Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders My first muzzle loading mishap

How many of you check to see that the bullet seater is still attached to the ramrod after loading a bullet?

Yesterday I shot a round with a brass seating jag in the barrel.

Fortunately I didn't blow myself up or my TC Omega. Luckily it was the short brass bullet seater and not the long heavy one I have.

Don't even think about calling me careless or stupid. I'm posting this to make others aware of something that can happen, something that can be easily overlooked, and to help prevent anyone else from making the same mistake. Learn from my screw up.

I'm very meticulous in my loading procedure. I lay out one sabot/bullet, one powder charge, and one primer before I load up. This way there's no chance of ever loading a double charge.

After sighting in at 50 yards I moved the target out to 100 yards, loaded up, and fired, At the shot the recoil was more than normal but not horrendous. WTF? My first thought was I hadn't snugged the rifle up against my shoulder or that somehow I had mis-weighed a powder charge. I couldn't find the hole on paper so I walked up to to target and found the bullet hole six inches low and eight to to left so I thought the scope went belly up. Again, WTF?

I decided to load another round but the bullet seater wasn't attached to the ramrod. I thought I had mislaid it or it fell off and I was looking on ground trying to find it when it dawned on me what happened.

The seater had unscrewed from the ramrod and was in the barrel when I fired the shot.

I got to man up and say I'm not faultless in what happened. I leave the bullet seater and T-handle loosely screwed together so that the sabot/bullet can twist with the rifling. After a few loadings you have tighten the threads back up but this time I didn't. A new part of my loading procedure will be to make sure the seater is still attached to the ramrod.

This won't happen again ... ever.

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TC Omega Range report.

The rifle is undamged, no bulges, sabots load the same, and there's no issues. The last three shot group I shot yesterday at 100, and the best of the day, measured 1.14". In my somewhat limited testing this load hasn't gone over 2" at 100 yards which is good enough for my purposes.

105 grains BH 209 by volume in my powder measure - 77.3 grains weighed which according to BH equals 110 by volume
WW 209 primer
250 grain Horanady SST
Red Hornady High Speed Low Drag sabot - same as a MMP black HPH 3P-EZ
This load chronos at approximately 2050 fps

I had been using a CCI 209M with BH 209 but I was seeing a slight amount of blow by. The WW primers seal far better and have eliminated that issue.

I also tried some Harvester crush rib sabots and they shot OK but there was no noticeable gain in accuracy and if anything the Hornady sabots grouped better.

Another thing I tried out was using shims to free float the barrel. I used two pieces of 12-pack cardboard under each lug which was just barely enough to semi-float the barrel. The forearm flexed when floated and it did not improve accuracy. It seemed to group better with the shims removed and the barrel fully supported by the stock. I had thought about epoxy bedding the lugs and free floating the barrel but after this experiment I won't.

Glad nobody got hurt. The brass bit must have come off so that it lay on the bullet, and they went out together. Halfway down the barrel, could have lost more than a ferrule, I'm thinking.

Thanks for the heads up. I never would have thought of looking at the end of the ramrod after loading, but it's obvious once it's brought to your attention.

That may be why some of the old boys used solid metal (iron or brass) ramrods. I always thought they just wanted to add weight to a muzzle-light rifle.

Yikes ! that's a bucket of goose bumps right there could have made for a bad day glad you weren't injured. I've been a few threads away from the same thing happening but managed to catch it... going to be more observant now since reading about your adventure.

You haven't sent a ramrod down range yet?

My local range has a number of ramrods sent downrange mounted above the benches as a reminder to shooters. I don't think it works too well, seems like a couple more each time I visit.

Mine has never come off, but has come very close and I try and hand tighten it between every shot. I like spinjag for that reason too, but for some of my guns, my white for example, they are too narrow.

One of the reasons I like BH 209 so much: my one mishap so far involves short seating a bullet. With BH, it simply popped it out of the barrel about 10 ft. Boy was I lucky!

I am too, including checking the notch on the ramrod every time to make sure the bullet is seated all the way down. And it's a good thing I do that.

Because I was at the range once while a match was going on. During this match they had frequent cease-fires to re-set targets, without the usual warning of "two minutes to cease-fire" first. I had just loaded a round when they called a cease-fire; no big deal, I made sure the rifle was un-primed and put it vertically in the rack behind the bench, as required.

This cease-fire for whatever reason lasted about 15 minutes. Long enough for me to grab a snack, make a phone call, and lose track of what I was doing. They called the line hot, so I grabbed one of the quick-loaders I'd made up for the session, poured in the powder, and rammed in the bullet.

Checked the notch on the rod, and for a second thought, WTF, I can't seat the bullet all the way.......like I said, good thing I check that every time.

Thanks, "Fish"... for relating your unusual experience to us all. I've never had that happen, either... but it could, I agree.

So I'll be also watching that as well as remembering to put the powder in FIRST and then the patched rifle ball.

My black powder shooting buddy didn't use to call me "Dry-Ball" without a darned good reason... hahahaha! Buttttt now, that's been modified.. and now, he calls me "Sparky" because I started out shooting a flintlock rifle and the "Sparky" comes from the "spark" the flint made as it struck and slid-it's-way down the frizzen.

I jus' hope I never get called" "LATE-FOR-DINNER"!


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

Been there, done that exact same thing, thought a mule had kicked me in the nose. Needless to say, checking the jag after every load is now part of the routine.

i've seen a few rods shot out of barrels to. suprisingly accurate they are. i've short loaded a time or to also. i was hunting on smith mtn lake state park 20 years ago on the annual draw hunt to thin deer and a nice fat doe stepped out of a thicket 50 yards or so from me. she just stood there looking at me . i shot her in the neck with my old cva and dropped her where she stood. when the smoke cleard there stood another doe 20ft closer to me. i hurried to reload and shot AT her but the bullet didn't make it to her because being in a hurry i had forgotten to seat the bullet. amazing thing was she just stood there like nothing happen while i reloaded again and killed her.

back then that place was loaded with deer that weren't afraid of anything. i think the 5 of us killed 13 in 2 days

Ha,..Dumbazz...

Haven't pulled that one yet, I Red Loctite'd my tips into the ramrod so I wouldn't lose em...

The only "stupid" thing I've done was watch my dad put a double load into an Omega.

I had loaded mine and stuck it in the corner, he got confused, grabbed mine and put another load in it....

I was watching the whole time but it didn't click until I noticed that he seated his load with about 8" of ramrod....

Uh Oh,....that took a while to remove...

Thankfully those Omega's are pretty tough...

I have a starter also a rod to set and a cleaning rod.The The seating rod is made of brass and the jig is put on with lock tight. I use to shoot 4&5 days a week till my good friend that shoot with me passed on.

I shoot nought but traditional MLs and when I make a rammer I epoxy AND pin the brass end onto the hickory rod. The ends I make for that purpose (which are the same diameter as the rod and about an inch long) are cupped to conform to the round ball, with a threaded hole exposed, into which I can thread whatever attachments I need to clean with afterwards. Simple, effective, and no risk of leaving it down the pipe. No reason such a rig wouldn't work with an inline too.