I took advantage of the Safari Press Christmas sale with a copy of Mr. Stone's diary when he was tasked to trek to the North Pole via the NorthWest passage. He was an original founder of the Explores Club (given this excerpt, am surprised he made it that far!).

He was using a big bore Winchester 45, 2 7/8 (I guess a 45-110 today) with Sharpe's 550 gr bullet, hunting for black sheep, now known as Stone sheep.

Sunday, 23 August
"... I was worried now, for when I went tp press a cartridge in my rifle, I remember I had drawn a shell the night before, leaving the bullet in the gun. I had no means of conveniently extracting it, and not expecting to use the rifle until we had reached camp again, thought I would not try to use it. I, of course, could not now extract the bullet, and my only alternative was to shove another cartridge without a bullet on top of it. This I quickly did, though it required all my strength. Now, as I advanced, I wondered what the result would be and felt sure my first shot would not get him. ..."

I might have done the same thing.

I deer hunt with an original Sharps and have, using pp 566 grain projectiles, had the same occurrence. No problem to just reinsert the cartridge case and you are good to go.

Dutch