Is loading from the flask really that dangerous???

[Gun Tramp]

Look out. Now its going to break into the old discussion of weather a horn should have the end epoxied on or set in wax and pinned. Which one makes the bigger boom!

A test might also include flasks of different construction? I admit to being unwilling to sacrifice horns and flasks for a project, though.
Riling's The Powder Flask Book shows three examples of "Cap-Charger Flasks" on page 423, accompanied by, "Flasks embodying a capper or capping arrangement of any source or sort are considered quite rare by flask collectors." I bet.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I mean I've been doing it for years from my revolvers. I understand the danger but isn't that a pretty small probability?? Your thoughts??

Well you're right, with the shallow depth of the revolver cylinder, there is likely enough oxygen circulation that the embers die long before you start reloading.

It might be different with a long barrel, single chambered piece.
And there is also the factor of how many shots have been fired, and is the piece rifled or smoothbore

The barrel on a long gun just might hold an ember for a bit. I've seen "cookoffs" of paper cartridges on muskets on more than one occasion. These were, however, shooting for speed at a timed event, or shooting for speed at a battle reenactment. So a rifle is going to need swabbing after every third shot I'd say, and definitely after every fourth shot if not after every third. The damp patch and the removal of the crud buildup in the rifle reduces the chance for an ember surviving. Which is why in all of the instances where I've witnessed a round cook-off, it was with muskets.

So this is why folks have always been told to use something like a charger..., a measure fixed for the powder load that the piece likes best. That way, you can pour in the powder and IF you get a cook-off, you are likely only to get a minor burn.

LD

 

[Old Hawkeye]

What movie was it where some guy said, "Just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should". Or how about, "Just because it's a bad idea, doesn't mean it won't be fun".

 

[tenngun]

The fact NMLRA bans it is a non sequitur with me. They have Lawyers and insurance they have to think what reasonable precaution are we taking to make sure the range is safe should a meteor fall out of the sky.
Should you have a cartridge cook off reloading, it might hit your finger, not a good day not as bad as several ounces of powder going off in your hand.
After you have shot five or six shots and you go to reload time alone has probably extinguished any embers.
I’ve shot paper cartridges in my smoothies. But haven’t primed the pan first in near thirty years.
people did it all the time, they still do, I won’t
I refuse to live my life under the bed shivering in fear of the guy with the scythe, and I may take chances I shouldn’t, but I just can’t see why you would try, when a measure cost you a few second at most.
Billy Yank won’t get you while your reloading or Johnny Reb of Crazy Horse either.

 

[tenngun]

Every safety rule created, was caused by an accident and most likely an injury occurred.

Or some one that thought it looked dangerous, or someone complaining the other guy had some unfair advantage.....

 

[GANGGREEN]

My opinion as well. I'm the least skittish person I know and probably willing to take risks when you need to do so to have fun, but in this case it literally takes a few extra seconds to use a proper powder measure and do it right. Given that I shoot maybe once a week during the summertime and almost never in the winter and given that I might shoot 20 shots in a session (and more likely 3-5), why in God's name would I take ANY risk to save 60 seconds cumulatively?

The fact NMLRA bans it is a non sequitur with me. They have Lawyers and insurance they have to think what reasonable precaution are we taking to make sure the range is safe should a meteor fall out of the sky.
Should you have a cartridge cook off reloading, it might hit your finger, not a good day not as bad as several ounces of powder going off in your hand.
After you have shot five or six shots and you go to reload time alone has probably extinguished any embers.
I’ve shot paper cartridges in my smoothies. But haven’t primed the pan first in near thirty years.
people did it all the time, they still do, I won’t
I refuse to live my life under the bed shivering in fear of the guy with the scythe, and I may take chances I shouldn’t, but I just can’t see why you would try, when a measure cost you a few second at most.
Billy Yank won’t get you while your reloading or Johnny Reb of Crazy Horse either.

 

[Tanglefoot]

Think about this, TexasAndy,
During WWI and the first year or so of WWII, the standard bursting charge for a fragmentation hand grenade was 500 grains of black powder ... granulation unspecified (or I simply don't know). There are 7010 grains in one pound of powder. That's enough for 14 hand grenades with a squib left over. I don't know how much your flask holds, but I'll bet it's more than 500 grains.
My battered old buffalo horn will carry a full pound so I decided very early in the game NOT to pour powder directly from the horn into my rifle. Ever. I once had the experience of a charge flashing while loading. I am grateful for many things in this life, and one of them is that there were only about 60 grains of 3F in the charge that flashed. Another is that I was pouring from a small powder measure and not the horn. And most of all --- that no part of my anatomy was directly over the muzzle when it happened.
SO --- You do whatever trips your trigger, amigo, always remembering that you're responsible for the people close by when you do it. There's no shortage of chances to get hurt in this life and I believe it's just smart to avoid as many as we can. We all know there are gonna be some we can't avoid.

