Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Horror story/cautionary tale

A friend had a very bad accident at his shooting range this past weekend. First off, he is a very careful man in all of his shooting pursuits, seriously, but sometimes it's the little things that are our (his) undoing.

While shooting a new-to-him .54 Hawken percussion gun, a can of blackpowder exploded at less than arms length. A spark from the gun ignited the powder. It was standing open on the bench because he was charging his powder measure directly from the can for each shot, his protocol being to close the can after each charging. He dropped the can lid on the ground, but went ahead and fired the freshly prepped charge before bending down to retrieve it, leaving the container stand open. "I'll pick it up after this shot."

How can a percussion gun dispense such sparkage so as to cause the explosion?

Evidently, upon thorough investigation after the fact the gun was found to have its hammer at full cock. Hmmm, that shouldn't be, it should've been down in the fired position resting on the spent cap. Upon removing the nipple for cleaning the why-for became obvious - its vent hole had been reamed out to a very large diameter by a previous owner. The resultant magnified venting allowed an excessive amount of back-blast to channel back out into the atmosphere, throwing lots of hot flotsam and jetsam out and causing the hammer to fly back into full cock. One tiny bit of something, or a spark, made a perfect dive into the powder can. Boom.

It blew his shooting box 20 feet away, and scattered everything else to hell-and-gone. He himself is a very very very lucky man - he sustained 1st&2nd degree, and some 3rd degree, burns over his head and upper body. All hair - poof, gone. Clothes on fire. Scary (but good) part was his shooting glasses looked like they were raked through the coals of a campfire and then shot with a shotgun - but his eyes were A-ok. Luckily there was somebody with him who got him squared away and a trip to the ER got him fixed up (kind of). He's home and on the mend, but really rattled as you might imagine. (The gun is perfectly ok.)

Moral of the story: don't drill out the hole in a percussion rifle nipple, even if you think it might aid ignition for some reason; and don't ever leave containers of gunpowder stand open on the shooting bench. If you're having ignition issues, resolve them by other means.

Glad he survived. Good warning. Thanks for sharing.

Wow!

Had a fella that looked at the photo of my flinter here on the 'Fire that told me I needed to drill out the flashole to get better ignition. Never had a misfire with it, no need to fix what ain't broke.

And I have NEVER had a can of Lord Black or a canister on the bench when I shoot. Nope, it's hiding in the bag which hides behind my butt.

Yeah, me too. More often than not the Mother Can of powder stays at home and I load/shoot from a horn, the stopper for which I have never tethered to the horn itself. If it's not tethered it has to go someplace when done pouring and that place is back into the horn, impossible to simply let it dangle on a string leaving the powder in the horn exposed to mischief. I guess I could just shove the stopper into my pocket instead.....

Had a similar event that taught me to replace the nipple every other year whether it needed it or not. I had been shooting the same nipple for a few years and noticed that after the shot, the hammer would be at half cock. I had not changed anything, not powder, cap, anything. I was getting ready for an elk hunt and wanted to shoot a conical so down the barrel it goes. Cock the hammer, BOOM! Hammer comes flying back, left a dent in the stock and the nipple with the oversized hole blew out, hitting me in the cheek. Too big of a hole in the nipple gets a lot of blow back through it. Enough in this case to strip the threads and sent a projectile to your face. I was lucky there wasn’t any injury, just to my pride. I bought a gross of nipples and since changing them out when they get slightly enlarged, haven’t had an incident.

My charges go to the range in screw top plastic tubes. Bringing a can to the range invites spillage, loose powder on the bench waiting to be lit and other unpleasantness...

Thanks for the warning. Very good to know that when dealing with black powder percussion rifles and also pistols. I hope your friend heals up well!!! Sounds like a lot of things that went wrong to cause this catastrophe.

I always had a powder flask and in a leather bag with the balls and everything else needed. Still have that leather bag that I made when I was a teenager.. Still works too.. Today one of my buddies was asking me about a 54 cal hawken rifle he saw at a gunshow last Saturday. He's never even fired a black powder rifle or pistol.

Scary stuff! Thanks for posting. I do my charging/loading on a shelf 10-12 ft behind the bench.

Very good lesson to live by. Glad you friend survived OK

Was at Mountain man Competition once were a Shooter had his Powder horn Blow up on his side.
He said he forgot to put the plug back in it.

The Horn was hanging over his shooting bag and that is what saved him.
He got some burns but nothing real bad.

