my first experience with a muzzleloader.

[Chemoman]

back in the early 60/s in rural western washington state i was at a gun range shooting my little s and w chiefs special. a guy showed up with a large bore civil war type muzzleloader. it was not a real gun range but a open spot in the woods every one shot at. he had large slugs for the rifle but they were drilled in the front to accept a 22 long rifle case. he pulled the lead out of the case and filled the rest of the case with 4 f black powder. he push that into the nose of his bullet. a bomb was made. he shot a few at a couple of old fence posts and when they hit they blew the fence post in half. neat to see. he shot at thick boards with the same results. blew a big hole in them. any one else ever see any one do this same thing? several years later i was on a bus of construction workers and two were talking about muzzleloader. i got interested and my first buy was a dixie penn rifle kit. the barrel was the worst one made ive ever seen. got me started though. about the expolding bullets, is anyone still doing that?

[pietro]

.

I wouldn't touch exploding boolits with a 10' pole, due to the danger of them exploding upon being accidently dropped.

YMMV, of course.

[Edward]

Sounds like a stupid ,why not bury me now moment! /Ed

[GregLaROCHE]

I once drilled out some .45/70 boolits and put primers in them. The next day, I thought, “No I don’t want to do this”, and threw them away. Of course not into the bucket of boolits to be remelted!

[waksupi]

Our club has a 12 pounder cannon, with explosive projectiles. The guy who built the cannon also made a mold for the lead projectiles. Primed with a .22, the very last thing added before loading. Hollowed rammer so no primer contact. They made a satisfying explosion with about a quarter pound of BP.

Another adventure, we were shooting a mortar with exploding projectiles at a ranch. These were fused, the process being to put the fuse down on the powder charge, and have it cut for flight time. The igniting of the mortar would light the fuse.

One guy wanted to shoot it and didn't understand the loading process. So, he holds the projectile at the muzzle, lights the fuse, drops it in the tube, then lights off the mortar.

It exploded when it had just cleared the muzzle. Amazingly, no one was injured.

[Bazoo]

There used to be bullet mould made with a hp cavity to fit 22 blanks, back in the 1880s I believe. If I'm not mistaken the practice is now illegal.

[Chemoman]

i would never do it but i saw it and man did it blow thing apart. i just got done shooting my lyman great plains hunter 1/32 twist and it was a hoot. a tack driver with 44 cal bullet in a crush rib sabot with 100 grains of 209 powder. about one hole accracy at 100 yards. love the gun , dont need expolding bullets. how ever it is interesting if your going to go after some one. im not in that way. i pray for my enimies, its up to God and them, not me. i like punching hole in snow and keeping the hole the same.

[yeahbub]

There was a fellow in the machine shop when I was in the service who would drill the noses of various conical boolits, then counter-bore the hole a bit for a deep primer pocket. IIRC, he loaded the cavity with BP and seated a large pistol primer over it. He was a machinist and made a funnel-looking punch he used to crimp the lead ogive over the primer, seal them with lacquer and shoot them at a steel plate on the BP range a few of us would frequent. I never noticed a problem with them and they were visible when they hit. The bang at 200 yards was easily noticeable, but sounded about like a firecracker. Years later, I read about the effect of doing that in some report online that the energy released reduced the effectiveness of their action inside the target in terms of penetration and damage to or destruction of the projectile. On the other hand, his .58 (Springfield? Zouave?) would tear some wicked holes out the back of some chunks of cut-up telephone poles while the solids would go through like a drill bit.

[longcruise]

TC once offered a tool that punched an X into a round ball which was supposed to cause the ball to frag into four pieces. An answer looking for a question!??

[Woodnbow]

TC once offered a tool that punched an X into a round ball which was supposed to cause the ball to frag into four pieces. An answer looking for a question!??
I have one of those I took in trade for something or other. I have used it but it’s fiddly in operation and of limited utility.

[rfd]

dumb, dumber, and dumbest.