Fleener's post concerning tensil strength, PSI and what all is interesting and a good starting point. Okay, we have info on pressures.....how does that translate in laymens terms with regards to black powder loads? In other words, how much pressure is produced by a load of 75 grains of 2f under a patched 490 roundball (just using this as an example).
Seeing that we as shooters load each shot and though we try our best for consistancy, how much in actuality are we consistant? Let me put this way: if any of us hand load for those other known devices called guns that consume a brass tube that hold both powder and projectile (cartridges) we should be consistant, and to maintain the consistancy we use powder measures that should throw the same amount of powder for each shell loaded. To confirm this we can use a scale every 20 rounds or so to make sure we are accurate. The bullet is seated at a known depth, always the same unless moved. There are also books and data printed to help us determine wht sort of loads we want to use. This data shows the starting measure of powder and the maximum amount one should use.
Now lets jump to black powder....guy at a range loads up his gun and shoots, loads again, continues to shoot. Think about how much powder actually is being dumped into the bore. Is it always the same? Does some of the powder spill off as he pours, does the wind skiff off a small amount, is there some spillage? Now the patch and ball. Any voids in the ball? Is the patch consistant? How many times have we seen the new guy who decides to shoot 90 grains of 3f under a patched 490 round ball, then decides he wants to really make that sucker to move and loads in up with 100 grains? Is the ball really seated? Is this safe?
I can relate to what Fleener writes about a fear of 12L14 barrels having capabilities of failure, but if that steel is as bad as stated and due to explode and fail, we should by shear numbers have a lot of people going to the emergancy room on a weekly basis after going to the shooting range...there would be a national crisis, it would be all over the news. But it's not. There should be catastrophies happening every weekend when thousands of people go out and shoot.
I think that some barrels will fail, it may be due to the barrel, it may be due to the operator. I wonder what the stats are for it....betting it's low. How long have 12L14 been used for barrels? The 60's, how about the 70's.....how many are out there? Gotta be more than 20....We should by rights and by numbers alone see a bunch of barrel failures, failures that should range into more than 20. Let's say that there are 20,000 12L14 barrels of an assortment of calibers and the failure rate is 1 percent.....200 failures? If you have a car with air bags they may go off with such a force that it can kill you....13 people (could be more, could be less) have died so far and there's a national investigation with recalls and all sorts of legal proceedings.
As I said before, we dabble in a hobby that can have some potential and deadly issues if we are uneducated, ill informed, loose our train of thought and take unkown risks. Same can be said for race car drivers, lion tamers, daredevils and a whole host of others that do what they enjoy doing. Even cooking, sewing and gardening can have bad results that can result in some sort of injury.
