Blowing down the barrel

[thecapgunkid]

Over there in the topic of grinding 3FG into 4FG them boys got into the topic of blowing down the barrel.

I have always objected to the ban without understanding where it came from.  Did somebody blow his head off because he had a brain spasm and blew after dumping powder into the muzzle whilst there was still some life in the breech?

Did somebody who doesn't shoot come up with it because is sounded intelligent?

I don't care why we do or whether we do, but just wanna know where it came from.

Thanks and

Don't shoot yore eye out, kid

The Capgun Kid

[Molly]

Good question and looking forward to see the responses.  One thing I know form personal experience in BP shooting is the one's routine can easily be disturbed and with sufficient distractions it is possible to forget exactly where you are in your loading routine.  Of course that has never happened to me but I have seen it. So maybe it is rooted in a safety issue.  However I think I recall another point on the practice.  Someone said that the process may have originated in the notion that blowing down the barrel added moisture from ones "hot air" and that might have been viewed as giving one shooter an advantage in competition as one may have been full of hot air and another to a lesser extent.  So if the moisture from my breath was full of hot air and you were not so full of hot air AND if there really was some technical reason that moisture had a positive effect on the shot I would hold an advantage, therefore should be prohibited

[SCLoyalist]

I made an email inquiry a few years ago to NMLRA asking if there had ever been a documented mishap caused by someone blowing down the barrel of a loaded gun.  The reply didn't explicitly answer the question, just reiterated the rulebook rule against the practice.   The theory behind the rule seems to be that if a shooter has a misfire or flash in the pan, he/she might blow down the barrel to see if maybe he forgot to load the gun, or maybe out of habit blow down the barrel because that's what they always do after the gun goes bang, and maybe the misfire was really just a long slow-fire.   I dunno, people do dumb things when their minds get distracted or their routines get perturbated. 

At a shoot, I support the rule because if I'm serving as a range/safety officer and I turn around and see a guy with a muzzle in his mouth, I don't want to have to guess if the gun still has a load down the barrel or not.   

[oldtravler61]

  The people that I shoot with. Only do it AFTER THE GUN GOES BANG!! An the ball departs the barrel. Never ever seen ANYONE blow down the barrel after a flash in the pan or anything else. If I do I will move away from that person right away an not look back. To me that's just stupid. But that's my opinion. Others may very.
  When I started shooting BP the reason for it was to clear the touch hole.
  But that was over fifty years ago. Never ever had any issues with it. But then again we seemed to have more common sense then.
  Now I just run the rr rod down an tap a couple times. Before I reload. Oldtravler

[Frank]

Blowing down the barrel after a shot goes off was common practice back in the 1970s when I first started shooting and also thru the 80s and into the 90s. Was done to ensure the touchhole or nipple was clear before reloading. There was never any problem with it. Like someone said earlier, think we all paid closer attention what we were doing back then and did not have a bunch of guys on the firing line jacking their jaws.

[thecapgunkid]

Frank,  that about nails it.  I won't do it at a club that has the rule, but I have found that sometimes blowing down the barrel after the shot clears something lodged in the vent or touch hole.

In the trail walks I usually go on, the loading process is done without chatting with anybody.

Thanks

Capgun.

[Mike Brooks]

I'm a blower, always have been, always will be. Proven fact that doing so moistens the fowling in your barrel and makes loading the next shot easier. I was still attending F-ship when they outlawed the practice. I was told that they didn't want any visiting gawkers seeing shooters putting guns in their mouths. Fine with me, I won't rifles shoot there anymore until they welcome the blowers back....cain't see anymore anyway.....
 When shooting skeet I usually don't blow, the fowling isn't as much an issue.

[David Price]

I started blowing down the barrel when I started shooting Muzzle loaders back in the 1960's .  I didn't like pouring powder down the barrel when there was still smoke coming out, and I liked the idea of clearing the touch hole.  I stopped doing it when they outlawed it at NMLRA Shoots.  It was a very hard habit to break.  I still do it when I am hunting.  One of my friends gave me a little rubber hose to stick in the end of the barrel to use if I thought it was necessary.

One more thought, there are some of the shooters that we all see on the range occasionally that are dumb enough to try to blow out a miss fire out the touch hole. 

David Price

[bob in the woods]

Sticking the muzzle in your mouth was banned at our club...bad PR I guess.  I have a "blow tube" I made that fits nicely into the muzzle of my target rifle and it works well.  Blow tubes are a standard accessory for most BP cartridge rifle shooters.

[David Price]

One more thing that I should have added, I don't do it when I just shoot one shot out of my swivel breach.

When I have just fired one shot I dump the pan on the barrel that was not fired, spike the touch hole with a tooth pick, give the barrels a quarter turn so that the flint is not lined up with the pan, and then reload.

