a scary story - blown up gun.

My first experience with an incident from using smokeless powder in an m/l was at Friendship many years ago. We were walking around the sheep shed area and few teen age boys were walking out brandishing a new C&B revolver one of them had just purchased. One could be heard saying "I have some shotgun shells, we'll use the powder from those." :shocked2: They got a bunch of incredulous stares as they went by before they quickly went out the gate and towards town. Later in the day word was circulating that some boys had gotten injured when a C&B revolver they were shooting blew up. Sad. Doubly sad because they were at the best location in the world to get proper instruction before shooting that pistol. Instead they ran off to do it on their own and suffered as a result.

OK, the facts are in, and not surprisingly, y'all called it correctly.

I will spare you the details of the conversation, mostly out of respect for my friend, who (trust me) feels like a knucklehead (albeit a lucky one) about this.

He loaded 60g of Dupont smokeless powder.
He bought the powder of his own accord, by mistake.
A clerk did not hand it to him.
He knew he wasnt picking out his usual brand (Goex, "they were out of it"), but didnt pay attention to what exactly he was getting.
I know, I know, (and he knows it in spades now), there is no excuse for that level of carelessness.

What is interesting is he said he had "shot a couple times with it before".
I assumed with round balls.
Don't know what to make of that.
Maybe, in the odd circumstance, you can get away with it once or twice before the barrel steel has had enough ?

Anyway, end of story from this end.
I'm not going to interrogate him any further any time soon, he feels bad enough.

I'm just glad he's still around to feel bad.

/mm

I'm glad he's still around too.

I have my own story to admit. It didn't involve a BP gun, I was hand loading 44 mag cartridges and double charged a round. If I was shooting anything else besides a Ruger Blackhawk, I probably wouldn't be typing this reply.

I was talking to a friend while reloading.

After he finishes healin'-up, PLEASE send him to Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop in Kempton, PA for a ML Class. It will be worth it's weight in Gold, teach him everything he needs to know and he can relate his "story" so no one else in the Class does what he did. And he can get a new lefty Lyman percussion right there, because they have them in-stock!

Glad your friend still has all/most of his parts!

Dave

MeteorMan said:

What is interesting is he said he had "shot a couple times with it before".

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Well, considering how careless he was this time, I'd guess he was probably just as careless those times as well, but he just got lucky those times and happened to use the right stuff. Hence: "Gee, it worked fine last time."

Well, he is lucky to get off as light as he did, He ought to thank the stars an moon he is still around to tell his tale. Is there any way we can make this a sticky? I'm sure Claude could make it one or at least keep it at the top of the page. The pictures of what's left of the rifle with the quotation "This is what happens when you use SMOKELESS powder in a muzzleloader." under it would be enough, and put the 60grns. of DuPont along with the use of a sabot would help also.

I'm just glad he's still around

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Us also.
Amen.

Rifleman1776 said:

I'm just glad he's still around

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Us also.
Amen.

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X2 :wink:

Smokeless has a smell that's not easily confused with anything else. It looks different, too. Open a can of smokeless and take a whiff; it has a noticeably "chemical" oder.

Well, it's nice to know the truth, it may save others, who would have any doubt, about the pressures of smokeless powder. Also, I'm sure we'll be even more cautious, in handling containers, that look similar. Probably, the thing that saved him on the previous occasions, was due to the amount, Heavens forbid, he'd used 80 -90 grains. Another thing a lot of people don't understand about smokeless powders, is the fact that there are all kinds of smokeless powders, used for different firearms, pistols, shotguns, rifles, and will vary in amounts and pressures, that can be achieved. Some loads for a pistol might only call for 2 or 3 grains. Imagine if this type, were to be placed down the barrel of a muzzleloader, with a 60 grain charge.

I hope your friend is doing well, and perhaps he and some others, got the message. I think the majority of people here on this site, already knew the answer, but ruling out the rifle, is a peace of mind, to those who have a similar rifle, and want to continue to enjoy it. Thank you.

I reload smokeless and the first thing I thought was holy manure 60 gr... about 10 times the amount of powder, no wonder the barrel failed. Glad to hear the wounds were not fatal.

Yeah, no need to go hard on him. I believe he is well aware of his mistake. This has been a good, thought provoking post.

I think he's probably been a little hard on himself. I'll betcha he'll never do that again!

RedFeather said:

Yeah, no need to go hard on him. I believe he is well aware of his mistake. This has been a good, thought provoking post.

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Of course this guy bought and used Smokeless on his own,so he carries hos own burden. I will never forget going into a gun shop and asking for BP. I know better than to not confuse it with Smokeless. The counter guy asked me what number I wanted. I said something like 3F. He wanted to sell me something like IMR 4350. I told him that is totally the wrong powder. He said and was serious, "well it is black in color". How many people get this kind of advice? Hard to fault a customer when he thinks he is asking the experts. Hind sight is a powerful lesson.

Thanks for posting 'the rest of the story' for us Meterman.

Stories like this aren't very common but when they do get reported a lot of people start saying, "See? I told you those cheap muzzleloading guns would blow up!
There ought to be a law against letting people load their own guns and bullets. Yada yada, yada..."

At least the real problem is on record and the gunpowders made for muzzleloaders weren't to blame.

I am happy that he survived,some folks take their "experiments" a tad to far,the basic warning that comes with ALL muzzle-loaders is BLACK POWDER ONLY :shake:

That's why all of the imports are stamped "Black Powder ONLY" right on the barrel. To prevent this type of incident from happening in the first place!

60 grains of smokeless! I got friends that use 3.5 grains for .38's, so that's quite a lot of BANG!

Lyman ought to be proud that their gun withstood that much abuse and still didn't kill the user!

Dave

smokin .50 said:

60 grains of smokeless! I got friends that use 3.5 grains for .38's, so that's quite a lot of BANG!

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Probably Bullseye, one of the fastest burning out there...and I did see another such story where someone was using Bullseye in his reloads to make it more accurate! :shocked2: Granted, not muzzleloading but similar results. If it'd been a really fast burning smokeless powder, his friend would have been holding a hand grenade!

This is turning into modern stuff. Be careful folks! I tried to caution a friend on using Bullseye in 40 S&W. Yes, it's one of the fastest burning.

Wes/Tex said:

smokin .50 said:

60 grains of smokeless! I got friends that use 3.5 grains for .38's, so that's quite a lot of BANG!

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Probably Bullseye, one of the fastest burning out there...and I did see another such story where someone was using Bullseye in his reloads to make it more accurate! :shocked2: Granted, not muzzleloading but similar results. If it'd been a really fast burning smokeless powder, his friend would have been holding a hand grenade!

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Like I suspected. Don't know siccum about MLs or even modern handloading. Just go to the store and get whatever is on the shelf. Unlikely to be Bullseye give the powder shortage. But anything would do the job since the IGNITION was poor, underignited the wrong powder, boom! Probably would have blown a modern bolt gun with the same ignition cycle.
Hopefully will revert to shooting something he can buy loaded ammo for and not have to think too hard about it.
Dan