I had two gents come in the store today...looking for a nipple for a sidehammer. I asked why? and the one said that they had put some "smoke-free" powder in the old gun and it when the younger one (mid '30s) shot it...the nipple blew off the gun. The shooter had powder burns on his cheek about a inch from his eye.
They needed it for hunting this weekend, and I didn't have any nipples...so I sold them a CVA wolf break open and all the accessories (and a free 20 minute lecture on how to use it LOL). I told them to check some online dealers for the spare part.
from how they talked, they knew a little about guns...enough to NOT put regular smokeless powder in a ML....so what is this "smoke-free" powder they were talking about? They couldn't remember the name, said it was real grainy, more so then normal BP...they said it wasn't triple 7 or Pyrodex. Any idea what they stuffed in that poor sidehammer?
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If they did use Triple Seven they may not have realized it is more powerful than BP or Pyrodex - needs to be loaded 10% lighter for safety.
Or they DID use modern smokeless, and didn't want to admit it. Sounds like the shooter was very lucky, and probably very stupid. Hope they learned the lesson, and use only the correct powder.
i guess im happy he didnt kill himself because of it because that would just give the anti-gun nuts more ammo for their fight so to say but at the same time some stitches would of probably taught him a lesson he would never forget.
I'm wondering if maybe they accidentally put a double load in there. I've no idea what happens in that case...would that blow the nipple off? That's the reason why I always mark the ramrod...so I know how deep it should be.
I guess they could have also failed to compress the bullet onto the powder, leaving a pressure gap...I've heard that is bad juju as well.
At any rate....I sold them the inline, powerbelts, pryodex pellets, and 209 primers....then showed them how it works. It would take a real monkey brain to screw THAT up! LOL drop two pellets in, put bullet in, insert primer.
__________________ I'm here for a good time, to h*ll with the red wine, pour me some moonshine!
Last edited by thrillbilly; 10-18-2009 at 02:40 PM.
If they couldn't remember the name of the powder I would think it was modern rifle powder, that is why it blew the nipple off, lucky it was just the nipple... Did they seem smart enough as to have measured the powder charge being administered??
I'm wondering if maybe they accidentally put a double load in there. I've no idea what happens in that case...would that blow the nipple off?
I don't know if it was a double, triple, or quad charge, but I once had a fellow tell me that you couldn't blow up a black powder gun. He then proceeded to pour powder right out of the horn into a double SXS shotgun, then almost blow his hand off when he touched it off. You never heard such a BOOM!! Split the barrel right about where his hand was on the forearm.
Didn't hurt him. No idea why. God looks after fools, drunks, and small children.
IMHO if they blew a nipple out of a side hammer they didn't have it screwed in all the way or the threads were bad.Thats the only way I ever saw one blown out.I saw a barrel obstruction cause the barrel to erupt on three different CVA sidehammers and I saw two that the bullet wasn't seated deep enough and ruptured the chamber but the nipple held. ,,,sam.
I had several old timers tell me about how they blew up their old colt BP revolvers(my uncle blew up an original 1851 colt) by trying to shoot it with shotgun powder. Darwin award time
IMHO if they blew a nipple out of a side hammer they didn't have it screwed in all the way or the threads were bad.Thats the only way I ever saw one blown out.I saw a barrel obstruction cause the barrel to erupt on three different CVA sidehammers and I saw two that the bullet wasn't seated deep enough and ruptured the chamber but the nipple held. ,,,sam.
I'll agree with that. The threads were either bad or it wasn't screwed
in good. I know a guy that overloaded a .50 cal. T/C Newenglander
and he said other than heavy recoil it blowed air out of the nipple
so hard it parted his hair. lol. oh yeah I heard about a guy/fool
that used the powder out of a shotgun shell and loaded his
muzzleloader. He said it shot good the first time then the
second time broke the stock in half.
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I'm wondering if maybe they accidentally put a double load in there. I've no idea what happens in that case...would that blow the nipple off? That's the reason why I always mark the ramrod...so I know how deep it should be.
I don't have a BP rifle but am thinking of getting one just for fun and possibly try deer hunting with it. I will use this little tid bit of information and put it to good use. I'll also make sure my 14 YO knows about it. Thanks for this little gem of advice.
Now, what happens if you find out your mark is sticking out of the barrel, say you accidentally double charged it. How do you correct that problem?
I don't have a BP rifle but am thinking of getting one just for fun and possibly try deer hunting with it. I will use this little tid bit of information and put it to good use. I'll also make sure my 14 YO knows about it. Thanks for this little gem of advice.
Now, what happens if you find out your mark is sticking out of the barrel, say you accidentally double charged it. How do you correct that problem?
Tie a REALLY long piece of string to the trigger, hold onto the end NOT tied to the rifle, and RUN! Dive when you hear a boom!
A big OOPS! 
