Man blows up his recently gunsmithed rifle...

[Kruel J]

Maybe he left the charge and round in from the last season? That's obvious.

 

[RVTECH]

which allows a special pre-loaded brass, featuring a Remington 9 ½ large magnum rifle primer, to be push-fed into the breech plug much like a centerfire rifle round would be chambered in a single-shot bolt-action.

This is 'technically' no longer a 'muzzeloader' in the formal sense of the word and may not be legal in all states

Uh, yep, ZIP IT! - this is a STUPID design.........

I blame individual States for having such diverse variances with their definitions of what a 'muzzleloader' is it has resulted in the Mfgs. to create guns such as this which have so many variables with regard to loading, ammo (sabot, loose ball/conical, loose powder/pellets etc) that the guns are in effect becoming dangerous.

I praised Oregon several years ago when it tightened up on muzzleloader regulations and essentially went with the traditional example (I.E. loose powder and ball/conical, open ignition etc) but has since relaxed the restrictions.

Also by creating a 'muzzleloader' which largely in part is more conventional looking than traditional also 'muddies the waters' for people who may have little to no experience with muzzleloaders and might start to 'skew' the line between what is the proper loading procedure for the rifle and might start to 'deviate' with loading procedures - and have results such as in the video.

I think ALL States need to reel in their limp dorks and follow the NMLRA standards for muzzleloading rifles for their respective ML hunting seasons.

 

[tac]

The ball/projectile goes in the muzzle AFTER the loose powder or pellets have been loaded. That's why it has a ramrod. The 'cartridge' is really just a way of holding the #209 primer in place without having to fumble it. So technically, because the powder and bullet load down the muzzle, it's a muzzle-loader.

That fact that you have to look VERY hard to determine that this thing has a ramrod, so for me, it's as though the metallic cartridge had never been invented. This abomination is what would have been developed from the muzzleloaders we love had the metallic cartridge per se never been invented.

tac

 

[RVTECH]

The 'cartridge' is really just a way of holding the #209 primer in place without having to fumble it.

It also opens up the door for neophyte shooters to experiment with ways to create a 'quasi' cartridge to circumvent the normal loading procedures. Unless there is some sort of blocking to prevent this the rifle in effect has an 'open breech' (which also negates it as a muzzleloader) and COULD allow for disasters such as this to take place.

Also unless the bolt arrangement is designed in such a manner to keep the primer exposed it could be considered as having 'closed ignition' therefore making it illegal for hunting in some States.

This is in essentially history in reverse - cartridge guns evolved from muzzleloaders and for about 150 years we are content - muzzleloading becomes revived as a sport/hobby and the traditional reigns as the predominant design for 50 + years and then it 'morphs' into nearly a cartridge design again.

 

[Capn Jack]

Just reading that again - has anybody here ever actually FIRED a 200gr BP load in a 6 pound 7 ounce rifle?

C'mon, don't be shy....

tac

Dang !! and I thought 75gr. in a .50cal was heavy....

 

[RVTECH]

60 in my .54 with a Great Plains 425 gr conical is nearly one hole at 100 yards.

 

[tac]

60 in my .54 with a Great Plains 425 gr conical is nearly one hole at 100 yards.

Trick answer there, Sir. You only fired the one shot....

ANY sized hole is still a hole - no such thing as 'half a hole'..........

tac

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Any of these modern in line muzzleloaders are just a creative and backwards* way around the rules , so a guy can hunt in the muzzleloading season and still say he has a "muzzleloading" rifle.
I see no real advantage to using a modern inline...Folks have been hunting and keeping themselves fed with a traditional style muzzleloader for hundreds of years.

Thanks to tac for clearing up the mystery with the "cartridges" that I saw in the video.

As to the rifle in the video ... I think maybe as I said in my first post a double load or maybe smokeless powder is the cause.

* I say backwards 'cause the makers of these guns aren't really inventing or improving on anything ... they are just taking a modern gun and tailoring it to fit hunting regs.
Andy

 

[Will_White]

Skip to around the 11 minute mark for smokeless, looks about right for what happened here.

 

[Ownerus]

..one then forgets that the gun already has a charge ...loads a fresh charge over the old charge and BOOM!

Or not necessarily BOOM. I've done something similar in my .50 flintlock. Not leaving it charged after shooting but rather while shooting. Got a case of adult onset ADD while engaging in banter with other shooters while on a BP match trail. Loaded, shot some more bull (but not the rifle) and then loaded for my turn at the target. Noticed the rod wouldn't go quite to normal depth but decided all I really had effectively was a heavier bullet. I made sure that the ball was seated against the previous load and hadn't come back up a bit due to compressed air trapped between the charges and let her rip. The result was a bit more recoil than normal but nothing else. No bulged barrel or anything bad (except a red face and renewed effort to not be so absent minded). I normally load 50gr of powder so maybe that helped (vs 80-100grs) but I think the real problem arises when the second charge does push back and now you have a barrel obstruction. The original ball impacts the second ball after it's already moving at a pretty good clip and suddenly has to accelerate the second ball instantaneously. The back of ball #2 starts moving and the front doesn't as quick. The displaced lead obsquatulates and hammers a ring into the barrel right there. If it's seated tight against the back charge, they all get to accelerate together as a heavier bullet. I haven't experimented to see if the intermediate charge lights to give more velocity to the top bullet like a two stage rocket

I do find the barrel failure interesting in that it "unzipped" full length on just a couple of axis. I wonder about a metallurgical issue. I've seen steel that failed in a hydraulic valve body made of billet cut from plate. It separated under pressure into two halves like a sandwich separating at the mayonnaise. In the after failure testing the steel came back as in spec. The lab had tensile tested the block in the x and y axis only. We had them pull it in the Z axis and it failed at about 25% of spec. Further examination found sulfide inclusions in the steel that had formed into layers in the rolling process. I wonder if the steel in that barrel had something similar going on to fail over the full length? While there was most likely human error, there might have been some exacerbating factors making it worse.

