I once went into a small antique shop in Munich, Germany, where the lady had a cased pair of approx. 44 cal. ML target pistols on display. She had been letting people pop caps on the nipples over the years, and the nipples becamepeened shut at some time during their existence.

I asked her if she were certain the pieces were not loaded. She was surprised by the question, having apparentlyalways assumed the weapons were not loaded. Shehad never had them checked. I took a pencil she had, and measured the distance from the muzzle to whatever stopped the pencilend at the bottom of the bore. Then when we compared the pencilon the outside, it came to about 1.5" short of reaching where I guessed the breechplug face was. She got ahold of a local gunsmith, who found that the objects at the bottom of the bores were soft-turned out that they were lead balls!! He drew the balls, and we then ignited the powder in an ashtray with a match-it whooshed just like it should have!

These pistols dated from the 1840's. It was impossible to say how long they had been loaded!! But the powder was still good. If those nipples hadn't been hammered shut from years of abuse-by dry snapping, probably-there is no doubt in my mind that there would have been a serious accident when she started to let people pop caps on them!!

The old adage, "treat every gun as if it were loaded" is a very good one!!