Author Topic: Note to self  (Read 2657 times)

Offline hortonstn

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 640
Note to self
« on: April 23, 2019, 02:27:44 AM »
Keep your arm away from flashhole ask me how I know,,,,

Offline D. Taylor Sapergia

  • Member 3
  • Hero Member
  • *
  • Posts: 12522
Re: Note to self
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2019, 02:38:20 AM »
I learned the hard way to never cock the lock before you let the frizzen down on the pan.  My rifle went off, happily pointed down  range, but the right hand was over the lock at ignition, and I was tattoo'd instantly.
D. Taylor Sapergia
www.sapergia.blogspot.com

Art is not an object.  It is the excitement inspired by the object.

Offline Stoner creek

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2707
Re: Note to self
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2019, 04:37:23 AM »
Been shots, remember that flint is sharp before dragging your index finger across to clean it and the frizzen. Spent black powder burns in a new flesh wound on your trigger finger!
« Last Edit: April 23, 2019, 01:07:11 PM by Stoner creek »
Stop Marxism in America

Offline Daryl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 14970
Re: Note to self
« Reply #3 on: April 23, 2019, 05:32:54 AM »
Oh YEAH - oh YEAH!
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V

Offline Pukka Bundook

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3342
Re: Note to self
« Reply #4 on: April 23, 2019, 04:01:17 PM »
My note to self, is Don't pick up an open tin of powder with the same hand as you are holding your smouldering matchcord in!

Only did it once....  (up to now!)

Offline Bob Roller

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9300
Re: Note to self
« Reply #5 on: April 23, 2019, 04:26:13 PM »
I shot at a range here in WV and there was one knucklehead that would make it a point to get beside me
and cut loose with a flintlock and I was hit with whatever blew out of the vent.

Bob Roller

Offline redheart

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 592
Re: Note to self
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2019, 07:27:07 PM »
My note to self, is Don't pick up an open tin of powder with the same hand as you are holding your smouldering matchcord in!

Only did it once....  (up to now!)


That's why I don't own a matchlock!
I'd have blown myself to pieces years ago. :o

Offline Eric Krewson

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2180
Re: Note to self
« Reply #7 on: April 23, 2019, 07:29:15 PM »
Another; don't give your right handed flintlock to a lefty in a tee shirt to try out. I completely forgot about his arm being in the line of sparks from the touch hole.

Offline Daryl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 14970
Re: Note to self
« Reply #8 on: April 23, 2019, 07:52:24 PM »
I shot at a range here in WV and there was one knucklehead that would make it a point to get beside me
and cut loose with a flintlock and I was hit with whatever blew out of the vent.

Bob Roller

That guy needed to trip & fall a few times.
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V

Offline Top Jaw

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 551
Re: Note to self
« Reply #9 on: April 23, 2019, 08:18:11 PM »
Note to self again.....after dry balling......”first the powder - then the ball”.

Offline hanshi

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5310
  • My passion is longrifles!
    • martialartsusa.com
Re: Note to self
« Reply #10 on: April 23, 2019, 11:49:48 PM »
It was my right hand that strayed too close to the touch hole when the cock, with perfect timing, slipped.  Uh oh.  I was picking particles out of my hand for weeks.  It really does hurt!
!Jozai Senjo! "always present on the battlefield"
Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.

Offline Greg Pennell

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1519
Re: Note to self
« Reply #11 on: April 24, 2019, 04:31:34 PM »
Mine was much like Taylor’s...I had a rifle with a simple set trigger go off in my hand when I forgot to set the trigger first...the worst part (even more so than the burn) was the young whitetail buck standing there watching the whole incident....

Greg
“Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks” Thomas Jefferson

Offline Daryl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 14970
Re: Note to self
« Reply #12 on: April 25, 2019, 09:15:26 PM »
I once ignited a cannon's flash-hole with my Bick lighter.
Don't do that.
The flame literally cooked the flesh off the side of my thumb.
I thought the 2" long flame positioned my thumb far enough away from the hole.
NOT!
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V

Offline R.J.Bruce

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 375
Re: Note to self
« Reply #13 on: April 26, 2019, 01:24:30 AM »
First time out with my brand new Golden Age Arms Company
flintlock longrifle.

Everything that I describe taking place happened on a wooden bench rest.

I was nearing the end of our shooting session, with a real good, quarter-sized, 4-shot group going at about 85 yards, the total length of that public shooting range.

In my haste to get off the last shot in the 5-shot group I made what could have been a fatal mistake.

I was completely self-taught, learning what little I knew from black powder handbooks and issues of Muzzle Blasts.

I did not own a powder horn or flask.

I did, however have an adjustable brass powder measure.

I had collected a variety of empty cartridge cases, wrapped coat hanger wire around the extractor grooves, brazed them into place with my father's oxy-acetylene torch, and formed a loop at the ends ot the wires to make a variety of powder dippers.

