NerdLord

Well <expletive>,
i've been shooting blackpowder since 1995 and this was a first!
I reloaded the gpr and they called a 'clear' to go check targets, so i put it down, checked my targets, and on 'resume fire' i picked up the rifle, capped the nipple and fired...
Massive kick (those hawken shoulder stock butt points left marks on my shoulder) and off flew my delrin range rod that i left in the barrel!...100 yards out i found it, twisted and wavy from being accordioned in the barrel (the handle gave it front end weight to fly) and at each wave along the rod there are scrape marks from the rifling! .

Now i need to make sure the rifle wasn't damaged, the rod is toast.

Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb

Oldtimr

The only consolation is you aint the first or the only one to have done that.

Muley Hunter

I've never done it but came close a couple of times. Always at a range when I was distracted. I really hate going to public ranges. I prefer to go up in the mountains and shoot in solitude.

mrbb

over the yrs I have seen a LOT of OPP"S at gun ranges, seen some that were tragic and needed Life flight to take em away
so, if all that's happened here is a rad that got damaged, be happy with that LOL
could have been way worse, and YES closely inspect that barrel, if you know any GOOD smiths that can X ray it like to check for stress cracks, IMO its worth the cost for peace of mind

I seen a guy once shoot of his thumb with a rod, loading it, some amber's still hot in the barrel and BOOM< rod came out and took off his thumb, now has a big toe where the thumb used to be

I once had a crazy customer that used to LIKE shooting rods out of his shotgun, using light reloads(no Shot, just a wad? HAHA
Like I said, over the yrs, I sen a LOT of things happen on the ranges, I used to train on some, and had a indoor range for a while, add in all the Matches I been at
and its a crazy world out there at times, VERY easy to forget and make an OOP"S

in all my yrs I have had two myself, one was for sure MY fault and other was some what I say
here I'll share them so you don;t feel so bad ! LOL

first Opp's for me, was about 20 yrs ago, my company bought out a another company and we took in about 750,000 rounds of assorted calibers and a LOT of custom designed ammo(specialty bullets, from aluminum to multi projectile heads per bullet)

business had a indoor range, so taking breaks while moving all the product, we would kill some time shooting at the indoor range, had some moving targets that were a blast to shoot at
I was shooting a glock 17, first gen, and DARN the ammo seemed HOT, like plus P plus P plus P Plus Hot
but was thinking it was just all this crazy ammo the guy had made up, and then after about 250 round or so, (several of us using the same gun here)the Mag shot out of gun while firing,
stopped and look at the gun and found a BIG hole in the fram near the trigger guard and it cause the mag to be pushed out of the frame?
NOTHING happened to me, but gun was ruined!
I contacted Glock as at the time didn;t know what happened to cause it, and they were kind enough to replace the damaged frame with a new frame, I was Gold stocking Glock dealer at teh time, so sure that helped .
But I now have a first gen Glocl serial number on a Second Gen frame, doubt many are out there like it!

It ended up being all this guys LOOSE ammo(had like 30 gallon drums full of loose ammo as to packaged we were shooting as figured harder to sell loose ammo )
and it was all double charged ammo, on some crazy light head like 47 grain aluminum custom heads he had made!
so I call that one SORT of my fault, due to I didn;t load the ammo, so didn;t know it was all double charged AMMO< waiting to be taken apart, guy we bought all the ammo off wasn't able to tell us in advance??

second time was with a shotgun and a slug barrel
I was at a range helping with a few dept's qualifying, and in down time was sighting in a custom built slug gun I just got back.

I was playing with some custom rifled choke tbes, and was in MID process of unscrewing one choke tube out for another, when they had a accidental discharge on the range, and someone took a SLIGHT hit, bullet bounsed off a rock which kicked up some debri's and that hit a person in there eye, was ALL OK, but it got everyone all excited
so I was taken away from what I was doing
after things all calmed down and we knew it was a NON real injury
I went back to sighting in my NEW shotgun
choke was about 3/4's screwed in, when I took the first shot, and completely MISSED a 4 ft x 4 ft target at a 100 yards, which I was just prior to hitting bulleye's
HUMM< I thought, maybe I flinched really bad or??
so I sent a second round down range, and again missed, NOTHING funny about recoil or likes?
But at that point I knew something was wrong I don't miss targets THAT big!
I looked at gun and well, end of barrel was bulged, and I immediately knew what happened, I never screwed choke tube in all the way
my day was DONE and not a happy camper with myself

BUT I got lucky, I didn;t get hurt, and I was able to cut barrel back and re tread and gun shoots awesome now, even nicer that its shorter and slightly lighter LOL
accidents happen, , its easy to get distracted, and why its dangerous to shoot guns, we all thrive to be safe as can be too, I know BOTH my accidents, taught me a few lessons, or were maybe reminders to being safer!

hope your gun is OK, and glad you are too

Idaholewis

NerdLord

I wish I could find a lone spot to shoot, by the time we left there a group (half dozen) setting up with a whole table of AR-platform (including some long range beauties) for some serious discharging and here I was, sunburned, head ache and pissed off.
I do need to get a bore light (my old one was in my pocket when I did laundry...it didn't go well).

I'll try to take some pics of anything that looks funky.

Idaholewis

bronko22000

I've never done it but I do know someone who did it twice. I imagine shooting a ramrod downrange is embarassing. And like Muley says it usually happens when you're distracted. Same thing when you dry ball.
As for your rifling - that delrin rod didn't hurt the barrel one bit.

NerdLord

Good news,
I took the rifle to a local gunsmith and he gave it a look over and there was 'nothing of note' to worry about and that I got lucky something didn't happen, said I learned my lesson.
Cost to have it checked over was $0 (he cut me a break).

So thanks everyone for letting me tell my tale...er...screw up.

stripercrazy

I've seen people who get the rod stuck between shots , take the nipple off and add a few grains of black powder and shoot the rod out