Remington ML blew up today. (pictures are up)

Would make for a great wall hanger, as a reminder.

Making mistakes is all part of the human experience.

Marking ram rod like HM said is critical, but the guy has not been shown the ropes by more experienced shooters, so this magnifies his chances.

I was lucky to have an old guy mentor me when I was 17 shooting a 58 caliber front loader, he took his pocket knife and made a cut in my ram rod at the proper grain amount of black powder. Later on, I did manage to shoot the ram rod at the target.
 
This guy is an experienced shooter. It is a perfect example of "not paying attention" to what your doing. He seated the bullet with a starter rod, then evidently started talking to fellow shooters and forgot to finish seating the bullet. He was using Blackhorn powder and Hornady bullets with a high pressure sabot. It was a stupid mistake made by someone that knows better.

Just goes to prove that even experienced shooters/reloaders can make mistakes. We should never get to a point where we think we can't mess up. I'm just thankful the only thing hurt was the rifle.
 
Originally Posted By: ackleymanWould make for a great wall hanger, as a reminder.

Making mistakes is all part of the human experience.

Marking ram rod like HM said is critical, but the guy has not been shown the ropes by more experienced shooters, so this magnifies his chances.

I was lucky to have an old guy mentor me when I was 17 shooting a 58 caliber front loader, he took his pocket knife and made a cut in my ram rod at the proper grain amount of black powder. Later on, I did manage to shoot the ram rod at the target.

^^^^^^^Me, too, Keith, except I picked it up w/o a mentor and there were few books on BP shooting, or at least I was unaware of them at the time.

I learned on a Confederate .58 cal. rifled musket ($39 from Klein's at the time IIRC). Started out w/way too much powder for that rifle (45-70 case full). Never did get it to shoot, but I think the patch was jumping the rifling due to pushing it so hard??? Sure wish I had not traded that one off.

The ramrod incident occurred w/a Belgian double barrel 12 ga. that I restored, proof tested w/full 12ga shell FFg behind 2 oz of shot and tied down to an old tire. Both barrels held and I hunted dove and whitewing with the old gun for several years.

Found early on that if I missed on the first shot, almost always missed the follow up and invariably while I was reloading several "floaters" would fly by. I then made it a practice to fire one shot, if a miss, pull the cap off the other (loaded) barrel and reload. Unfortunately, one day, while tapping down powder in the spent barrel, a floater came by. Leaving the rod in the barrel, I capped the "other" barrel and fired at the bird. Ooops, forgot which barrel I had been loading!

The ramrod passed just in front of the bird and you've never seen such evasive flight as that whitewing performed that day!
lol.gif


Regards,
hm
 
I keep wondering what the pressure spike was with the bullet so far away from the powder. It must have been tremendous. We were talking about this and another guy told a story of "Ringing" a barrel. He said a guy couldn't get the bullet seated all the way in an older ML and he fired it thinking it was OK. It ended up swelling the barrel just above actual seating depth and said the rifle never shot good again after that.
 
Quote:I keep wondering what the pressure spike was with the bullet so far away from the powder.

Yeah! From the looks, seems obvious the barrel failed starting right at the "obstruction".

Regards,
hm
 
Holy smokepoles!! Glad nobody was hurt. Good reminder of why it's always good to have safe shooting practices and wear ear AND eye protection.
 
40 years ago we got a hold of a CVA side lock and a couple pounds of black powder. We had no measure, made a funnel out of cardboard . Our starting load was 4 fingers wide, we made it up to almost 3 hands wide on the ramrod before the stock cracked from the tang to the butt. This was shooting some loose patched .50 round ball. Great fun on the farm.
 
I once wasn't paying attention with a muzzle loader and just glanced at what I thought were the ferrules and put the ramrod in. Shot the ramrod 94 yds. Didn't hurt my rifle fortunately but I never did glance anymore. Hard to find a ramrod for that rifle too. That's not the only stupid thing I've done either.
 
On second thought,he could sell that as some type of sculpture works. You ought to see some of the crap they have in the city. At least this would be worth looking at.
 
I told him he should cut off the bad part and make an SBR ML out of it.

Could the rifle be rebarreled, considering the action wasn't damaged? The bolt is messed up and would need the handle silver soldered back on for sure.
 
Prolly blew the handle off as they are the only "locking lug" on most muskets. Likely the barrel split & released the pressure before launching it (lucky for him & thank goodness).

I have come to realize that muzzleloaders are about the most dangerous "firearm" (if you can call it that) that you can mess with. I don't know many people that don't have a "that was stupid" story with them...

My only AD inside a house was with one. That's a story for another day
tongue_smilie.gif
(yeah it is all you can imagine & more...)
 
Originally Posted By: coleridge

My only AD inside a house was with one. That's a story for another day
tongue_smilie.gif
(yeah it is all you can imagine & more...)

i like a good story. spill the beans. lol
 
Originally Posted By: coleridgeI find it pretty humorous the scope caps are on it in the pic... hahaha

Yes, I would think counting fingers and removing mud would be way more important than rubber scope protection.
w00t.gif
 
Originally Posted By: coleridgeI find it pretty humorous the scope caps are on it in the pic... hahaha


I would assume he was pretty much done shooting this rifle for the day, may as well put the scope cover back on.
 
Back
Top