Witnessed Unsafe Behaviors

[Urban Coyote]

While reading another post here, part of which questioned blowing down the barrel after a shot, I flashed back to some hair raising incidents I've witnessed over the years. Here's a few of mine, share your's.

During a match shooter experienced a flash in the pan, T/C Hawken flintlock, and immediately looked directly down the bore of his rifle. He didn't stop looking until the surrounding shooter yelled warnings at him. (This guy was an engineer for a major international construction company)

Another match, despite warnings from surrounding shooters not to grab his wooden ramrod at the end then push the tight patched ball down the barrel in one swift motion another engineer ignored advice. This was causing the rod to flex to a point where breakage was bound to occur. Not too long after the shooter broke the rod while loading driving it completely through his hand.

Shooter sighting in at a the range left the plug out of his horn with a few grains trickled out the opening. He fired his shot a spark igniting the loose powder on the bench, to this day I consider it a miracle the whole horn of powder didn't blow.

Another shooter sighting in caps his loaded rifle and is waving the gun about sits down to shoot and has the gun go off, fortunately pointed in a safe direction but he'd no idea of that. Actually I see people cap or prime guns often before they are pointed down range, bad behavi0or IMHO.

I'm sure if I thought long enough I might come up with a couple more. Please share any stories you might have, they might save someone grief.

By the way, I do blow down my barrel before loading the next shot.

 

[FishDFly]

"By the way, I do blow down my barrel before loading the next shot.

Are you an engineer?

 

[RonT]

So, were the other two Engineers?, HR,? IT?
R

 

[FishDFly]

While reading another post here, part of which questioned blowing down the barrel after a shot, I flashed back to some hair raising incidents I've witnessed over the years. Here's a few of mine, share your's.

During a match shooter experienced a flash in the pan, T/C Hawken flintlock, and immediately looked directly down the bore of his rifle. He didn't stop looking until the surrounding shooter yelled warnings at him. (This guy was an engineer for a major international construction company)

Another match, despite warnings from surrounding shooters not to grab his wooden ramrod at the end then push the tight patched ball down the barrel in one swift motion another engineer ignored advice. This was causing the rod to flex to a point where breakage was bound to occur. Not too long after the shooter broke the rod while loading driving it completely through his hand.

Shooter sighting in at a the range left the plug out of his horn with a few grains trickled out the opening. He fired his shot a spark igniting the loose powder on the bench, to this day I consider it a miracle the whole horn of powder didn't blow.

Another shooter sighting in caps his loaded rifle and is waving the gun about sits down to shoot and has the gun go off, fortunately pointed in a safe direction but he'd no idea of that. Actually I see people cap or prime guns often before they are pointed down range, bad behavi0or IMHO.

I'm sure if I thought long enough I might come up with a couple more. Please share any stories you might have, they might save someone grief.

By the way, I do blow down my barrel before loading the next shot.

The above is why I do not shoot at ranges where Range Officers are not on hand and walking the line and looking while they walk!

 

[rafterob]

At one of our woods-walks years ago, we had a couple show up from out of town. They basically ignored most of the rules. They loaded and primed before they walked to the next station. They waved their guns all about, often pointing in the direction of others. Before they made it half way through the course they were asked to leave. They got all huffy and said they would never be back again. Hallelujah!

 

[Crow-Feather]

My scare was a shooter that tried three caps which did not ignite the main charge. The range master told the shooter to place his rifle at the shooting line pointed down range. The shooter placed his rifle in a leather case and did as instructed. 3 to 5 minutes later, the rifle fired and destroyed the end of a beautiful gun case. Next day, I bought a CO2 discharger and one was ordered for the club.

What if the range master had allowed the shooter to try to pull the ball from the barrel? He saved someone's life that day. I wish that I could go back in time and praise him to his face for his dedication to safety,

Before that day, I would have tried pulling the ball to help someone out, because that was one "what if" I had never believed possible.

 

[Urban Coyote]

Yeah, I guess it appears I was picking on the engineers. Maybe so, worked with them for most of my life, but you ought to hear some of my non-muzzleloader engineer stories. The examples I gave are true and I suppose they could happen to anyone I just expect more form a technically educated individual, I digress. The range incidents were not engineers, as far as I know.

Nope, I'm not an engineer and I do blow down my barrel between shots to extinguish any possible ember before dumping a fresh load of powder down the bore.

 

[The Crisco Kid]

A new shooter loaded, capped, cocked, and set the triggers on his Hawken. It went off when he was getting down to get rested on the log we were shooting from. The ball went over the hill somewhere but we never heard of it hitting anyone.

 

[Crow-Feather]

A story that I heard from a range master. A gentleman loaded his new Kentucky rifle by pouring powder from the can. He shot from the bench. He picked himself up from the ground, left, and never returned.

