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Well I have been shooting these sense the 60's an back then there was only Black powder then in the 80or so Hodgen came out with Rs powder then Triply 7 Then the pellets .Now Mag pellets An people use all in older rifles because they don't know and don't want to take the time to under stand what their doing

Sounds like a bore obstruction to me, likely short-seated bullet or maybe even the old ramrod left in the barrel stunt. Lots of stuff can happen to folks who don't focus on the job at hand.

Sam Fadala did some bore-obstruction demos years ago, mainly to show what would happen with various obstruction scenarios. He used copper pipe, I believe, not gun barrels. Even though BP operates at relatively low pressure, if that pressure doesn't have an escape route, something's gonna give.

One of....
short-seated bullet
double load
smokeless powder

Why not 2 outa 3?

the sam fadala books were written long before real testing was around. I have one of his and a couple other writers books from the 60's - 70s and their stuff today would get them sued if they pushed their agenda's, especially a starting load of 200 grains 2f in a 54cal.

I don't see where that's relevant to the subject at hand. His tests were not designed to determine the strength of anything, but to show how and where various bore obstructions would cause burst barrels.

I never read anything he wrote that recommended exceeding manufacturer load level recommendations. He also used all types of MLs as well as cartridge guns. One of his favorite activities seemed to be dressing up in full frontier regalia and camping out while hunting and plinking around. The only "agenda" Dr. Sam pushed was getting out and shooting a bunch of stuff and having a good time doing it.

I have to disagree. I read his early books too. He recommended 1 gr of powder for every gr of bullet wt. So, a .50 cal PRB was 170gr. He said to use 170gr of powder. A .54 220 gr of powder. He backed off a bit on larger calibers, but the loads were still huge.

Sounds like dangerous loads to me. He might have changed his thinking in later years, but that was what he was saying in his early books.

Do you recall what book that was? I've seen one grain per CALIBER recommended as a starting or practice load, but never one per grain of bullet weight.

The only book of his I've read is one of his black powder "guides" that featured a lot of general ML info plus loads for most of the guns on the market at that time. He was pretty clear about the diminishing returns of heavy charges. The charges listed in the data section were all in the manufacturers' specs.

I do remember an old article by G. C. Nonte about taking some Navy Arms rifles to Africa and using some beefy charges under some really heavy conicals in .58 caliber, I believe. That was in an old Gun Digest, I think.

At any rate, one more time, the tests/demonstrations were illustrations using soft metal pipes, not gun barrels, to show what could happen with something like a improperly seated bullet. He was, as I recall, concerned that due to the relatively low pressure of BP, some people weren't treating it with the proper caution.

If, as you say he used to use charges equal the weight of the bullets he was shooting, maybe he gave himself a good scare.

It's in my local library. I seem to recall it was around a 70's book. If I get a chance i'll go see what the title is.

Sounds like it's a reference to starting loads for BP handguns maybe? Hard to believe they suggest powder equivalencies to bullet grains of ML rifles 45-cal and above.

Also, what's the sense in starting with 50-60 grains anyways, if you plan on shooting beyond 50 yards.

Every hunter I've been in the woods with wants a load that harvests 100 yards minimum.

Most inline hunters today double-that-amount. Most ML inline boards are discussing loads that reach as much as 400 yards nowadays.

My very first load with my last five purchased MLs was 80 grains. I recommend that as a starting point. Heck, I only increased another 5-10 grains from that 80 number, before settling on a permanent load, shooting 180 grain and 200 grain sabot/bullets, using Blackhorn 209 powder.

I've shot some overloaded BP in muzzle loaders. I don't think BP works like smokeless at all, in that the added quantity doesn't raise pressures significantly over smaller quantities. It just creates a longer push.

I could be wrong, but I've heard of double-charges before from friends. More recoil, a big flame out of the end of the barrel, and seeming higher velocity for the projectile, but no danger of boom. Still, you gotta follow the rules for compressing the powder, etc. That's why I think it was operator error, most likely. You have to do something wrong IME to create gun-destroying pressure in muzzle loaders. There is a possibility of flawed steel in the barrel, but this is very unlikely.

No, I have it right in what he said. He recommended a gr of powder for every gr of bullet weight for rifles.

This is the book. 1978

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Black-Powder..._DefaultDomain_0&hash=item58c4cda93e

Thanks for looking. I actually browsed the stuff of his that's available on Amazon last night and ordered a copy of that very book. It's already in the mail. First edition, eight bucks.

The copy I had of the Lyman book he wrote was given to the guy I sold a BP rifle to a while back. There have been later editions, but I think I'm past the point where there's much there for me. Also, Lyman has got to use the cheapest printer on Earth to publish their paperbacks. My copy of the 49th Edition is barely a year old and falling apart.

The sense is that you don't have to use a big powder charge for practice and plinking, or small game hunting, even with inlines. At about $.50 a shot for a 100gr equivalent load of BH209, practice with full-power loads gets a little pricey. Bulk cast or swaged bullets are about half the price of regular jacketed. PRBs and real BP used in traditional guns are even cheaper, although regular 209 primers are cheaper than #11 caps these days.

This sounds nearly identical to a case I heard about back in 1984. It was a CVA. The barrel blew up and maimed the guy's left hand. If memory serves, it also maimed the guy next to him. My girlfriend was working as a paralegal in NYC and called me up to see if it passed my smell test.

It all sounded like doping a BP load with smokeless to me, except for one thing. In the 1984 case, CVA had bought out some bankrupt Italian firms' stock of barrels and then used them to make a batch of smokepoles with their label on it. The metallurgy of the barrel was in play the last time I heard about the case. I don't know how it ended. It made me swear off CVA permanently. Defect or not, CVA had no clue how the barrels were made.

They do now. Bergara makes them.

. . . except those made by Dikar S. Coop of Spain, at least according to the article.

I don't know Dikar S. Coop. I don't know how he makes barrels. N'est pas?

All CVA barrels are made at the Bergara factory.

Woa. I took most of my deer this season with a 490 grain .451 conical...

I cant image what a near 500 grain load of BP would be like underneath a 500 grain projectile. Then again, maybe it'd just spit out the unburned powder. I dont intend to find out.