His horn went off like a grenade and there were pieces all over the place

The bag was destroyed and not much left of it and took most of the abuse.

that shooter was very lucky.

Bad things can happen very fast

Hope your Bud Heals up quick and will be OK.

I had to modify the touchhole of my Mortimer flintlock to make it reliable. As per Ross Seyfried, I coned the back side of the liner and drilled the hole to .0625. Went from maybe, whoosh, boom, to fast and dead-reliable. The flame that came out of the touchhole, was something to see, and I was alway careful to stay on the right side of the benches to avoid maiming any civilians. No question that with that gun, an open powder can would be a really bad idea. Some things you simply can’t shortcut or be lazy about.

Sorry about your pal.

gnoahhh;
Good morning to you sir, I hope that this Remembrance Day/Veteran's Day finds you well.

Thanks for the cautionary tale for sure, it's instructive on a lot of levels.

Back in the day I walked into one of the bigger gun shops in Calgary wanting to purchase a side by side hammer shotgun. The older chap behind the counter informed me they didn't have any - weren't common back in the late '70's early '80's as they seem to be now. Since I had money burning a hole in my pocket, I pointed to this rifle which was hanging on the wall and said, "I'll take the one with the fancy wood then please"...



When he asked if I knew what it was, I replied "Not exactly" but since I'd owned a .36 Navy revolver previously was not entirely unfamiliar with black powder.

Nonetheless, he went through the loading and maintenance very carefully with me which was great. I can still hear him say, "Never, ever, never load straight from the horn son. A random spark in the barrel can cause it to blow up and they'll only find your boots!" That got my attention.

The rifle is a Navy Arms Hawken Hurricane and originally had a nipple with musket caps that had a huge interior diameter. It'd recock the hammer with anything above about 80gr of powder which was both disconcerting and dangerous.

When we moved here to BC in the early '80's, I had a local fellow who was familiar with black powder arms put in a Uncle Mike's Hotshot nipple, which required a Helicoil of sorts to be Loctited in, but that solved the "auto recocking" issue.

We can sort of see on the photo too that I made up a shield of sorts on the hammer out of a 7mm Rem Mag case and that kept any percussion cap splatter from coming back at the shooter.

Anyways for sure for those who might be new to black powder shooting, always load with a brass measure or once you know the load, drill out an antler to the right depth so it looks "old timey".

Thanks again and all the best.

Dwayne

Yikes, hope your friend makes a complete recovery. I had one chamber blow up on an 1851 Navy repro and that was no fun... I can't even imagine an entire pound going off at that distance. 😬

I had a patch twist on me one time and covered the touch hole.
It got kinda sketchy on firing line when the 10 ga. Blunderbuss would not shoot.
I tried everything I knew how to do and then a guy came up to me with some FFFFFFF powder
Yep 7F powder never heard anything above 4F.
we cleared the firing line and he pored out a bit of that powder in my measure and then stepped way way back.
He said that you can look at that 7F and it can ignite .

He then instructed me to pack it as tight as I could in the touch hole.

I then put a bit more in the pan (it is a Rock Gun)

Everyone stepped back as I aimed it down range and pulled the trigger and a


WOOOOOOOOOSSSHHHHHHHH BOOM and the gun was clear

He had me basically fuse the touch hole and that hot 7F powder burned threw the wet patch to ignite the 80 gr. of 2F I had loaded up with.

No one was hurt but it did get tense dot being able to clears a Muzzle Loaded Firearm.

Keep your powder containers capped and covered!

another bad habit is loading or priming the pan over the shooting bench top. wayward grains can and will accumulate.
embarrassed to admit but i have had my shooting bench top and rest go whoosh around me. while it is a sign of good powder it is also a sign of advanced senility.

Thanks for the reminder, gnoahh.

Another note of warning. Those with flintlocks, make sure your lock plates are TIGHT against the wood of your stock and that you clean behind them often.

You DO NOT want flash powder working its way between lock and stock...I've never had it happen, but have known more than a couple locks blown off the side when buildup touches off.

Aqualung

Hunting snowy day, we all quit when most fljnter were failing.
(Using a sling on a wet day is poison, none on my gun)

At the garage guys were trying to unload, Disco's gun wouldn't fire.
Multiple pans of powder, powder pushed into the flash hole..
He pulled the barrel, removed the liner, reassembled sans liner,
And primed it.

I got back, but wanted to watch.
It went off!
Not sure but I think there was more fire and smoke out the side than front.
Didn't hurt the stock or lock.

Not sure I would want to try it personally.
I'm not lucky that way.