Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Lawsuit Filed

Guys,
Just thought I would share this with the members, as it is a lawsuit that has been filed locally in Federal Court.

http://www.roanoke.com/news/virgini...e2fa411-46dd-5d7f-a649-eccfb12697a8.html

you cant fix stupid.

Where is the idiot that wanted to load a BP only firearm with smokeless that was around here recently?

First thing I thought of when I saw the title.

I wonder if a charge was left in the gun and then he loaded it again, it was just too much and the barrel ruptured. Don't think he has a chance after this many years and him or others having fired it many, many times. He is the one loading the gun and
no evidence of what he loaded. If I was on the jury he loses. Cheers NC

ditto
and wasn't ole dude from Virginia also

CVA.....?

Connecticut Valley Arms Staghorn .50-caliber

Not the first for CVA or the Staghorn.

http://cvaguncases.com/Case___Information_Page.html

and not the last as stupid people blow up arms every day. You should see the cases for remington.

You have a link to those cases? I'd be curious to read them.

i do not get my info from websites lol, nor will i share names to the sources of my info. When a rifle goes boom, more than just the rifle company is called in for the court case should it go that far. Its just amazing what people do to their rifles because they are not smart enough to learn it and especially with reloading centerfire ammo. CVA will not warrant reloads simply because theres to much error when someone without the education does it and screws up. A ton of cases involve this and of course, they are suing the arms maker for their screw up.

I would be willing to bet this was caused by operator error

99% of blow ups are due to user error. Poor cleaning, incorrect loading, incorrect prep between shots, etc. A lot of new guys have no clue about the crud ring. I've personally helped folks that told me they always wondered why the ramrod always stuck and inch or more higher versus their first or second shot. They were actually shooting them that way, getting poor erratic accuracy from one shot to the next. They were blown away and down right scared [bleep] when I explained what was going on and what could have happened to them.

Its like the guy on the news that buys a brand new Lamborghini and wrecked it 2 miles down the road because he said he didn't need to take the recommended driving course/test.

Possibly, however most cases filed against BPI/CVA/Dikar get $ettled before they go to trial so evidence to prove or disprove never becomes public.

most cases are like that as its cheaper than hiring a lawyer and going through the process. Same thing happens with personal injury, injury from a faulty auto maker, etc.

put a billion of any brand out there and a few going to blow up.

hard to tell what he had loaded it with.

I was hoping for more details in the news article. I'm guessing it was operator error. Black powder, when used properly, doesn't generate significant pressure compared to the kind of stuff most of us play around with all the time. Not only can stupid not be fixed, it shouldn't be legislated for, either.

Could have been a double load for all we know.

Me too, without info we're just guessing.

It is pretty entertaining though to see the entirely predictable responses from the CVA defenders and detractors.

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.

He was talking about round balls. You'd really kill yourself if you applied it to conicals.

It's time to clear up the nonsense about the loads that Sam Fadala allegedly recommended in his book, "Black Powder Hunting" (1978).

In the paragraph where he supposedly recommends a one-to-one powder to bullet weight ratio, he in fact refers to the practice as a "romantic notion", "another old-time axiom", and a "theorem". He says that "tested, this theorem has proved quite successful", and then goes on to say that above 50 caliber it "leaves a lot to be desired". He also, as noted by someone else here, was referring to loads for round balls.

He tested the "romantic notion" with a 50 caliber rifle with a 30-inch barrel and it chronographed at 2400fps. He also began the test with a .58, but that " barrel length and common sense dictated a cessation of the test at 200 grains of FFG", where he was getting 1800fps.

Later in the chapter he says, "Step one, then, in arriving at that sought-after perfect hunting load for the black powder muzzle loader is to consult the manufacturer as to maximum charges, and which powder granulation to use.", and in the same paragraph, "The maximum recommended by the maker of the rifle is never exceeded. He should know what his product is capable of."

The "romantic notion" that Dr. Sam recommended dangerous loads appears to exist only in folks' faulty memories.

Thanks Pappy, I knew you'd set it straight when you said you ordered the book.

What did he set straight? He just repeated what I said, and I was the one saying he was referring to round balls.

He was definitely recommending those loads, and I believe you took some facts out of context.

If I have time i'll go get the book, and quote Sam.

[quote=BarHunter]What did he set straight? He just repeated what I said, and I was the one saying he was referring to round balls.

He was definitely recommending those loads, and I believe you took some facts out of context.

If I have time i'll go get the book, and quote Sam. [/quote


The only one that took anything out of context was you, Cleopatra, Queen of Denial.

I read the book about 10 years ago, but that load stuck in my mind. I'll go check it out today, and if i'm wrong i'll admit it.

No need for childish insults.

Just pokin' fun, Friend. Anyone can " mis-remember" something. Just ask my second wife.

By all means get the book and read it again, not so you can come back on here and admit to anything, but because Fadala is a decent writer and a tireless tinkerer, not only with muzzleloaders, but all types of guns. Bows too. If he tells you about something, it's because he's done it and knows it first hand.

The thing about him I especially like is that he doesn't take sides in the silly debate about modern guns vs. traditional. He likes them all, and uses them all. One time he'll be writing about the latest powder and projectile; the next time he'll be telling about how to use pieces of hornets' nest between powder and patch to prevent burn-through. (By the way, I've tried that, and while I can't say whether or not it works, collecting the stuff can be exciting. It also looks interesting in your possibles bag).

I've been buying a few older sporting books lately, and I'm going to add some more of his; the book on .22s looks interesting.

No hard feelings, please. There's enough of that nonsense here.

No problem. I did state that he might have changed his recommendations later on. I think this was one of his first books, and the only one i read.

Just to be clear though. Didn't he recommend 170gr of powder for the 50 cal? That would be 1gr of powder for every grain of round ball weight. I know he backed off a bit as the calibers got larger.

He said, while discussing old-timey methods of determining proper loads, that the 1-1 principle had been successful, but that the principle didn't hold up well above .50 caliber. More importantly, after discussing this idea and some other traditional methods of load development, he very clearly states that you should always adhere to the maker's recommendations for maximum charges and proper granulations. Now that we live in Lawyer Land, I think it would have been wiser to have put that principle in the chapter before anything else. There's always the possibility that someone will mine a nugget of misinformation out of a book and act on it without reading the supporting text.

There have been, and still are available, traditional muzzleloaders that are designed for very heavy charges. Navy Arms made some .58 caliber "Hawkens" that were designed for beefy charges under heavy conicals. Currently, there's a company out in the Northwest that makes large bore underhammers with slow twists designed for roundballs over massive amounts of powder. Their 12-bore uses two caps to ensure ignition. Nice guns, but out of my price range and way more power than I need.

Ok, lets leave it at that.

Well, at least now we know Sam can't be blamed for all those CVAs blowing up.

And apparently neither is CVA since he seems to have dropped any allegations against them . That leaves Dikar which despite the name is a company not an individual .
And
Walmart , who sold the gun
So I wonder since the first one is not a US company and without the article saying just what federal level the lawsuit was filed in , just how he thinks he is going to hold Dikar accountable and by what standards .
Going to be rather interesting to see then try and justify quality in a country that has no legal standards of quality to follow .
Maybe that’s what this is all about , IE trying to make a precedence for new law .

That then leaves Wal-Mart. This guy better have better legal minds then the article seems to allude to or he will get eaten alive .
I wonder , would this be the same fella who for years has had photos of his hand plastered all over the net ?