I had poured more than half of a 1 pound can of FFFg DuPont black powder into a plastic, 3" or so diameter, screw top jar.

After determining approximately how much powder that the .45 caliber Douglas barrel liked using the powder measure, we started using the home-made dipper closest to the charge that the powder measure indicated.

It was just easier, that way.

On the last shot of that 5-shot group I neglected to do two things.

The first was to snugly screw the lid all of the way onto the plastic jar, something that I had done for ALL of the previous shots.

The second thing was to move the closed jar of powder out of the way of the touch hole.

In my enthusiasm at what was the best shooting of my life up to that moment, I left the lid to the jar loosely sitting atop the jar with no threads engaged. I also left the loosely-topped jar directly in the line of fire from the touch hole.

You can all guess what happened next.

I pulled the trigger, and I knew with absolute certainty, that the fifth shot went exactly into the hole in the target made by the previous 4 shots.

A millisecond later, the balance of the powder remaining in that blue plastic jar ignited in a tremendous whoosh!!!!

The flames burned off all of the hair on my right forearm that was facing the flames.

This was 1972, and I had hair down to my shoulderblades, as well as a mustache and muttonchop sideburns.

I lost all of the facial hair on the right side of my face, about 70% of the mustache, all of my right eyebrow, and a lot of the long hair that was hanging on the right side of my face.

After the initial shock wore off, I lept to my feet screaming from the pain of first and second degree burns on my arms, neck, and face

I was holding my right wrist with my left hand as hard as I could possibly grip it to try and control the pain.

After several seconds of screaming and silence I realized I could not see anything, so I started shouting to my friend, "I'm blind, I'm blind".

He had gone off into the woods to urinate, and when he turned around as I started screaming all he could see was me looking like a circus clown with soot covering me from the crown of my floppy Australian hat down to the middle of my chest.

So he starts laughing like a hyena because of how I looked, while I continue to alternately grip my wrist silently and scream that I'm blind.

Eventually, he gets enough of a hold on himself to tell me that  I am not blind, but my glasses are covered in soot.

I pull off my glasses, realize that I can see, and the pain REALLY ramps up..

Eventually, we get to the hospital, and the consequences of my neglect and stupidity result in the first and second degree burns where I previously described them; as well as having to have a surgeon clamp my head in a device to immobilize iit, while he removed a piece of unburnt powder from my right cornea.

End result was the only scar was the one on my cornea from me rubbing it before the surgeon removed the powder particle.

REALLY, REALLY LUCKY, in retrospect!!!!

And, I still have a flinch whenever I shoot a flintlock.

Regards, R.J.Bruce





Offline Daryl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 14970
Re: Note to self
« Reply #14 on: April 26, 2019, 08:06:22 PM »
Yikes!  :o
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V

Offline Mike from OK

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1083
Re: Note to self
« Reply #15 on: April 28, 2019, 07:52:41 AM »
Been shots, remember that flint is sharp before dragging your index finger across to clean it and the frizzen. Spent black powder burns in a new flesh wound on your trigger finger!

Stings like the dickens don't it?

Mike

Offline thelongrifle

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 112
Re: Note to self
« Reply #16 on: April 28, 2019, 03:50:48 PM »
I roasted my fingers once at a shoot. I won't do that again.

Online bob in the woods

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4526
Re: Note to self
« Reply #17 on: April 29, 2019, 12:53:57 AM »
I watched a fella stick a broken ramrod through his hand at a match.  Don't try to hold the rod a foot and a half from the muzzle when loading  :o    One of the reasons why I split my rod blanks out from straight grain hickory or ash.

Offline Daryl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 14970
Re: Note to self
« Reply #18 on: April 29, 2019, 09:01:06 PM »
HA! - We were at Hefley Creek Rendezvous - a couple days in, likely Sunday, a group of us were on one of the trail-walks up the side hill side.  After pushing the ball down onto the powder, instead of putting my short starter handle knob on the 3/8" hickory rod, I just gave it a smack with my palm. The rod's end was flat, with rounded sides and was an old rod. Well, the rod stuck into my palm. So I said: "Hey guys, look at this" and pulled my hand up, palm flat & the rod came out of the muzzle, with the top end stuck in my hand.  It was pretty funny happenstance. I pulled the rod out of my palm as it was only in 1/2" or so & put it back into the rifle. I then laid a couple clean dry patches of cleaning flannelette over the hole and bound it up with a strip of patch material so I could finish the match.  I tried to be careful not to get any powder in it. That would have stung.  Back at camp, I dribbled in some CA into the hole and closed it up - it (bit sore for a few days) was healed by the end of Rendezvous, 8 days later. 
Now, I only use the starter knob for smacking the rod onto the ball for the final compression - the same, every time.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2019, 07:18:55 PM by Daryl »
Daryl

"a gun without hammers is like a spaniel without ears" King George V