OOPSIii ! what's your best/worst one.

[nick_1]

Couple days ago I seated two .490 round balls in my Trapper pistol. I suspected that i might have but it was seated tight and i figured two 147 grain round balls are not even as bad as one 370g maxi ball so i pulled the trigger. 25g of 777 3f. it kicked pretty hard and I missed the steel plate I was aiming at but other than that no harm done.. Wish i was shooting paper as it would have been nice to see what kind of pattern ?

 

[amcmullen]

Guy at camp flashed on two deer. After that he tried and tried and couldn't get his gun to go off. Everyone looked at it, everyone tried somethingdifferent. Powder, lighter, matches. After about an hour someone ran a ramrod down the barrel, he never loaded the gun.

 

[JeffG]

Sounds like you fared well.

 

[Loja man]

Guy at camp flashed on two deer. After that he tried and tried and couldn't get his gun to go off. Everyone looked at it, everyone tried somethingdifferent. Powder, lighter, matches. After about an hour someone ran a ramrod down the barrel, he never loaded the gun.

Had a similar situation. I had my 13 year old load the Kentucky rifle opening morning of KY early muzzleloader weekend. I handed him the components to make sure order was good. He struggled pulling the ball starter out for some reason. But I handed him the ram rod to ram the ball home. I wasn’t paying as close attention at that piont. When he had the ram rod all the way down I glanced at it and all looked good. We hunted the weekend and no deer. Next weekend we went out to shoot. I was working on dialing in the load on my new GPR. Part way through my 12 year old wanted to shoot the Kentucky. So I got him set up. He pulled the trigger, cap went pop and nothing happend. Keep gun pointed down range we tried another cap. Same thing. I picked the nipple and tried again. Same thing. So I removed the nipple. Couldn’t see any powder so I dribbled some in the drum. Put on a new cap and pulled trigger!
Nothing but the cap going pop! Now I’m puzzled. Pull nipple again….no powder! Dribbled more in. Gun was tilted barrel down. The powder in the drum quickly disappeared. Dribbled more in. It disappeared. Held the gun barrel down and a small amount of powder trickled out on the shooting table. Ran the ramrod down the barrel. Empty! Blew in the nipple and could feel it coming out the barrel!
When we started shootings that afternoon I noticed that the flared brass end of my short start was missing! I thought to myself well that’s odd! When and how did it break off!! Then I remember my son having trouble pulling it out after starting the ball opening morning. Best I can figure is he pounded it in at a bit of an angle! Then tried pulling and wiggling it out. In the process he pulled the patch and ball out with the short stop! Most of snapper the end off as it all cleared the barrel!

 

[sheriff john]

Squirrel hunting with two friends, Jim missed a fox squirrel. The squirrel then reappeared on the same tree. Reloading, he neglected to remove his ramrod. May still be in orbit, don't know. Squirrel ran off after that.

My most excitement was a few months ago when some spilled powder (not much, really) ignited on the shooting bench when I touched off my flint SMR. It was really too dark to continue shooting, but I wanted to empty the rifle (which I did). Better not prime pan when you can't see what you're doing. Dumb.Dumb.Dumb.

 

[RockRash]

I bought a used GPR off a member from another forum. The barrel was badly rusted and pitted. I cleaned it up and it was shooting good for the first 3 shots. My son wanted a go at it and used a cleaning patch instead of a properly sized lubed patch. The prb got stuck halfway down the barrel. I didn't have anything with us that could push the ball down the barrel, so we put the rifle away. We got home and tried wd40 down the barrel and a ball puller we ended up braking the puller in the ball. I took a old steel cleaning rod and hammered the ball down. We ended up up discharging the rifle in the deep end of our pool. Lesson learned I always have a steel rod and hammer at the range incase something like this happens again. the ball we recovered from the pool. My son keeps it on his desk as a reminder.

 

[Sparkytfl]

I've short-started all three of my round ball rifles at least once.

Worst I've done was with an 80 year old military unmentionable. Had a squib, used the cleaning rod to knock the bullet out, thought I put the rod back into the slot under the barrel, but apparently I slid it into the barrel. Recoil almost knocked me off the bench and I barely held onto the rifle. Never found the rod.

