Short start

[Carper]

Wondering what the consensus of experienced shooters would be .  In the past 30 years  I’ve personally witnessed 2 short started tightly patched round balls fired out ( without knowing thus) of swamped barrels . One a 45 cal the other a 50  with 55 and 75 grains respectively. Both were flintlocks with fairly large touchholes. +5/64 inch.    Neither barrels were harmed.   Was that shear luck?  The balls did leave the barrel but had the touch holes been a drum /nipple /hammer would the likelihood for a bulged barrel been more likely?   Will a flintlock expand the base of a conical minie ball like a cap lock ? I’d appreciate any experienced thoughts. Thanks in advance. Johnny

[45-110]

"Will a flintlock expand the base of a conical minie ball like a cap lock ?"
Yes it will

[rich pierce]

A friend of mine short started one and the ball was where the front underlug dovetail was. The barrel split there. Nobody harmed.

[Daryl]

I can only assume this was pure luck.
Both of those loads are relatively low pressure loads, btw, which might have helped.
5/64's = .080" That is rather large as well, as you say. This will also reduce the pressure generated by the load.

[Scota4570]

I did that last shoot with a 13/16" 45 cal barrel.  No damage.  Missed badly. 

I watched the guy over a "everything black powder" on Youtube do it on purpose with a 45 cal Kibler  SMR, no damage.

I have not seen any evidence that firing a short started ball will ring your barrel.

IF however you were to short start a ball with a loaded ball on the powder I would expect to ring the barrel.   

In the shooting hobby, I have seen many times that people will make mistakes and break things or cause injury, then they often make up an excuse to cover up their mistake.  That kind of thing causes a lot of false information to get around. 

[Daryl]

I've seen it happen on at least 2 occasions. No ball loaded first, just powder, then a short started ball, then fired.

[bpd303]

I think it really depends upon the barrel. The only one I saw was on a CVA 50 cal. The ball was short started about half way down and when it was fired a crack opened up right where the ball would have been. Lucky no one was injured but the barrel was ruined.

[Hungry Horse]

 I have seen several guns damaged by the legendary short started ball that wasn’t rammed home. But in all honesty in all those cases I couldn’t swear that either there wasn’t  a ball rammed home, and then another short started and not rammed home, or that more than one charge of powder was inadvertently poured down the barrel before the ball was short started. I can be sure in one case where a pilgrim grabbed an unmarked container of “Black colored powder” and poured it into his horn, thinking it was 3F , it wasn’t.
 I did do a post accident analysis of a tradegun I built that the owner shot in a cold weather grouse hunt that nearly blew up. I deducted that his old arthritic hands never felt the air being compressed by the cards, and wads, push the load off the powder charge. I did have to replace the barrel pins, tang bolt, and one lock bolt, but not the barrel.

Hungry Horse

[EC121]

I have short-started balls any number of times without any barrel damage.  Just a strange sound and little recoil.  I also double charged with the ball on the powder a few times.  170gr. 2F in a .54 will get your attention.

[Daryl]

I double charged my .69 once when testing velocities of large charges.
I had worked up to 200gr. 2F and a 482gr. round ball, then went back to
the moose load of 165gr. 2F to double check the vel. which nominally was
1,550fps. 200gr. developed 1,700fps, not quite worth it. The doubled charge
came out at 330gr. 2F and only produced 1,770fps. Definitely not worth it. LOL
It did lift me up to standing off the log chuck I was sitting at, though. Good thing
my feet were beside the 'chunk' and not in front of it. I was not expecting that.

[A Scanlan]

I seem to recall Bevel Up and Bevel Down doing an article on this a while back.  About all I recall is that they never experienced any damage during their tests and there were a variety of factors that went into it.  But they still concluded it was to be avoided.  A "faulty" barrel can be blown apart by other thing but the failure to seat the ball against the charge is certainly one.  One that was a surprise to me was on a barrel with the notch for the rear sight was cut too deep.  The barrel looked good from the outside but when looking through the inside the bulge was clearly visible.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

I have a Chambers' Virginia rifle with a .50 cal D weight barrel...rifle weighs 10 pounds.  I loaned it to a friend so he could shoot the trail with us.  He's completely new to shooting muzzle loaders but an accomplished modern rifle shooter.
He short started a ball over 70 gr. FFg GOEX and made a ring in my barrel 7" down from the muzzle.  You cannot see or feel the bulge from the outside, but can feel it when you load or clean the barrel.  As far as I can tell, it has not affected the rifle's fine accuracy.
And I've seen rung barrels on other muzzleloaders.  So be diligent when loading.  Don't fire a short started ball - seat it on the charge.

[Waksupi]

One of my buddies put a real egg on his barrel by short starting. He took it to the anvil, and hammered it back to shape. Shot as well as ever, but he never used a short starter again.

It is kind of like secondary explosive effect in a modern rifle. Not common, hard to duplicate in testing, but it can happen when least expected with spectacularly devastating results.

[Leatherbark]

Jake, the "Everything Black Powder" guy on You tube has a video deliberately short starting his Kibler SMR in .45 cal.  No damage.  But he shot it just short started.  Seems to me if you seated it say 10 inches from the powder charge with a hunting load, it might damage one of the leaded steel barrels.

https://youtu.be/icolNUAY5ig?si=KIV3r0_53iYLDS0u



Bob

[Daryl]

Couple of us rung our TC Hawkenses by short starting them. TC replaced the barrels.(1973).
There was no ball on the powder.
The "late" Tom C. Short started a rifle of his and that rung the barrel, IIRC. He even did a thread on it right here.
The " ring" happened at the front sight dovetail. There was no ball on the powder. His rifle was a flinter.