Shot my ramrod!

[mike e]

   I've owned and shot muzzleloaders for thirty years. I've dry balled several times, double loaded once(caught it before I shot) but never shot my ramrod. Till now. This past Saturday I was at the range shooting with my brother. I fired a shot that was way louder and kicked harder than usual. I wondered if I had double loaded the powder or something but I knew I always check with the ramrod while loading. I started to reload but could not find my ramrod!  Finally found a piece about forty yards out, then another at seventy yards. My barrel appears to OK but the next day I had a nice bruise where the sharp toe of the Tenn. Rifle buttplate got me. Just a reminder to pay attention.  

[smylee grouch]

Hope you didnt ring your barrel, a tightly patched jag down and out might give you an idea if you did. I have done the same thing so dont feel alone. Best wishes     Gary

[ol vern]

 ::)Welcome to the club

[robert gene]

That ramrod must have been defective. Cause all the ones in the movies always stay whole !

[clint e]

Nice cutting out your face, now people cant see and go Hey theirs the guy that shot his ramrod! Kinda glad i didn't go with y'all that day everbody around probably got splinters!

[coutios]

 Happened to a friend of mine a number of years back on a woods walk. Took us an hour befoe we all stopped laughing at him.. He was a serious competitor, could'nt see what was so funny about it... No injury to rifle or shooter..

Regards
Dave

[stubshaft]

I did that about 18 years ago and still haven't lived it down yet.

One things fer sure...

...It is not an exclusive club!

[Dave B]

I had to do it one time cuz I got a rod stuck trying to pull a ball on a bad load. it was a fiberglass rod but not long enough to get a hold to pull it out. Finally got the bad load to go off and recover the rod. I got quite a ribbing over that one.

[Mike R]

A friend of mine shot his out on purpose.  He managed to jam it in the bore [likely a dry oversize patch] and he was a beginner MLer. He had read somewhere to pull the drum [it was a perc longrifle] and feed powder in. Noone ever told him tricks to pull the rod.  Of course he broke the rod, but cleanly in two, and he taped it together to clean the bore afterwards!  It then went into the closet for years until I talked him into letting me make a new rod for it. His early Davy Crockett influenced interest in longrifles has ebbed, however, and the little .45 sits still in his closet [he had it over the mantle once but wifey didn't like it there]....

[Roger Fisher]

Hope you didnt ring your barrel, a tightly patched jag down and out might give you an idea if you did. I have done the same thing so dont feel alone. Best wishes     Gary

So long as the ball was down on the charge barrel should be fine!

[Roger Fisher]

This is one time that using a range rod with a knob or whatever handle is a good thing.  Can't notice that wood rod with no handle too well !

[bob243]

During 2000 to 2005 I helped out at a local shop ( Modern stuff)  before the hunting season, there would be two or three that would come in and say that their ML didn't come with a ramrod.   Usually would ask if they shot it..   A few times we got .. "Once"     How did you load it the first time???         

This happens quite a bit 

[flintman-tx]

You haven't lived until you have shot the false muzzle off the end of a muzzleloading Bench gun!

[Pete G.]

I think I read somewhere years ago that you were not an experienced ML shooter until you had :
1. Dry balled
2. Double loaded
3. Shot your ramrod

I'm 2/3 way home

[stubshaft]

I think I read somewhere years ago that you were not an experienced ML shooter until you had :
1. Dry balled
2. Double loaded
3. Shot your ramrod

I'm 2/3 way home
[/quote

]

I bet your not going to tell us which one is left either

[bgf]

I don't think anyone is going to laugh too hard.  A friend of mine who got back into BP after a long hiatus scoffed when I told him a ball puller (or other plan for dry ball) was necessary, then dry-balled on the second shot at the range.  I didn't laugh at him, either, because it always happens just when you think you're safe (mine occurred on my third range visit).  I haven't shot the ramrod, YET, but give it time.  The double charge (or a short start) is the only thing that really scares me, so I always check the mark on my ramrod.  I hope I never forget.

[steg49]

Well if we're telling stories,here is a good one about ramrods.  I was at a trail walk in Northern California (Brushy Creek) about twenty years ago. About half way through the walk we cought up with a large group of shooter, we were about 30 feet from the group when one of the shooters stepped to the line with an underhammer rifle.  When he pulled the trigger there was a sound of a jet taking off from the near by air base, but no jet! the entire load vented through the nipple and a cloud of smoke surrounded him. When I got the hair on the back of my neck to settle down, the group had begun to tug at the ramrod that was in the barrel, I thought to myself, if 80 gr woun't get it out you got no chance. All I need to do is think of that day and be glad that barrel held together it would have been shrapnel in a group of people.

[Dale Halterman]

Shot my ramrod the first or second year into muzzleloading. Never did find it. Went out and bought one of those stainless steel deals with the big red knob on the end for range use.

Dale H

[Roger Fisher]

We tracked a wood rod's pieces thru the snow at Topton Pa W walk 3 or so winters ago 3 sections of rod were recovered but he sure missed the silohuette....

I won't say who or whom it was (not me) Other than some embarrassment no harm done.  I would add that it was flint and not a heavy barrel....

[Jim Thomas]

I've never shot one, but did dislodge one using CO2.   I knelt down, barrel pointed straight up.  The ram rod then lodged into a tree top.   Some days are priceless.   

[Pete G.]

I think I read somewhere years ago that you were not an experienced ML shooter until you had :
1. Dry balled
2. Double loaded
3. Shot your ramrod

I'm 2/3 way home
[/quote

]

I bet your not going to tell us which one is left either

OK. I'll fess up. I have not shot the ramrod yet, but I did perform an unintentional Living History experiment which determined that a 44" ramrod and a ceiling fan could not have had a mutual coexistence. That should count for something.

[Roger Fisher]

I've never shot one, but did dislodge one using CO2.   I knelt down, barrel pointed straight up.  The ram rod then lodged into a tree top.   Some days are priceless.   

Hey Jim...funny  I wonder if that rod is still up in that tree,  shoot the sucker down it has to be worth 3 bucks or so....

[doug]

      There's them that has and them that's going to  :>)

:>).     I shot one once because I was guiding a trail and had everyone asking me questions --- where is the next target, how far a shot and so forth.  This particular shot required a powder measure tied by a string to a tree; about 10 or 15 grains as I recall.  The gun was percussion and the ball fused around the metal tip of the rod while the wooden all went flying downrange.  The gun sort of hissed while the gasses escaped through the nipple.  I thought about throwing the gun but then figured if it had not blown up already, it was not going to.  The other shooters stared with their mouths open a mile and then when it was long past too late to do any good, jumped into the bushes on the side of the trail

cheers Doug

[mike e]

I'm gonna get a range rod with a handle that I can see.  Thanks.

[Daryl]

Steel range rods are best - if you survive, they teach you not to do that again.