I'm at the range the other day with some friends and we just finished shooting. We were well back behind the line talking while some new people were on the line firing. One guy was firing a muzzle loader obviously getting ready for hunting season. By the looks of the smoke and fire, he was using real powder and I wasn't too surprised that his gun was fouling as they will do in time making it harder and harder to ram the ball.

Now imagine this barrel is pretty hot by this time. All of sudden this guy puts the butt of his rifle on the ground, grasps the rod with two hands, then leans over his fist with his CHEST to add his weight to ram the rod.

The guy I was talking to and I both instinctively flinched and though yards from this guy leaned away in anticipation of blood splatter.

He survived. After he fired, I asked him to please not do that and explained the ingition temperature of powder delcines with pressure and he could have had that rod protruding from his chest.

Thought you would find this interesting.

Tj

yikes. that is kinda scary. i'm fortunate that i don't havae to go to a range, but it sounds like there are some unintelligent people there. its a good thing you warned him about the dangers of what he was doing. you may have saved his life.

To be technical, this really wasn't a range with the usual controls but a place on private commerical property designated for shooting. There were no range controls at all. Its the first time I had been to a place like that and a couple of us even had to stand guard on the shooting area while others recovered targets etc.

Wasn't quite as bad as "Here, hold this and watch" with strangers but definately more strangers in an uncontrolled enviroment than I am use to.

Tj

well, at least you were there to stand watch. good on ya!!!

Scary

Yikes- I did not know that. You learn something new every day.

Wow!!