Loaded Antique Guns

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

Over the years I have noticed that quite a few antique guns are loaded and have been for many, many years.  Recently I picked up an orphaned M/L rifled barrel which I plan to use as a show & tell with my barrel boring bench.  Not surprisingly, it was loaded.  The barrel is octagon, 0.93 across flats, 41.5 inches long with a 0.412 rifled bore, slightly swamped.  The breech plug was engaged by 3/8 inch.  The charge was a 0.39 dia lead ball, 88 grains, patched with a piece of red checked flannel cloth, with a charge of 30 grains FFg.  The thing has been loaded for 100 years!  I lit the powder, it did give a good flash.



Be certain that yours are not loaded.

Jim

[dogbest]

Guess I'd better check my rifles!

[Lucky R A]

Jim, 
     You are absolutely correct, it is surprising how many antique guns show up loaded.   When I was a youngster a friend brought an old barrel in for help to get the breech plug out.   He said that he had tried everything, so we put it in my big vise.  I started heating the breech and after a while there was loud poof, followed by a metallic sound.   The old charge although contaminated by oils and whatever he had put down the bore had gone off with enough force to shoot the ball across the basement where it struck my heating oil tank.  It was a good lesson learned the hard way.   Since then I always check the bore on muzzleloaders, antique or contemporary---be careful out there!

[Joe S.]

antique guns,heck any gun!while this story involves a modern one I think gun safety may or should trump house rules.My Pop had a buddy at work that wanted to get rid of an old pistol.It was one of those savage 1907 semi's.The guy didn't even know what it was and brought to work for my Dad to check out and go from there.He brings it in in a brown paper bag.My Dad opens up the bag and notiçed the hammers back,hmmmmmm.He carefully takes it out and sure enough theres a round in the chamber,full clip and the hammers back ready to go.No cock and lock on them old pistols,dad asks him how long has it been this way,he says as long as I can remember.Wow,little kids in the house,milling around looking for something,when he put the thing in the bag,all kinda bad could have happened here.Makes you think for sure,assume there all loaded!sometimes they are!

[Hungry Horse]

Some of my Boy Scout volunteered to help the local museum clean,and inspect, their antique firearms collection, after one of them notice a lot of surface rust accumulating on some of the guns.The local gun club sent a couple of members knowledgable in muzzleloading guns over to supervise. When the dust settled we had found four guns loaded. All were donated without ramrods, and nobody thought to get a cleaning rod, and check to see if they were loaded.

  Hungry Horse

[Don Stith]

The old Muzzleloading gun club I used to belong to had an appropriate sign over the firing line

" Assume all guns and members are loaded"
Good advice

[DAV-AZ]

I closed down the Marine barracks on Mare Island, Ca and shipped a pair of 1800's cannon to the Marine Corps Museum.  You guessed it, got a call that one of them was loaded.   Pictures showed them displayed on either side of the flagpole back during the first world war.   Wonder how many cigarettes had been put out on the touch holes over the years....

[Mike Brooks]

I shot out my shop window heating up a breech in the mid 80's. It was a gun I had built and the owner assured me it wasn't loaded. Turns out he never ever cleaned his gun and the powder had caked up about 2" deep in the bore. How it ever went off when he was shooting it I don't know.
 I must say it is quite a startlement when one goes off in your shop!

[oldtravler61]

Have two signs in my shop. One says all guns are loaded until they are checked three times. The other one is. " You can't fix stupid"  Don I like yours real well.  So far never had a problem.....   Mike

[L Moler]

Do lots of restorations..  Most are shipped to me through the mail..  Have received several that are still loaded.. 
Had to help a fellow restorer clean the barrel on a NW Trade Gun..  It had at least 4 loads in it plus a length of ramrod..  (I wet it and drilled it out.)

[WElliott]

When I was a 14, I acquired an 1841 Mississippi rifle. Thankfully, I had been well trained by my dad so I checked and pulled two loads out of the barrel.  I wonder if a number of Civil War guns were double-loaded but not fired in the heat, noise and excitement of battle. Over the years since, I have always checked longrifles I acquire, and have found several to be loaded. 

[PPatch]

When I was a 14, I acquired an 1841 Mississippi rifle. Thankfully, I had been well trained by my dad so I checked and pulled two loads out of the barrel.  I wonder if a number of Civil War guns were double-loaded but not fired in the heat, noise and excitement of battle. Over the years since, I have always checked longrifles I acquire, and have found several to be loaded. 

