if it would explode. It did not. Instead, it spewed a fountain of fire about forty feet into the air from the fuse hole. Also, when Val Forgett of Navy Arms did his survey of Bannerman's Island in the late 50's he found that two large naval shells which had stood on its dock for decades were still live. Never can tell with old guns amd munitions!

 

[Bartek]

I was readding an article about it. Most extreme example was: workers in some Italian city found the old caplock pistol under pipes of water conduit. They played with it and the pistol shoted unexpectedly.