I found out on YouTube his cousin had loaded it. Both were fortunate. The kid for not being injured or killed. His cousin for not being charged with a crime.
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Very stupid, very lucky
- Thread starter Columbus
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One possible reason is the "black powder only" warning on the barrel. Many smokeless powders are actually black in COLOR and this might well cause confusion to some people. I just went and poured some assorted powder into my hand and sure enough it was black colored. 60 grains of some of this stuff would blow up almost any centerfire rifle. Bullseye comes to mind. Seeing the bright flash and total destruction of that rifle, I bet it was more like 100 grains.
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No truer words were ever spoken.
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You could be on to something...several years ago while at lodge i was visiting with a member about shooting. I mentioned i have a few black powder rifles, the other fellow said, "I have an 8 pound can of black powder". We talked about it, I tried to buy it, we swapped phone numbers. I called him a few months later, he said he'd give me some of the powder, but didn't want to sell all of it. I told him I'd drop by his house after lodge and bring a can to put it in.
At the lodge he invited me to his truck, took out a quart pickle jar of a black colored smokeless Ball powder. I know this because I reload. He said he'd save me a trip to his house. I thanked him, but it in my truck, and sprinkled it on my yard when i got home. I figured it couldn't hurt the grass. I later told him it was NOT black powder, we never figured out what it was .
A friend of mine was at a garage sale a few years back and asked if they had any muzzleloading stuff. The guy brought out an 8 pound can labeled Green Dot and sold it for $2. It turned out to be a mix of flakes that probably were actually Green Dot and an unknown extruded powder. I wasn't comfortable with trying to dispose of that much so the Oregon State Police bomb guy came by and took it off my hands. No hassle at all. The guy that sold it to my friend would have happily loaded it in a muzzleloader. Interesting but sure not funny.
A few years back I worked at a Cabela's to fill in between jobs. Customer was walking to the checkout with a can of unmentionable rifle powder. I did the "find what you were looking for sir?" thing - he answered "Yup, trying out my new muzzleloader this weekend."
Wup, whoah, what, hey, stop......etc.
At that time (I don't if it's still this way) you could just walk up to the display and pick up what you wanted. We went back to the display and talked for awhile. He had no idea about unmentionable powder vs black sub, different burn rates of either, manuals or reading directions. He just thought powder was powder, and all those different colored labels on the cans were for marketing.
Wup, whoah, what, hey, stop......etc.
At that time (I don't if it's still this way) you could just walk up to the display and pick up what you wanted. We went back to the display and talked for awhile. He had no idea about unmentionable powder vs black sub, different burn rates of either, manuals or reading directions. He just thought powder was powder, and all those different colored labels on the cans were for marketing.
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My Dad used to say, "Boy, if can't learn you have to feel". .
Used properly, BP is a very safe propellant because the maximum pressure from ANY granular BP load is limited by the powder's physics to about 32,000 PSI. Smokeless, OTOH can generate North of 250,000 PSI, which is beyond the capacity of any steel to confine it without damage.
Actually I know of one fellow who lived and was still eligible for the Darwin Award. He stuck his pistol down his waistband in front of his belly, and when he went to draw the pistol the front sight post snagged on his underwear, and when he went for a tighter grip....BANG he grazed "John" and blew of "the twins".
LD
Some of the accidents that I've charted, trying to convince Maryland DNR that they need to teach more about muzzleloader safety than worrying about somebody putting a 20 gauge shell into a 12 gauge gun, then firing a 12 gauge shell behind the 20 gauge...,
ALL of the accidents that I could document were operator error. Confusion between what is smokeless powder and what is Black Powder or a substitute. A great many were folks accepting that the store clerk handed them the right stuff.
One was because the store was out of a BP substitute, and when placing the containers on the back of a shelf, when they ran out of substitute there were still two containers of powder at the very back of the shelf. Nobody read the label, they just assumed since it was stacked where the BP substitute powder was stored, and it was the same shape and color container, it must be substitute powder. Nobody thought there might have been a container or two extra from the smokeless shelf on the black powder shelf...... OOOPS
In another case the clerk didn't know, and only had a couple different powders left on hand. One of those powders was sort of "black" in color, so the customer bought and used that........
