I didn't know the gun was loaded.

[eddillon]

I'll put this out there as asurvey question:
How many of you fellow collectors have acquired an antique rifle or pistol that still had powder and ball in the chamber?  I have acquired five rifles in the past year.  Three of them were loaded.

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

2 in the past 2 years!!!
Any easy, safe way to unload them?
Have filled the touch hole/ nipple with oil.
How can one get the ball out without removing the breech plug?
Air pressure?? Safe??
Hurricane.

[JCKelly]

1955 unloaded a Potsdam musket, Civil War Surplus, also Grandfather's 20 ga shotgun. The latter used a waxed wad, powder nice & dry. Grampa was displeased to learn that his gun had been put away loaded.

Oil deadens primers (learnt that from the Lone Ranger, on radio). . . do we really know that oil does the same for black powder?

[louieparker]

I really don't how many I have unloaded. But a bunch ! About five years ago I was working on a Hudson valley fowler that turned out to have a heavy load of BB.When I poured it out they went every where,, I am still finding BBs  .. It always pays to check. A fellow I know was converting one back to flint, He didn't check >Put a torch to it and blew a big hole in his wall...His wife was a bit aggravated about that..
The old timers didn't waste powder and ball ..If they saw no game the rifle was hung up loaded,,,LP

[westbj2]

I have also unloaded many antiques over the years.....seems that at least half of them have a load or something else in the bore.  Trying to get smart, I once used one of the "Silent Ball Dis-chargers" which uses a small metal CO2 bottle for pressure.
I thought it would just push the ball out and there fore never gave thought to downrange possibilities.   Happened that the gunbarrel in the vise was pointed toward a 6ft X 8ft plate glass window in the shop.  Not only did the ball go thru the window but kept going and hit a parked car in the lot outside.  Bad day!!!
Jim

[Habu]

When it comes to double shotguns at farm sales, my rule of thumb is that two out of five will be loaded.  Of the rifles I've checked over the years, the numbers were a bit lower. 

[Shreckmeister]

What good was an unloaded muzzeloader in defense of your home?  By the
time you got it loaded it might have been too late.  I wouldn't be surprised to
find that the majority of attic stored rifles not in the hands of collectors was
put away loaded.

[eddillon]

For home defense, I prefer my Glock not my flintlock.

[JV Puleo]

Only once... although I've had several with wads of old newspaper and other bits in the barrel. The loaded gun was a French M1728 musket rebuilt as a militia musket... it was also at half cock...rusted almost solid.

[longrifle]

I got a old percussion double shotgun one time both barrels were still loaded with something about the size of birdshot and powder but the nippes were not capped cleaned out the barrels without much problem.

[Dave B]

Twice this year

[WElliott]

Safety rule no. 1 is to assume that a gun is loaded.  This applies whether the gun is 200 years old or brand new.  I have pulled many loads out of antique muzzleloaders.

[Curt J]

I never kept track of how many, but quite a number of them over the years.  Most of them I unbreeched to get the load out.  One was an underhammer buggy rifle that had hung in a museum for years....capped!

[Longknife]

Not only antiques---My Son won an auction for a Pedersoli kodiak SXS in .58 cal. When he received it both barrels were loaded, not capped. It was shipped half way accross the country like that...Ed

[nosrettap1958]

Well, yea, today, but back then a firearm had to be put up loaded for home defense as they would not have had the time to load them if trouble started. 

[Habu]

Around here at least, a lot of these guns were dug out for hunting during the Depression, and while ammo was short on the civilian market during WWII.  I think a lot of the shotguns I see were loaded during this period, probably a generation or two after the gun was replaced with a cartridge gun.  Match heads were substituted for caps, newspaper for wadding, and the shooters used whatever black powder and shot they could find.  One old boy told me you could carve a fair deer-hunting slug for the '63 Springfield from a battery post.

[fm tim]

Harpers Ferry Model 1816 #2 with a charge in it in 1959.  Its sister with a blown breech.

[Hurricane ( of Virginia)]

"Ball pullers" available from "Track of the Wolf, Inc"
Hurricane

[bob in the woods]

Glock aside, I'm still partial to my 6 bore blunderbus .  It covers the door/hall pretty good    Also simplifies aiming etc when under stress !

[Sequatchie Rifle]

An original Colt 2nd Model Dragoon out of Texas- 5 of the 6 chambers were still loaded.  They are still loaded.....

[Chris Treichel]

Interesting thought... anoyone here ever get asked to show clear with a muzzleloader at a modern gun show... I haven't...

[eddillon]

Would really like to see that 2nd Dragoon. 

[Acer Saccharum]

Check every bore.

I had worked on a CW musket with five loads, one right on top of the other.

[Sequatchie Rifle]

When I was around 15 years old, we were moving an old log outbuilding and found an old percussion smoothbore in the rafters that was still loaded.  We figured there was about 2 inches of something in the barrel, so we tried to shoot it out.  I bet the old gun is still loaded.

[Acer Saccharum]

Sometimes you'll find old newspaper (wadding?) or tow, but it's not unusual to find powder under that!

Don't ever try to shoot it out, as you don't know how stuck the wad/bullet is.

I pour some water down the barrel and carefully drill it out, backing the drill to keep it wet.