No matter how often we say not to use smokeless in a muzzle loader, someone tries out a little smokeless anyway. The assumption, at least mine would have been, is that the gun will immediately burst.
Maybe not.
The owner of this .54 cal. rifle fired it about 40 - 50 times using 110 or 115 grains GOEX, FFg or FFFg. The manufacturer at that time normally used 1137MOD steel for barrels. Somewhere along the way the shooter chose to use about 50 grains, by the same volume measure, of Unique®. The gun survived this, and after about five shots of Unique he went back to black powder only.
But it was too late. As best I can figure, the pressure of those five smokeless loads did serious damage, possibly starting a crack in the free-machining steel.
On the last day he was firing just wads, blank charges of black.
At that time I had done a few expert witness jobs on behalf of men injured by poorly made muzzle loaders. A lawyer found me, and sent me the pieces for analysis. I was first told the shooter used about 100 grains of black powder. This puzzled me, as it burst in a manner typical for smokeless failures in such guns. And I even saw a few grains of what looked like FFg black in the breech threads.
Ah, but then Lawyer Becker mentioned these five little shots with Unique. He didn't think it a problem, the shooter reported even less recoil than usual. I wrote Lawyer a complete failure report, with photographs, & sent it to Louisville along with my bill. I also told Lawyer he had no case, as the poor fellow had used smokeless, for which that rifle was not ever intended. Guess Lawyer's 1986 check got lost in the mail, I'm still waiting.
I get a little emotional even now, when I read what happened to that shooter.
Well, it won't happen to any of us because we know better than to use smokeless.
Yeah.
But . . . About a decade ago I tried hard to convince myself that T/C had learned how to make a proper rifle & maybe I'd get me a used one. Talked with some guy selling on net, he happened to mention that he normally loaded with a small amount of smokeless in his black powder. To get more pizzaz, I guess. I thanked him but passed on the rifle.
Wonder how the guy who eventually bought it fared?
There's a video on this forum showing a couple of guys torturing a Traditions (Spanish-made) rifle with two different grades of Hodgdon® smokeless. At one point the barrel bulged, about in the middle, but more or less survived. A later, and heavier, load blew the entire breech end off the barrel. Nasty, but I wonder if it means steel used by the Spanish was ductile enough to give that bulge as a warning, before it finally disintegrated? Can only speculate.
Btw, Mr. UPS plans to deliver a Traditions kit to me today. I hope to make it up into something resembling a Leman. Got me some old solid brass tacks, and have a Wilted Lilly patchbox coming from Track. With some help from that
Tiger Stripe thread I'll be on my way. If my hands still remember what to do.
