Speaking of Safety
 

Sunday evening up the camp my cousin and I were getting things ready for the next day's hunt. He was swabbing the bore to get the oil out of his CVA Optima and talking to me.
He pulled the ramrod out and wasn't looking and asked me if I saw the patch come out. I didn't. I said no problem, just unscrew the BP and look down the barrel. Well the rifle wouldn't break open!
I asked him if he cleaned up after our NC trip and he said he did. (Now he's new to the whole black powder/muzzleloading thing)
I took the rifle and squeezed the trigger guard and use a bit of force and the rifle opened. I immediately saw the problem. There was some rust on the break action engagement surfaces. So I closed the action and took off the forearm and took the barrel off the receiver. I unscrewed the BP and looked down the barrel and couldn't see daylight. I grabbed my flashlight and all I saw was gray! Taking my range rod and the barrel outside I slid it down the bore and when I hit the blockage gave it a pop. Out came a powder charge and a saboted bullet. "Good thing you didn't load this again" I told him. He was totally red faced.
I cleaned up his action with some gun oil and a stiff toothbrush to remove the rust, swabbed this bore clean, teflon taped his BP and put his rifle back together.
He learned a valuable lesson on Sunday which I'm sure he'll never forget.

It is unfortunate that things like this happen. Its one reason I always stress. Before you monkey with a weapon make sure that you are satisfied the weapon is unloaded. Good catch on your part. Think of the worse thing if before he went hunting in the morning, would have put a primer on that and fired it off.

That's why when I return from a hunt with a loaded rifle the loaded flag immediately goes on the trigger guard. Then, if I unexpectedly get drawn for that big hunt in the sky no one will be at risk by not knowing it's loaded.

I wish everyone would do it.

That right there is the #1 reason I ALWAYS either shoot it out or dump it out at the end of EVERY night. Partly it's my OCD kicking me in the butt to clean my rifle when I get indoors even if I didn't shoot it. It's the way I was raised. I can still hear my old man to this day,,"Boy, if that gun left that door, it will be cleaned when it comes back through it!" "But pap, I didn't even shoot it!" "Boy, I don't care if you didn't even look at the damn thing hard! If it leaves MY house it will be CLEANED properly." Have to give the old man credit, you couldn't find a speck of dust on ANY of his rifles. And you dang sure wouldn't ever have to worry about double loading on a previous load. If my old man found one of my MLers loaded after a hunt, my big butt would have been in a sling for days!

I do like Semi... ribbon goes on a loaded rifle. Except mine are pink :D
For me, its not uncommon for my rifles to stay loaded for quite some time...absolutely want to avoid a double load. Also, ramrod witness marks are a must, imo.

Nice catch, he's lucky you were there. Could have been an ugly situation. Hopefully he learned a valuable lesson from it.

I agree. I never ever go home with a loaded gun.

Our season is 66 days. Normally i hunt every day until i succeed. It would be absurd to unload my rifle every evening. My rifle stays loaded.









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I'm right with you there Ron. I'll normally have two loaded, sometimes three. And they are usually sidelocks. So unloading would require either shooting them or pulling the ball (a pain in the tuchus).

Ditto.

I tend to hunt quite a bit during Nov/Dec... sometimes 5-7 times a week. Morning here, evening there, etc. No way I'm unloading and reloading every time...especially when its likely I'll be out again tomorrow or the next day.

I reload after I shoot :happy0001:

Same scenario for me. That gets expensive real quick and a lot of unnecessary work in my opinion.

I think the key to any method is consistency. If you want to unload after a hunt, ALWAYS do it. If you want to hunt the week and then unload, ALWAYS do it that way.