My brother is in emergency surgery right now. His in line muzzleloader discharged while reloading on a deer hunting outing. The ramrod and bullet went through his hand.

What could cause this?

Hawkeye

I'm very sorry to hear of this.

As for the cause, I suspect your brother already knows.

Hawkeye,

I wish your brother has a speedy and thorough recovery without too many complications, I will say a prayer for him tonight and in the following days.

Mark

quote:

Originally posted by RandyWakeman:
I'm very sorry to hear of this.

As for the cause, I suspect your brother already knows.

Was it a mistake in his loading process? I just started muzzle loading this fall and I am now kind of spooked.

Thanks,

hawkeye58

Would you please explain what his process was during the reloading when it discharged ? was it a flint lock ? a percussion ? an Inline ? Please give us some more information .

I am very sorry to hear of the accident and I wish your brother a good recovery.

I am not so sure that he knows the cause of the accidental discharge and neither do I.

I do know that the Savage manual for the ML10 11, which is an inline suggests, waiting between shots.

So I ask the ML experts why does Savage suggest waiting between shots?

I am quite concerned also.

There can be embers left in the barrel and when seating a new load too soon, the air pushed through the nipple will fan the flame. It is more common with the substitute powders and lack of bullet lube with sabot loads. A damp patch after a shot will cure it.
Compressing Pyrocrap too much can also leave a flare smoldering in the bore but I don't know what the pellets will do.
I use traditional equipment and black powder and in 50 years of shooting and building guns, I have never had a problem. I have done some mighty fast loading too.
Just shows that advancements are really a step backwards, junk powders, bullets that don't perform, innaccurate bullets, no lube to soften fouling, hard loading and hotter ignition needed. Now there is danger added! I will stick to my patched round balls, thank you. I have never lost an animal with them.

quote:

I do know that the Savage manual for the ML10 11, which is an inline suggests, waiting between shots.

So I ask the ML experts why does Savage suggest waiting between shots?

In hot weather, for barrel cooling, otherwise your groups will open up after 3-4 shots. The reason is best accuracy. A 10ML-II doesn't care how hot it gets, but a plastic sabot does.

quote:

Was it a mistake in his loading process? I just started muzzle loading this fall and I am now kind of spooked.

Thanks,

hawkeye58

Naturally, anything would be speculative.

I have witnessed folks loading a primed or capped muzzleloader, which is an accident waiting to happen.

Cook-offs are rare, but I've seen them as well . . . only with blackpowder, which is far easier to ignite than Pyrodex and other subs.

Blackpowder is not only easy to ignite, but both friction and impact sensitive as well. There are very few accidents, as long as you spit-patch between shots. Same goes back to cannon . . . those who don't swab can expect discharge on loading. It happens in re-enactments every year.

Hawkeye,

How is your brother doing?

Mark

In my haste last night I said he was my brother. Actually my brother in law. He came out of the surgery fine. They wired some bones together and had to remove the sabot from his wrist. Too early to tell if he will regain full use.

I suspected he might have had a primer in the action. Not sure if he would admit it if he did.

I will try to get more info on the make and model plus loading procedure. Will be a few days.

Thanks,
Hawkeye58

quote:

I suspected he might have had a primer in the action

Glad to hear your brother in law is out of surgery and out of danger. A primer in the action, a cocked striker, and a disengaged safety can happen easily enough if a fella doesn't practice the correct "manual of arms" with every shot. Perhaps we'll hear the cause of the incident was more complex. Reminds me why I leave the frizzen open and wipe between each shot when using blackpowder in my flintlocks. Serious stuff. Best wishes to the man and his family for a quick and complete recovery.

Hey Hawkeye58, It sure could have been a lot worse. Thanks for the thread and I also hope your BIL has a complete recovery.

Thanks Hawkeye58 Please find out more about accident as I have 2 Grand children That I will be teaching the How too's of rifles and loading , This will be a good reading lesson for them for safety procedures , Hope your B.I.L. recovers from this tragic mistake .

Randy covered the only feasible causes. In all my years, I've never seen cook offs in the modern propellants, just black powder. I suspect as does Randy that this gun was primed before it was loaded. Firearm safety's are mechanical devices that should be expected to fail That's right out of our hunter education pamphlet and what we teach all new hunters. Never trust a safety.

