12GaugeGuy

I went to the range and shot my new hawken today. I loaded the rifle and fired and POP, the cap goes off but not the gun. A few caps later and it still dont fire. I pulled the ball and patch and cleaned the powder charge out. I noticed I was having a hard time cleaning the powder out so I put a patch over the small end of the rod and pushed it in to what I thought was a recess in the breech. I pushed it all the way down and "a little more" and when I pulled it out, on the end was a ball puller! I dropped the jag down the barrel and it made a odd thud sound. I put MY ball puller on and dropped that down and I turned and it grabbed on to something. I pulled out A SABOT!!! I guess what happened was the owner before me loaded the rifle and decided to unload it. When he went to pull the sabot out the ball puller popped off the cleaning rod. So in a nut shell the guy shipped me a loaded rifle!!!! Lucky for me the day I got it I put the breech end in the sink and pumped hot water through it and that black sooty stuff was gun powder. Unbelievable....

Other than that, I shot a round in the bullseye at 25 yards with 80 grains of pyrodex. Nice shooting rifle.

cayugad

That is one reason I always check the rifles for being loaded. Drop the ramrod down the bore and it should all but disappear if the rifle is empty. If the rifle is loaded, it will stick somewhat out of the bore.

Even that empty sabot would have been deadly with a powder charge under it at close range. You're lucky you dunked the breech.

12GaugeGuy

Yeah, when I got it I took your advice to dunk the breech. Thanks for the advice. It is a nice rifle to shoot. Nice shot groups.

bronko22000

Definately one way to check for a loaded ML is to drop the ramrod the last 2" or so into the bore. If you get a clanging sound and, like Cayugad says, the ramrod all but disappears, it is unloaded. If the sound is more of a duller thud then there is a good possibility that there is something in the bore.
I guess that was why you were having so much trouble getting a burn mark on your patch when you fired the caps off earlier.
It is definately a good thing that you soaked the breach. It would have been tough to explain to the little lady why the house smells like sulfur and why there is a remrod stuck in the ceiling.
Thank God no one was injured and your mystery is solved.

Redrider93

bronko22000said "It would have been tough to explain to the little lady why the house smells like sulfur and why there is a remrod stuck in the ceiling."
Even tho this is serious I could see myself trying to explain that one , made me chuckle....
Dale

TNHagies

wow, that's scary. Good thing you soaked it. Glad to hear everything is safe and a good lesson for others.

Mr.Flintlock

About 10 years ago I sold my house. The buyers had come over to look at some things they wanted to do to the yard. When they found out that I was a black powder nut the man told me that he had a TC Hawkin that his brother n law had sold him.He asked if I would show him how to load it.

I told him that he needed to pop a couple of caps before loading. I was demonstrating andI placed a cap on the nipple and pointed it at the ground(in a safe direction) pulled the trigger and BOOM. The rifle had a full charge. To this day I ALWAYS check to make sure a rifle is unloaded. Reciently I was to do some repair work on a rifle for a man and found that it was loaded.

I bought myself a EZ unloader that used a co2 carterage to discharge a loaded rifle or a dry balled rifle. It has come in handy more than a few times.

Old/New

Safety issues such as those mentioned above are always good to bring us back to the most obvious.

Can't be safe enough!

eldeguello

What an experience! Guess that "new rifle" wasn't so new?? after all.

gearheart

A friend of mine works for Parks Canada in a historical capacity. He restores old guns for various displays. They received a shipment of Brown Bess muskets from a museum and he says to his crew "OK first thing we do with a gun is check if it is loaded." They all laughed. 35 guns, some heavily rusted, 22 were loaded. Nobody was laughing anymore. And these came from a museum.