David Price

[Frank]

I'm a blower, always have been, always will be. Proven fact that doing so moistens the fowling in your barrel and makes loading the next shot easier. I was still attending F-ship when they outlawed the practice. I was told that they didn't want any visiting gawkers seeing shooters putting guns in their mouths. Fine with me, I won't rifles shoot there anymore until they welcome the blowers back....cain't see anymore anyway.....
 When shooting skeet I usually don't blow, the fowling isn't as much an issue.

I'm with you Mike. Have always been a blower, and I just don't have a warm fuzzy feeling reloading without blowing. Always worried about dumping a load on a residual spark.

[hanshi]

I guess I started the practice of blowing down the barrel now more than 50 years ago.  Still do it as I haven't done any kind of competitive shooting other than woods walks.  It does clear the vent and softens the fouling; plus I KNOW if my rifle has fired or not....smoke is seen and a bang is heard and it kicks at least a tiny bit.  While I don't actually put the muzzle on my mouth, I cup my hand and blow through the resulting funnel.

[little joe]

Never saw anyone blow down the barrel of  a loaded gun however did see a guy start to and he caught himself just before I yelled.

[Darkhorse]

I seem to remember a post on this forum and I think it was by Roger Fisher about why blowing was banned. There was a man and his wife at a shoot and after she got her shot off he would reload her rifle. Well one day somebody had came up and engaged him in conversation to the point he wasn't paying attention to his wife. She had a misfire and handed him the gun, assuming she had shot the rifle and it was unloaded he put his mouth over the bore to blow down it and the rifle went off.  That's the way I remember it. The post was probably made in the 2001-2005 time frame but that's just a guess.
Personally I was taught to blow down the barrel to extinguish any smoldering embers back in the mid 70's and it's a hard habit to break. So I don't try anymore I just do it because it has become muscle memory.

[Robby]

Yep, I do it.
Robby

[Elnathan]

I compromise by blowing across the muzzle while cupping my hand in such a way as to redirect most of the air down the bore. Whether it works as well as putting my mouth over muzzle would I cannot say, but it does blow smoke out the vent, so something is getting down there.

[Mike Brooks]

I love these blowing threads. We have them probably a couple times a year. They usually go on for quite some time, generally 3 or 4 pages.

[rich pierce]

Don't mean to ruin the topic but I've been shooting wearing shorts lately. Can feel the air blowing out the vent when I load, which seems reassuring that the vent is clear.

Anyone else experience this while loading barelegged?

[Gun_Nut_73]

And here I thought I was the only one left that blew down the muzzle to clear the vent.  Like Hanshi, I made a funnel of my hand and blew through the hand, usually watching the smoke jet out of the vent hole.

[retired fella]

guilty. Love the taste and smell of gunpowder in the morning.

[Bob Roller]

I made an email inquiry a few years ago to NMLRA asking if there had ever been a documented mishap caused by someone blowing down the barrel of a loaded gun.  The reply didn't explicitly answer the question, just reiterated the rulebook rule against the practice.   The theory behind the rule seems to be that if a shooter has a misfire or flash in the pan, he/she might blow down the barrel to see if maybe he forgot to load the gun, or maybe out of habit blow down the barrel because that's what they always do after the gun goes bang, and maybe the misfire was really just a long slow-fire.   I dunno, people do dumb things when their minds get distracted or their routines get perturbated. 

At a shoot, I support the rule because if I'm serving as a range/safety officer and I turn around and see a guy with a muzzle in his mouth, I don't want to have to guess if the gun still has a load down the barrel or not.

Many years ago I saw a man blow down the barrel of a caplock rifle that had just misfired.
He said it was a frequent thing with that rifle.I told him it was dangerous but he didn't seem to care.
He may not be around anymore.
I personally sent a man off the line at Ft.Meade,Md for looking up the barrel of an M1 that
had snapped without firing. I took the rifle,recocked it by cycling the trigger guard and it
went off.

Bob Roller

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

In 1982, I witnessed a fellow have a misfire, instantly drop the butt to the ground, and put his mouth over the barrel.  All of us screamed at him, mostly out of horror about the consequences.  The rifle did not go off, but it was loaded, and had sustained a bust cap without the charge going off.  I'll never forget the dumb look on his face.  Placing any body part over the muzzle of a rifle/gun, apart from the loading process, is not a good practice to get into, to the point of it becoming a habit.  Just my opinion.

[mountainman70]

Don't mean to ruin the topic but I've been shooting wearing shorts lately. Can feel the air blowing out the vent when I load, which seems reassuring that the vent is clear.

Anyone else experience this while loading barelegged?

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh!!!! Dave

[WadePatton]

I love these blowing threads. We have them probably a couple times a year. They usually go on for quite some time, generally 3 or 4 pages.

colour me puffer

[sqrldog]

I agree with Taylor never point a firearm of any kind at your body or anyone else's body for that matter. Early in my muzzleloading career I did it also. After seeing a hunter safety accident invoving a muzzleloader where the projectile went in under the right ear and exited top left I decided to never blow down the muzzle of any gun ever again. I know of no gain from blowing down the muzzle of a muzzleloader that is worth the risk. Tim