I don't know what you fellas call a "cook off?" That is when the barrel and chamber get so hot "as in machine gun" that a round will go off if it sits in the chamber long enough to absorb the heat. You will never get a muzzle loader that hot unless you torch it.
The cause of the gun going off when loading are embers left in the bore. This problem has been cautioned against from the beginning of the first firearms. I have never seen it happen or had it happen but it certainly can and a badly fouled bore will contribute to embers more readily then a clean one. How much dirtier a bore can you get then with a plastic sabot or any other bullet with no lube? None of the inline shooters can tell me the gun loads easy after two or three shots! I don't care what powder is used, the bore should be wiped for easy loading and that will take care of embers.
Who can say for certain that those pellets burn completely? We tried Pyrocrap in the BPCR and were shooting chunks out the bore to burn like flares in the grass. You who put your faith in the substitute powders are overlooking safety because they can be worse then black powder. You can not justify your use of them as being safe and putting the blame only on black powder.
As for cannons needing wiped after every shot, it is because so much powder is loaded that it does not all burn and the tremendous fouling will hold it. Does that not equal three pellets in the inline? Can anyone tell me that it all burns? You are playing with fire thinking 150 gr's will all burn in those short barrels. What does not get blown out WILL BE BURNING DOWN THERE! Since it is mixed with fouling, it will burn slow and is waiting for more fuel.
Either wait--or wipe!

In response to bfrshooter, it is obvious that you do not like Pyrodex however I don't think that that it is as terrible as you make it sound. If you want to shoot black powder only more power to you just don't critisize me and the millions of others who use it with great sucess.

Hawkeye,I pray your BNL makes a full and speedy recovery.

Dsmit50, I still use Pyrocrap in my .54 a lot. But you must realize it has limitations. Doesn't work worth a darn in cartidge guns, doesn't work if not compressed and if compressed too much. Harder to ignite. Fouls and rusts barrels fast, takes forever to clean a barrel until patches are white.
777 doesn't work in cartridge guns very well either because you can't get enough in for velocity. It does NOT like any compression. The boolit must just touch the powder in a muzzle loader, compress it at all and accuracy is gone. Trouble is that after a few shots, you can't feel when it just touches so the gun needs wiped also. Burns clean and is nice to use if you know how. Also harder to ignite.
The worst thing is the COST of the stuff.
I am not running down those that choose to use any of these subs. I am only cautioning you that you CAN have problems and on the average there are many more problems then with straight black. I also caution you that they CAN hold embers and go off when loading, so don't think that just because you are using them that they are safer then black.
I hate to see anyone get hurt because they are thinking like that.
Yes, I have opinions, but they are from experience and over 50 years shooting these things. Beginners ask questions and I tell the truth, I do not tell anyone not to use what they want but I will never sugar coat what I have to say. Ask yourself why almost every single post here is about inline problems and substitute powder problems?

quote:

Ask yourself why almost every single post here is about inline problems and substitute powder problems?

Never thought of it that way. Ain't none of us using roundball flintlocks that hates em.

quote:

Originally posted by bfrshooter:
Ask yourself why almost every single post here is about inline problems and substitute powder problems?

There are over 4,000,000 muzzleloading hunters in the United States. Over 3.5 million of them choose to hunt with inlines and blackpowder subs.

The reason for more interest and discussion about both inlines and subs is a very obvious one.

quote:

There are over 4,000,000 muzzleloading hunters in the United States. Over 3.5 million of them choose to hunt with inlines and blackpowder subs.

I'd have guessed the proportion would have been even higher. Fine by me. The more hunters the better. No new hunters, sooner or later no hunting...