 

[BillRob]

It was about 40 years ago. A college pal and I were hunting pronghorns in Idaho and came across a small band about 150 yards away - a shot I would never consider today, but we were kids and, well you know... We both shot - and missed. Too high? Too low? Who knows - it was a couple decades before range finders were on everyone's belt, and to this day I don't know if we shot six inches too high or two feet too low. Either way, we both hastily tried to reload - and broke both hickory ramrods in the process. The pronghorns didn't seem to mind waiting - but there were no followup shots that day!

 

[SwanShot]

First time with my new flintlock pistol, my first ever flintlock.
Fired 5 or 6 shots with a flash and a couple of clatches. No body had a clue, including me, so I changed flint and tried again. By this time a couple more guys arrived, so now I had a good audience. FLASH, OK at least I got that much. pricked the touch hole, reprimed and flash again. By now I've got half a dozen guys who know even less than I do giving advice. Tried again, same result. Yes, you guessed it, I hadn't loaded.

 

[Eric Krewson]

I was shooting my TN rifle, on one shot it failed to fire, I suspected I dry balled. For the life of me I couldn't get the ball puller to screw into the ball. Seeing has how I had built the rifle, I decided to pull the breech plug to see what was going on. Back in the shop I pulled the barrel and then the breech plug, the barrel was empty, I had never loaded it, DUH. I was so convinced that I dry balled that I never ran the ramrod down the barrel to see if it was loaded or not.

 

[Fly103]

shortly after I started shooting flinters I was explaining their operation and loading process to a bystander at the range. After loading / priming I shouldered and fired, my rifle made a weird fwumph! sound and there was a good bit of recoil, I stood there in amazement and amusement watching my ball starter flying down range while my observant bystander mentioned something about it looking just like a grenade launcher in a video game. thankfully no damage was done to the barrel from launching the short started ball and ball starter, the same cant be said the for wooden short starter though.....

also early on I had a ball get stuck half way down when loading (didnt have a range rod yet) and I tried to pull it with a ball puller on my wooden rod, the result was predictable and I ended up with 28" of broken ramrod screwed into a ball halfway down the barrel. used the grease gun method to get it out.

Chris

 

[sheriff john]

Using my Jonathan Browning Mtn Rifle, I shot and dropped a small buck, but he was still kicking a bit. Trying to reload without using a short starter, the patched round ball only went partway down the barrel. Put the ramrod against a tree, tried to push the ball further. Ramrod broke in half.

Deer was DRT (dead right there) when I got to it. Fiberglass ramrods from that point on for all rifles I hunt with.

 

[rchas]

I was building a Jaeger and needed to bend the trigger guard just a bit to fit the stock. I usually turn down the lights in the shop when I heat metal so I can better judge temperature, but this time I didn't....

I got the guard too hot and it just fell in two pieces. Mind this was a rather expensive guard, and I had waited a couple of months for it to be shipped.

I sat in my "moaning chair" (every shop needs a moaning chair where one can contemplate poor decisions, misdeeds, and sudden misfortune) for a while, then got up, filed the edges square, and silver soldered it back together.

Fortunately I got it soldered right the first time and it is now mounted on the rifle.

 

[Loja man]

Now I know what my shop is lacking!!!

 

[deerstalkert]

my shop has a "dunce stool" wife offered to get me a dunce hat to go with it but i thought that a bit much. and i didn't want people to think i was Gandalf.
my oop's was firing my delrin rod out of my GPR. rung my bell with the recoil. when those stars returned to the sky i figured out what i had done. there was a snake patterned hole through the target board. found the rod and it was in a S figure. salvaged a short piece for my pistol.

 

[nick_1]

Every five minute easy job is one broken bolt away from an epic...

 

[Fly103]

I learned a new stupid human trick over the weekend. while taking down my Kibler SMR for cleaning following its first range outing I pulled the hammer to full cock instead of half cock for reasons known only to the almighty... I then proceeded to trip the sear while removing the lock, dropping the nice sharp flint right into the top of my index finger.

Chris

 

[Sun City]

Thats akin to testing accuracy by shooting offhand!!

 

[deerstalkert]

I learned a new stupid human trick over the weekend. while taking down my Kibler SMR for cleaning following its first range outing I pulled the hammer to full cock instead of half cock for reasons known only to the almighty... I then proceeded to trip the sear while removing the lock, dropping the nice sharp flint right into the top of my index finger.

Chris

now you can tell everyone that the gun is blooded!

 

[nick_1]

pulled a real doozie this afternoon... Somehow I double loaded. realized it at the last moment and spent the next half hour very carefully getting the 2nd charge out. then i shot the 1st charge out... Pretty scary process. St00000pid....