Trapper lore: There was one hunter on a horse reloading his rifle after wounding a buffalo. To save time, he reloaded from the horn. The resulting blast removed his hair, moustache, and beard from his face and they say his face had a nice rosy color for many days.

 

[tenngun]

Saw a fellow, and this is important as he was a safe shooter. This was the only time he ever ‘slipped up that I know of, his flint failed to spark after several clatch
He knapped a new edge with a knife. And he got spark that found the touch hole.
As said he was always safe and the gun pointed down range.
I do blow down my barrels, but I’m not an engineer

 

[FishDFly]

"Nope, I'm not an engineer and I do blow down my barrel between shots to extinguish any possible ember before dumping a fresh load of powder down the bore."

Would it not be safer to run a damp patch down the barrel to snuff an ember than putting your mouth over the barrel?

 

[Loyalist Dave]

"Nope, I'm not an engineer and I do blow down my barrel between shots to extinguish any possible ember before dumping a fresh load of powder down the bore."

Would it not be safer to run a damp patch down the barrel to snuff an ember than putting your mouth over the barrel?

No..., not "safer".

For those that do it, one does not have to place the mouth over the muzzle. Cupping the left hand with the last two fingers at the muzzle and blowing into the hand is enough air flow to do the job. It also helps keep the touch hole or nipple clear.

ONLY if one is highly excited, and in a group, and thinks they heard and felt their gun go off, and the other shooters' smoke was such that they could not tell if they had a discharge, only this would be a dangerous situation.

If you're the only one shooting and you can't tell that your rifle or gun didn't shoot a huge puff of smoke and kick..., then you have more problems than blowing down the barrel. (imho)

LD

 

[jdw276]

Gentleman did not have a means to transfer powder from container to measure. IE no lid. Put his powder in a tupperware plastic container and left the lid off to scoop powder with a spoon into his measure. Another guy, smoking a cigarette while loading.

 

[pilot]

I worked as a volunteer range safety officer for a state range for several years. Surprisingly, most people are pretty safe on the line.

 

[TFoley]

It might come as no surprise to most to learn that here in UK the UK NRA runs a Range Conducting Officer course especially for black powder shooters. I have never actually seen a 'whoopsie' with a BP firearm, but I recall coming back to my favourite bench in the far-right corner of the 50m range [my smoke blows right across EVERYBODY else that way ] to find a splintered hole and long gouge in the top where a shooter had slipped his thumb off a big revolver of some kind whilst haulin' 'er up to shoot.

 

[FishDFly]

"For those that do it, one does not have to place the mouth over the muzzle. Cupping the left hand with the last two fingers at the muzzle and blowing into the hand is enough air flow to do the job. It also helps keep the touch hole or nipple clear."

Are you saying that blowing down a barrel is going to produce sufficient air flow thru the minuscule opening in a touch hole or nipple opening to put an ember or to clear them?

Go need to need some really large lungs to do that.

 

[sawyer04]

Do you have to be an engineer to blow down the barrel? I have had an accidental discharge while sighting a rifle in. To this day I can't explain why. The cock was still cocked, and the hammer was still down, no smoking, no static. The only thing I could figure was there was a small glowing ember in the barrel, or somewhere. The rifle was shot, the results were documented, the rifle was loaded and about to be fired when it just went off. After that I always rodded the barrel after firing and have never had it pull that trick in 30 years. The old rifle could very well have some pits in the breech which could have harbored a slow glowing ember, only thing I can think of, but to this day I blow down the barrel and mostly rod the barrel before loading. Nope I am not an engineer.

 

[Steve Martin]

I will tell a story on myself that I never dreamed was an "unsafe act" but clearly turned out to be...I had an issue with what I thought was a clogged touch hole and since I had already primed the pan, I walked off to the right side and then out in front of my bench and turned the musket on it's side and dumped my priming charge in the grass (about six feet in front and maybe six feet to the right of my shooting bench. I cleared the obstruction in the touch hole, reprimed and successfully fired my gun and at the same instant my gun fired, the grass out in front where I had dumped my previous pan of powder erupted in a large flash of flame! The grass only burned for a second but that sure got my attention as well as the guy who was next to me. Goes to show just how easy it is to ignite black powder even at a distance! Remember that the next time some dummy lights a cigarette on the firing line!

 

[tenngun]

"Nope, I'm not an engineer and I do blow down my barrel between shots to extinguish any possible ember before dumping a fresh load of powder down the bore."

Would it not be safer to run a damp patch down the barrel to snuff an ember than putting your mouth over the barrel?

No, no safer unless one had a hang fire and didn’t know, and that hang fire lasted long enough until you were about to load again and just happened to go off when mouth was over bore. No lungs on earth can blow past a patched ball to flame an ember.
I do swab between shots, but do blow before I dump a fresh charge down.

 

[COTNTOP]

Ya'll scaring me.