I don't know where you got the figures and I won't dispute them. The reason the inline is so popular is an advertising ploy that says everyone can shoot 200 or more yd's with accuracy and killing power. Then us older guys DO appreciate the scopes. Then there are the stainless steel barrels and plastic stocks that remove some of the corrosion worries. The inline does have a place, it removes the hunting aspect during a primitive season that started out by requiring a fellow HUNT the game. I hear too many stories about how the long range gun is needed because shots are too far for a flinter or caplock. Strange that the archer gets game in those places!
These guns have been pushed onto the public as the do-all and cure-all for any hunting and everyone is buying them. I don't like them and have shot a lot of them that my friends bring over. I see the problems they have. I see the money they spend to shoot them. I help them as much as I can because I have nothing against the guns but I will still say it like it is, they are a pain in the butt the majority of the time.
I feel the same way about guys here that use the 30-06, 308, 7mm mag and even .300 mags where most shots run about 30 to 50 yd's. Once in a while a 100 yd shot is needed. This is 30-30 and flinter country but I never, ever see anyone using their inlines in rifle season. They save them for muzzle loader season. They don't get many deer at that time either. The big problem is that none of them know the deer or how to hunt them. A good buckskinner with a flinter can pile up tons of deer here as can a good archer. These guys buy the biggest, farthest shooting guns they can, thinking it will solve the problem and make shooting deer easier. Just doesn't work though!
I can kill more deer with my revolvers then all the so called hunters here combined. My neighbors hunted hard the entire season for a total of 4 deer among all of them. I hunted 4 hours in archery season for two and 3 hours in gun season with revolvers for two more. I had to quit hunting because after giving away two and putting two in my freezer, I had no more room. I have not hunted muzzle loader season for 3 years because I am done too soon. Do you think I need an inline? Even my flinters are just too easy for me.
Then the sob story about not enough deer and you just HAVE to shoot what you see. I have news for those kind! I killed a deer every year in Ohio when there were so few deer someone would call the newspaper if they seen one.
I think if all the inline shooters went to a caplock or flinter, learned to shoot them and how to hunt, that they would never go back.

quote:

Originally posted by nordrseta:

quote:

There are over 4,000,000 muzzleloading hunters in the United States. Over 3.5 million of them choose to hunt with inlines and blackpowder subs.

I'd have guessed the proportion would have been even higher. Fine by me. The more hunters the better. No new hunters, sooner or later no hunting...

It is, if you take away the PA flinter season. More deer are killed by Buick every year than by sidelocks.

Yeah, PA was FUN. I would track one down in the snow every year. My little .45 half stock flinter would do them in fast. Round balls are deadly!

quote:

It does NOT like any compression. The boolit must just touch the powder in a muzzle loader, compress it at all and accuracy is gone.

That is not my experience with 777. I have loaded 100-grain vol equivalent in all my Whites, both .504s and the .410, seated the bullets hard against the powder charge (~1/4" of compression), seated a #11 cap and proceeded to shoot three bullets into 1-1/2" with all of them, and three into 3-1/2" at 200. And I wasn't spit patching, wet patching, cleaning between shots or anything else. This was done with 300-grain saboted bullets in the .504s as well as the 370-grain Lyman Maxi-Ball, and the RCBS 40-400 in the .410.

I used 5 cans of the stuff over the chronograph and seen what happened with any variation in compression. Sorry, but the best was with just a firm seat without compressing and I suspect that is what you are doing.

First it was "accuracy was gone", and now it is a difference in chronograph readings... Which was it? Velocity or accuracy?

And I don't know the difference between a firm seat and compression, either, huh? I can't measure a quarter inch on a ramrod. How did I ever get to be 52 years old, being so ignorant? I guess I wasted 12 years of public schooling and two years of college, didn't I?

I quit... You don't know what you are talking about. Again. But I quit...

Where is the rifle Hawkeye58 ? you can look at it and know why it fired ! The primer will still be there if that is the case ! let us know !

Doubless, Yes accuracy was gone! When I see over 100 fps extreme spread with a change in compression, where do you think the accuracy went? All shots were from the bench, all loads were compressed with a seating tool that measure the pressure, not the distance. The bore was wiped between loadings. I could readily go from one hole groups to over 8" at will. You might have made it to 50 but I have been building and shooting these things for 50 years! I am also a gunsmith.
You keep stating you are compressing 1/4"--what you don't realize is that is not compression but just a powder touching seat and it is OK and works just fine. All you are doing is settling the charge and moving the fouling down to the powder. Put some weight on those loads and if you say it still groups, you would be lying. Better yet, shoot one your way, then compress the next shot with 10 or 20 pounds more pressure.
After you do as much work and testing as I have, you can then jump on me, but right now you have no effect on me and all I hear is a bunch of huffing and puffing.

best wishes and prayers go to your Brother in law for a speedy recovery

First of all, Hawkeye, I wish your brother a full recovery. I can guess that it will take time to heal. For the rest of you, thanks for the enlightenment! After five years in storage, I have brought out the Renegade and started shooting it again. I noticed something new, though, this time around. When shooting patched .490" roundballs, I would occasionally have burning embers hit the grass in front of me, like the posts above said. This is using (starter load) 70gr.of Pryodex and CCI No.11 caps. I have not had this happen before, even using Pyrodex. I would experiment with different powders, but don't shoot this as much as I am usually handloading for the centerfire cartridges.