Magnum Muzzle Loader

[CapLock]

I was sighting in my T/C Hawkens front stuffer with some bullets a friend had cast. Between shots the range officer came over to talk about our guns. He walks off and I finish loading my rifle.

This is the point something went wrong. I'm guessing I double charged the black powder...or may have loaded another load on top of the existing. Either way I have my damn rod marked to measure but never looked. This would have caught a mistake.

At my shot I heard my neck crack like I was at the chiropractor. I felt burning pain and my friend says WTF are you shooting at. He says he saw dust kick up 10 feet over my target. I stood up backed away from the bench. I was expecting blood, but other than a sore neck I was fine.

People walked over from the pistol berms to see what was being shot. That's how different the report was.

I guess if there is a moral to this story....dont let yourself be distracted while reloading of any kind. Even if it's the range safety officer.

Surprisingly the gun wasn't damaged.

[encorehunter]

As long as the bullet is seated firmly on the powder, I don't believe you have to be worried about damaging the gun. T/Cs are proof tested with something like 400 grains of powder with multiple bullets/round balls. I have shot muzzies with 200 grains of powder with no ill effect. If the barrel isn't long enough, it will make a big cloud of smoke out of the front of the barrel.

[Gman]

Hope your neck is OK.

[StagLefty]

Yeah it's easy to get distracted when loading a muzzle loader and have that happen. After having to use one of those screw attachments once to manually pull a 50 cal ball I bought a CO2 discharger haha. I taught muzzle loading for the Scouts for years and used the CO2 more than once.
Glad your OK

[Irving]

As if shooting a muzzleloader wasn't uncomfortable enough already!

[StagLefty]

As if shooting a muzzleloader wasn't uncomfortable enough already!

Try a flintlock sometime !!!

[CapLock]

I think it was a powder and bullet on top of another. If it was just 180 grain charge under a 250 grain bullet it wouldn't have been as bad. I had a 460 weatherby that wasn't as bad.
Probably does strange things to REALLY compress that second charge. Then ram into that second bullet.
Probably going to flinch next time. I'll call a flier right now.

[Shooter45]

Glad you and the muzzleloader are fine. Gives you one hell of a memory!

[palepainter]

Ya. Focus is key on those rifles. I shoot over in fort Lipton from time to time and have to put up the blinders when loading.


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