Wayne I am pretty sure there is a springfield musket on display at the Gettysburg battlefield visitors museum that was packed almost to the muzzle with charges. Apparently there were quite a few muskets found on the field stuffed with multiple charges.

I don't blame those fellows, I might have done the same.

dave

[JCKelly]

Guess we all have these stories. About 1955 I recall Grandfather looking most displeased when I told him his single-barrel percussion shotgun had been loaded. Took out nice #6 shot, red waxed paper wad and nice dry powder. 

Upon later reflection, I think I might have got my Dad in trouble . . . 

[Mike_StL]

The old Muzzleloading gun club I used to belong to had an appropriate sign over the firing line

" Assume all guns and members are loaded"
Good advice

Don,
That sign is still posted on the firing line at the Gemmer Range.
Mike

[TMerkley]

I too have found several to be loaded, unfortunately, they are the ones owned by people serving time on House Arrest. In some cases, it was an initial search as they just were assigned to HA or no one had ever been there to search the place and I stumble across it. The last one I found was an "in-line" yuck!!!.  It had been loaded for over 5 years.  I was the only person that knew how to check it.  The guy, said that it was given to him several years ago and he never shot it.  Well, it's no wonder...
By federal law, convicted felons can own muzzle-loaders and cap and ball revolvers with out permits, so long as it is not in violation of court orders- and rules for probation.

On another note, I did find a muzzle-loader in a pawn shop, that had the hammer and drum missing along with no ramrod.  After talking to the guy behind the counter, I was able to talk him into finding a ramrod.  It went down the barrel and stopped about 8 inches from the breach. That's where the ball stopped and the pressure went backwards.  Hmmm.....

[TMerkley]

Reminds me of a post from a few years back about the loaded cannon in central park.

[Don Stith]

The old Muzzleloading gun club I used to belong to had an appropriate sign over the firing line

" Assume all guns and members are loaded"
Good advice

Don,
That sign is still posted on the firing line at the Gemmer Range.
Mike

 I could not remember if that sign got moved along with the move to the present range location.. Thanks
Don

[bones92]

I had a percussion rifle built by George Dancer (which I posted about here before) that was still loaded.  I sold it to a guy who collects local-made rifles (Dancer was from Ohio, I believe).

I sent the buyer the ball and paper patch along with the rifle.  Heaven only knows how long that rifle was loaded.

[Tom Moore]

I talked with a guy who at one time was cleaning out an old farm house. While he was up in the attic he saw that he could look down into the wall cavities. Looking down he saw a double barrel and found that he could just reach his two fingers down into the muzzles and pull it up. When he did he discovered both barrels loaded, caps on the nipples, and both hammers cocked. WOW! -Tom

[Levy]

Having worked in the FL Dept. of State's Research and Conservation Lab for 40 years, we found that 1/3 of the cannons recovered were loaded.  Swivel-guns with musket balls and one with a cannonball and musket balls.  One cannon was loaded with a cannonball and a bar- shot.  It 's understandable since they were from shipwrecks.  In all those years we only found two small arms that were loaded and one was a matchlock musket from the early 1600s and the other was a miquelet pistol that had two balls in the barrel from a 1715 Spanish shipwreck.  The guns that scared me the most were the ones that came in from the State Parks.  Many of them still had something if not a charge in the barrel.  One was a nice Salem School rifle with a ball still in it.  Be careful with them all, but expect used muzzleloaders from pawn shops and gun shows to still be loaded.  James Levy   

[fm tim]

Two Harpers Ferry 1816 muskets.
A type 1 with 5" blown out of the breech, and a type 2 with 2 loads still in it.

[DFHicks]

As a boy we had a neighbor who was probably the last person to be wounded as a result of the Civil War.  The last joint of his left hand index finger was at 90 degrees.  One day he told me what happened.  He and his brothers (probably 1890's) often played with an old "musket barrel" by placing it breech first in the fireplace to listen to it "sizzle".  One day he put it in the fireplace but held it by placing his finger down the barrel.  He wanted it to get really hot before it he listened to it.  Well you know what happened.  He said they had held it up to their ears dozens of times and surely would have been killed had it gone off then.  He was a good banjo player in the old time frailing or claw hammer style. He was right handed and somehow managed to fret strings with his damaged finger.  I would watch him play but could never quite see how he did it.
Greg