 

[Member 34319]

I'd be curious if the brake on the end wasn't the correct diameter for the round to exit. Causing a stoppage at the end of the barrel like you see with a laser range finder.

That's my guess, as only with laser range finders I see barrel splits like that.

 

[Ownerus]

That would be a good observation in a conventional rifle. Supposedly this was a muzzle loader so I presume that once the bullet got past an undersized muzzle brake, it would be similarly undersized.

 

[RVTECH]

Young told KSTU he had the barrel cleaned by a gunsmith, but admits he should have been more careful before firing his first round of the season.

Since when does one hire a gunsmith to clean a barrel? AND I am still confused as to this 'bolt action' priming system - I just watched a vid from Remington on this it appears to have a standard Mod 700 bolt and accepts what appears to be nothing more than cutoff 30 cal cartridges with LRM primers. IF the breech is open to the barrel then it could conceivably be loaded with some sort of bullet charged cartridge. There was no mention of any sort of a block between the breech and the barrel however.
Muzzleloading

 

[Sgt Nambu]

Wow.

Ditto!

 

[tac]

Since when does one hire a gunsmith to clean a barrel? AND I am still confused as to this 'bolt action' priming system - I just watched a vid from Remington on this it appears to have a standard Mod 700 bolt and accepts what appears to be nothing more than cutoff 30 cal cartridges with LRM primers. IF the breech is open to the barrel then it could conceivably be loaded with some sort of bullet charged cartridge. There was no mention of any sort of a block between the breech and the barrel however.
Muzzleloading

Okay. When you open the bolt, you are presented with what appears to be a cylindrical pillar, fitted axially inside the chamber. It has a hole drilled through it. So this is not, actually, the chamber. The shortened case, with JUST the primer fitted in it, goes INTO the chamber, but fits ONTO to the pillar, which is drilled through to allow the flash to enter the REAL chamber, in which the powder and projectile are located.

It is definitely NOT possible to insert any kind of loaded metallic cartridge into the breech.

It's all very well saying that the klu- shooter left a charge in it from the previous session, but I'm still trying to get my head around a gunsmith who might have left ANY gun loaded while he fitted a muzzle brake to it. He sure must have been short of business to take on something like that...

tac

 

[RVTECH]

the bolt, you are presented with what appears to be a cylindrical pillar, fitted axially inside thechamber. It has a hole drilled through it.

Ok this makes more sense. I do have to wonder about the 200 gr charge. If this were loose powder some of it would be blown out of the barrel unburned and would seem to me the same would happen with the pellets unless they burn more efficiently due to the fact they are no doubt a 'substitute' for BP.

 

[joken]

That rifle isn't legal in Oregon. I shoot a 700 ML, but it uses musket caps. I load a 485 gr Plains bullet over 110 gr BP.

 

[tac]

Ok this makes more sense. I do have to wonder about the 200 gr charge. If this were loose powder some of it would be blown out of the barrel unburned and would seem to me the same would happen with the pellets unless they burn more efficiently due to the fact they are no doubt a 'substitute' for BP.

That charge is simply four x 50gr Pyrodex pellets. They look a bit like a stubby Alka-Seltzer, but have a small amount of black powder centrally located, so that the primer gets a good fire a'goin' to set off the sub.

Like I noted in a kind of way, and pal Andy reinforced, these guns are about like what might have happened if the metallic cartridge had never been developed, but it doesn't mean I have to like 'em.

They are not only neither one thing nor the other, but the comparatively large numbers of mishaps that take place every year with folks used to cartridge guns who don't care for all the shenanigins involved with the REAL muzzle-loading firearms simply serves to show me that a lot of the shooting public, by and large, are not taking them as carefully as they really should do.

They are, in truth, as demonstrated in this thread, either injurious or even lethal in uncareful paws.

Just because they LOOK like a cartridge gun sure as he&& doesn't mean that they can be loaded up to the level of a cartridge gun, no matter what the maker's hype might tell you. That 200gr of powder and a spiffy saboted bullet gives you a mighty 2400 fps. Well whoop-****ing eee. That's a still a kick like firing a saluting cannon off your shoulder and a reduced load from a .308Win...

I'll buy a drink for the man here who loads up his trusty .54cal ANYTHING - including a loose-loading Sharps - with 200gr of 3fg, and makes a video of him firing it on Youtube. Oh, first of all you have to reduce the weight of the gun to a little under seven pounds, OK?

tac

 

[Member 34319]

That would be a good observation in a conventional rifle. Supposedly this was a muzzle loader so I presume that once the bullet got past an undersized muzzle brake, it would be similarly undersized.

There you go tearing apart my logic lol.

 

[CHLChris]

@Velzey was joking about "always blaming the gunsmith", and it is certainly this owner's fault for not checking his own rifle, but I'm with @tac in being completely flummoxed by a gunsmith (if this story is to be believed) who would work on a ML rifle without checking the barrel for a charge. I just don't believe this story, since I'm sure every 'smith first checks whether or not a gun is loaded...any gun...all the time...every time.