 

[FishDFly]

Or some one that thought it looked dangerous, or someone complaining the other guy had some unfair advantage.....

After working in Health, Safety and Environmental, everyone of our safety rules was caused by someone either being injured or killed. Safety has nothing to do to do with, "Or some one that thought it looked dangerous, or someone complaining the other guy had some unfair advantage....."

Loss of body parts or dead is important.

I am particular whom I shoot next to.

 

[tenngun]

There are important safety rules.
Then there is no blowing down bores( I know Bobs second cousin met a guy in a bar who had a friend who heard that a guy shot off his own head blowing down a bore in front of his wife, girl friend son and daughter a Boy Scout troop an Mrs Grundys 2ed grade class)
But there are also
No rear sights on smoothbores
4” edge on Tomahawk throws ect
That’s three rules that disrespect history and offer no safety advantage

 

[FishDFly]

"Then there is no blowing down bores"

"That’s three rules that disrespect history and offer no safety advantage"

There are lots of places that do not agree with you on blowing down the barrel. Just because they did it in the past does not make it safe.

Happened to be at a shoot where a guy shot a hole in the bill of his hat. He is a bit more safety conscious now.

 

[Col. Batguano]

t depends a lot on the flask or horns construction,
if it can release the pressure by splitting or similar before it gets too much that can reduce a blast to a burn and you end up a bit singed, this has happened to friends of mine and its not fun but you walk away intact (unless of course your wearing modern synthetic clothing),
as mentioned earlier a good mechanism will reduce the chance of it happening in the first place,
also don't have more powder in it than you need.
historically people had a different perception of risk

You couldn't have said it better (emphasis added).

 

[springfield art]

I mean I've been doing it for years from my revolvers. I understand the danger but isn't that a pretty small probability?? Your thoughts??

It's not worth the risk; the flask is like a little old-time grenade in your hand. Yeah, small risk, but why take it? You'll get a ton of comments pro and con! Have a Good New Year..

 

[springfield art]

Every time I tossed one of Uncle Sam's grenades I half expected it to go off with the flip of the spoon. Seperate measures for me....

Prior to the military going with modern dynamite, the old pineapple grenades has only 4 oz. of Black Powder in them...yet look how fearsome they could be. Good to see a comment from someone who actually threw one. I just had to in Basic once or twice.

 

[tenngun]

"Then there is no blowing down bores"

"That’s three rules that disrespect history and offer no safety advantage"

There are lots of places that do not agree with you on blowing down the barrel. Just because they did it in the past does not make it safe.

Happened to be at a shoot where a guy shot a hole in the bill of his hat. He is a bit more safety conscious now.

I don’t want another back and forth on blowing down the barrel, but I don’t see how a guy shooting a hole in his cap has anything to do with it.
No they did many things in the past that were unsafe, however rules, and it’s only NMLRA rules, not somehow laws written in stone that were for lawyers and insurance that have nought to do with real safety

 

[TNsourdough]

I witnessed a "prime from horn" incident some 40 years ago when a competitor was priming a flintlock. He lost 3 and a half fingers, sight in his right eye, and some "shrapnel" wounds to his chest and upper thigh. He said later that he'd just poured nearly half a pound of fffg into the horn before starting the match. It was his 5th shot in a 5-shot string. Ruined the whole match for us. He did learn to shoot left handed, but he wasn't as good a shot that way.

 

[Sun City]

You remind me of this guy:



I'd been looking at a pretty, brass-framed BP revolver in the case at Shattuck's Hardware for a couple of months, and boy! Was I ever proud the day I went in and plunked down the money for it! Eleven dollars in one dollar bills... and eighteen dollars in quarter and dimes. Old Man Shattuck was a great old guy, whose eyesight, thankfully, had gotten really bad over the years... he didn't recognize me as he sold me the .36 caliber pistol... he even threw in a box of pure lead balls with the pistol and percussion caps when I bought the pound of black powder.

I told Mr. Shattuck that I was anxious to shoot it and was heading straight for the dump, and asked him to show me how to load the gun. "It's pretty simple," I recall his telling me. "You measure your powder into the cylinder chamber, put a bullet over it, ram it down in with the hinged thing under the barrel, put your cap over a nipple, and you're set to shoot." I thanked him for his help and headed for the door.