Most were folks getting them mixed up. The simply found a black-ish powder in a powder container, and assumed the color was good enough to ID the stuff. (When did reading skills end ? )
Finally one accident happened because a BP shooter used an old container for smokeless powder to get a pound from a friend who had bought 25 lbs. of black powder loose. The friend had enough sense to break the order down into empty, used Black Powder cans, and had a few loose pounds left over. His buddy had an old container for modern smokeless. WHICH would've worked fine, except when the friend got home and put it on the shelf he put it among his containers of various modern powder, and when he went to shoot his muzzleloader he grabbed the wrong container of powder ......
Here's one where it's either a barrel obstruction or smokeless powder, and I think it's smokeless....
Muzzle Loader Explodes
Here's dunderhead....leaves the powder pellets next to him on the bench and doesn't close the container...,
Spark and Unsecured Powder
LD
ALL of the accidents that I could document were operator error. Confusion between what is smokeless powder and what is Black Powder or a substitute. A great many were folks accepting that the store clerk handed them the right stuff.
One was because the store was out of a BP substitute, and when placing the containers on the back of a shelf, when they ran out of substitute there were still two containers of powder at the very back of the shelf. Nobody read the label, they just assumed since it was stacked where the BP substitute powder was stored, and it was the same shape and color container, it must be substitute powder. Nobody thought there might have been a container or two extra from the smokeless shelf on the black powder shelf...... OOOPS
In another case the clerk didn't know, and only had a couple different powders left on hand. One of those powders was sort of "black" in color, so the customer bought and used that........
Most were folks getting them mixed up. The simply found a black-ish powder in a powder container, and assumed the color was good enough to ID the stuff.
(When did reading skills end ? )Finally one accident happened because a BP shooter used an old container for smokeless powder to get a pound from a friend who had bought 25 lbs. of black powder loose. The friend had enough sense to break the order down into empty, used Black Powder cans, and had a few loose pounds left over. His buddy had an old container for modern smokeless. WHICH would've worked fine, except when the friend got home and put it on the shelf he put it among his containers of various modern powder, and when he went to shoot his muzzleloader he grabbed the wrong container of powder ......
Here's one where it's either a barrel obstruction or smokeless powder, and I think it's smokeless....
Muzzle Loader Explodes
Here's dunderhead....leaves the powder pellets next to him on the bench and doesn't close the container...,
Spark and Unsecured Powder
LD
Bouncer1947
32 Cal
Yes, you can fix stupid..but it's gonna hurt
I've heard of people going into stores asking for powder for their M/L and idiot sales clerk handing them a can of smokeless.
Griz44Mag
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Well. I bet he doesn't do that again, at least not with that rifle!
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He might have been the "Canary."
It's just an extreme example of the same kind of nonsense you see every day on a shooting forum. Guys who buy a .45-70, and immediately feel the need to hot-rod it to .458 performance levels. Trying to turn a .308 into a .300WinMag, or a .223 into a .22-250...just different varieties of the same kind of stupid.
I have a neighbour who read about a long-obsolete air rifle that was designed to be used with a squirt of some kind of flammable oil in the chamber. It was some German-made high-quality rifle, and the release of the spring generated enough heat to ignite the oil and create a super-powered pellet gun. Against all better judgment and advice, he is currently experimenting with squirts of engine-starter spray into a $40 Chinese piece of junk pellet gun.
I've called dibs on some of his tools.
I have a neighbour who read about a long-obsolete air rifle that was designed to be used with a squirt of some kind of flammable oil in the chamber. It was some German-made high-quality rifle, and the release of the spring generated enough heat to ignite the oil and create a super-powered pellet gun. Against all better judgment and advice, he is currently experimenting with squirts of engine-starter spray into a $40 Chinese piece of junk pellet gun.
I've called dibs on some of his tools.
user 43911
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That's what you can get from the 8th comment down when viewed on you tube but may be just that, a comment by somebody that does not really know, that's how rumors start and then get perpetuated .
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