Pulling a load (moderate length to this post)

[Zonie]

Now that Ah'm awake har's my take on it.
Ifen ye use the method ole Mooskeetman gave up above an Ah quote the important part:
"Once the ball puller was screwed into the projectile, I hooked the T-handle between the "Y" section of a stout sappling and pulled the muzzleloader with both hands from the rear.

The rod and ball fell to the ground as I was safely behind the muzzle." Ye'll be OK.

Ye note he is standin BEHIND the gun.
Now ye can say Ah's been brainwarshed but ain't no ways Ah gets in front o some loaded gun and the way SOME people MIGHT be tempted to pull the ball is ta get in front o the gun and give the ramrod a mighty pull.
Would this set off the powder? No Ah don't thin so but Ah ain't chanch'n it with my body. Jus like whan Ah pulls a bullet outa one o them Cartriges Ah use a bullet puller an Ah aint standin in front o that either!

Somethin ta think about har: Some o ye have heard of Walter Cline. He wrote "THE MUZZLE-LOADING RIFLE...THEN AND NOW" back before 1940. He was one of the True champions of the idea of shooting Black Powder guns when most people just thought of them as old usless junk. He spent Years working with them and shooting them. If anyone knew anything about them, he did. If anyone knew what would be unsafe he did.
Then in 1942 for some reason (no-one knows what happened) one of his guns went off and killed him dead'r than a doornail!

Just food for thought.

 

[RJR]

I apologise 'zonie, I misread the thread. I thought it was you who talked about blowing the powder out with air after pulling a ball, but it was roundball. At any rate, compressed air from a compresser is not the same as air being compressed in a chamber. The air coming out of the blow gun is cool as normally wet(especially if you don't drain the water from your air tank everyday). The air temps coming out the end of that air hose could not ignite powder on it's own, even in your climate. Again I apologise for the misread. Take care, Rick.

 

The only way I know of to load a muzzleloader is put some powder down the barrel and than push a bullet down on top of it. It has some risk but that is the way you have to do it. Is it dangerous to pull a bullet with a charge under it? I have done it but I shoot a inline so now i pull the breach plug, dump the powder, and push the bullet out from the breach. I know you cant do that if you dont have an inline so I guess you need to make it as safe as you feel you need to. There is a gismo out there that uses a co2 cartridge to push out a bullet.

 

In over thirty some years of shootin muzzleloaders I ain"t never had "call" to pull a single ball from one of my rifleguns!!!!

 

[Stumpkiller]

You mean you ain't never done it just to see how hard it is to get done? Heck, spent $1.38 on a ball puller and you can bet I want to make sure it works.

 

[musketman]

quote:Originally posted by 'zonie:
Some o ye have heard of Walter Cline. He wrote "THE MUZZLE-LOADING RIFLE...THEN AND NOW" back before 1940. He was one of the True champions of the idea of shooting Black Powder guns.You can still buy that book, here is the link for it...

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1879356341/qid=1074919037/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-4701625-2170554?v=glance&s=books

 

[Zonie]

No problem Deaddawg. Ah was jus funnen with ye.
Those CO2 things work real good but their kind of expensive.
As for blowing out the charge with compressed air from your compressor it will work just as good as the CO2 so if you have a compressor with a tank (which I don't) go ahead and use it. (Note I didn't say if you have one of them dad blamed little things ye plug into your cars lighter us it. It won't work because it doesn't have enough volumn).
I won't bore you with the details of why the air coming out of a compressor nozzle is cool but it is just the reverse of compressing the air (see post above).

 

Stumpkiller

I use my "index finger" to pull any unwanted balls out"a my barrels! HA! HA! HA! (I do carry a "ball puller" in my haversack tho in case someone else needs it!!)

 

[Chuck Deaton]

Unfortunately I have had several friends get shot over the years and messing around with guns gets my safety genes going.

One shot with a pistol doing a fast draw, one, a surgeon, shot his hand off unloading a shotgun from a truck, one, an adjuster, shot himself in the face with a rifle and a neighbor shot my friend in high school and killed him. Just unloading a lever action into the bushes, college friend's brother was shot with an ancient muzzleloader that had been around for decades, loaded.
All of the people who were shot, and lived, blamed it on someone else but the bottom line is that they lived the rest of their lives wounded.

Be careful.

 

[roundball]

Doolittle, I appreciate all the safety examples but this isn't a question about safety as such, it's an academic / engineering type question.

Looking for anyone who can identify what the ignition source would be under the circumstances described in my opening post