"One last thing!" he called to me as I was running out the door, "Don't forget to put grease over your balls! Crisco works fine!" I didn't understand the need for the last part, but I stopped at Tony's Grocery and bought a little blue can of Crisco grease. And now... to the dump! Where bottles and cans, rats and crows were just waiting for this ol' cowboy to do 'em in!

I replayed Mr. Shattuck's instructions in my head as I laid out all my gear on the smothed-out, brown paper bag at my feet. The first thing I realized was that I didn't have anything to measure the powder with... UNTIL I remembered my knife! I carried one of those folding stag handled camper's knives- you know, the ones with a fork on one side and a spoon on the other? The spoon was perfect for what I needed! Very carefully (thank heaven there wasn't any wind blowing) I poured a spoonful of powder from the can into the spoon, then tipped the spoon up and tapped the powder into the cylinder. Sure, I spilled a bunch over because the spoon held so much more, but what the heck! Powder was cheap, back then... and I had plenty to spare...

Being a methodical kind of kid, I filled all six chambers with the powder, managing to spill as much around my feet, I suppose, as I was getting into the cylinder. I can laugh now, but when I bent over to get the bullets all the powder fell out of the cylinders onto my boots... so I had to fill them all over again! I managed to get all the chambers filled with powder and then stuck a bullet into the first cylinder... I had to really tap it in with my knife to get it started... then shoved it in as far as it would go with the rammer thing. I lost a little powder in the process, but eventually I had all six chambers loaded and ready to go. Then I put percussion caps over the things sticking out the ends of the cylinders...


One last thing and then I'd be ready to shoot... I took my baseball cap off and stuffed it inside my shirt over my left nipple. Okay... I guessed I was ready (except, of course, that in my haste I'd forgotten to pull up my pants...)

Well sir, I crooked my left am out in front of my face, rested the trigger guard of the pistol in my right hand on it, drew a tight bead on an old Four Roses bottle, and squeezed the trigger. I remember a bright flash, a burning sensation on my arm and face, then something hit me square in the forehead and the lights went out.

It must have been quite sometime later when I awoke. I was laid out across the back seat of Sheriff Miller's car (I knew this from the plexi-glass partition and a previous ride when I'd been sixteen), the rider's side door was open and my feet and lower legs were hanging out. As I raised my head to look for the source of the voices I heard I felt like someone had hit me in the head with a sledgehammer. I could see two men in the dim, evening light, just outside the door and within my range of vision. At least, I thought they were two men... I could hear two speaking but they were sorta spinning around and they looked like six. From the voices I knew they were Sheriff Miller and my Dad... "... busy on another call so the volunteer fire department was the first out here," I heard the Sheriff explaining to my dad. "Mabel Krutchner called it in... said she saw smoke comin' from the dump and had heard an awful explosion over this way."

"Near as I can tell from what the firemen say, when they got here they found your boy lying over there. At first they thought he was dead. The dump was on fire all around him, his left arm and face were all black, his boots were scorched pretty badly, he had a HUGE knot on his forehead where somebody'd cold-cocked him."


"Well, Al, it's like this," the Sheriff said. "The first men to get to your boy said he was unconscious; they found part of a gun by his body. He has quite a knot on his head.

 

[springfield art]

I don’t want another back and forth on blowing down the barrel, but I don’t see how a guy shooting a hole in his cap has anything to do with it.
No they did many things in the past that were unsafe, however rules, and it’s only NMLRA rules, not somehow laws written in stone that were for lawyers and insurance that have nought to do with real safety

I wonder who the heck said they blew down the barrel in the 'old days' anyway?? The comment made about the hole in the hat, was an example of a gun going off unexpectedly, I thought, and that would make it germane to the conversation.

 

[springfield art]

My opinion as well. I'm the least skittish person I know and probably willing to take risks when you need to do so to have fun, but in this case it literally takes a few extra seconds to use a proper powder measure and do it right. Given that I shoot maybe once a week during the summertime and almost never in the winter and given that I might shoot 20 shots in a session (and more likely 3-5), why in God's name would I take ANY risk to save 60 seconds cumulatively?

We're all responsible for our own safety as long as it doesn't endanger others, I guess....

 

[tenngun]

We see blowing down the barrel in several loading instructions in the past.
It’s not related to loading a revolver directly from a flask. I don’t think that’s as dangerous as loading a rifle on line from a flask.

 

[Tasbay]

To add to TexasAndy`s question have any of you ever had powder ignite while loading from a measure of any type. I always swab between shots with damp patch and admit to the fault of always loading straight from the flask.
I will confess though to always being a bit nervous loading 700 odd grains of black into the Cannon after firing.