I was reading somewhere recently that you should NOT cup your hand over the end of your range rod when loading. I have to admit I do this fairly routinely. I don't think I could grip the sides of the rod firmly enough to seat a tight fitting sabot. Am I being unsafe here? I just don't see how an unprimed gun would go off.
I'd like to hear some opinions.
Art
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That is a safety idea that came about from the fact that it did happened on some very rare occasions back when black powder was the only propellant. It is theorized that embers caused the accidents. Lee
I was told the same thing. Remember, old traditional rifles were often shot with out swabbing. And like Lee said, it all started with black powder. Yes there have been cases when black powder flash fired. But normally if it is going to flash fire, it will do it the second you dump. I actually saw it happen once. I was at a Rendezvous shoot and we were speed shooting. A flint lock shooter dumped and it popped. They then stopped the event.
Like you, I put my hand over the end of the ramrod. Although, I will dump my powder and then sit and look at it for a few seconds just to give it some time. I have dumped powder and then saw smoke come out the muzzle of the barrel. It sure slows me down before I do anything else...
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It's because black powder (and Pyrodex to a lesser degree) is an impact sensitive explosive, and can potentially be ignited without a spark if hit hard enough. I have seen, and I'd imagine a few of you guys have seen (or might even do it yourself) guys pounding their ramrod on the projectile to "seat" the bullet. Well, slamming the ramrod can possibly create enough impact force to detonate BP. If you have your hand over the ramrod, guess who's gonna be called Lefty for the rest of their life?
Before i start to ram the charge a golf ball gets put on the end of the ramrod. That golf ball is cupped in the palm of my left hand and the sabot/conical is rammed down the barrel with my other hand capped around my left hand if need be. Yep, sometimes i have to put my hand over the golf ball in order to seat a hard loading sabot.
Heard a guy talking with the owner and some of his helpers in a sporting goods store in Elkins, WV. The guy claimed that he had a charge go off as he was ramming the bullet. He had fingers missing to prove it. However, i later talked with the owner of the store about the guy. The store owner said that the the man had often been seen loading a muzzleloader that was capped and (ocked. The shooter had been warned by other muzzleloader shooters about this dangerous practice but it appears that he never mended his ways.
Here is a post on another forum that has been running for some time. The OP claims that he was injured while ramming a bullet/sabot. The OP may be flaky.
I put my hand over the end of the rod also, but I almost always swab between shots so I don't worry about it at all.
I did have a scary experience many, many years ago. I had an original Belgian percussion double smoothbore that was in "tolerable" shooting condition. I used balled up toilet paper for wadding between the powder and shot, but used over shot cards cut from wax coated paper milk cartons. One time when I rammed the overshot card down the tube it flashed and popped like a small firecracker. I actually saw a small spark in the bore. I assume the friction of the waxed card did that, but there may have been a granule of powder sticking to the side of the bore that got trapped between the edge of the overshot card and the metal. Anyway, it really spooked me. Even though there was a wad of paper and an ounce and a half of shot between the powder and that waxed card I switched to unwaxed cardboard and pushed it down a lot slower than had been my practice.
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If you use BH or swab between shots I would think that would take care of it, if you use black powder and don't swab between shots then you might consider starting as its usually the most accurate as well as the safest. Lee
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