Check Your Muzzleloader Before Loading

[GM54-120]

I figure if you got it marked twice HEY IM LOADED and you still manage to double load it.....You probably have no business shooting/owning/handling MLs.

 

[Renegadehunter]

Great topic right before season.
I often leave mine loaded during hunting season. I put a piece of red tape over the bore, which I leave in place while hunting, and also always set the hammer down on a foam ear plug sitting over the nipple (no cap of course) if it is loaded. I worry more about something possibly happening to me and my family not knowing it has a load in it. All my closest family know that the above things indicate that it is loaded.

 

[MTY]

You would not believe the idiocy I have seen. People would walk in the door waving a firearm around, and when I would call them on it, they would insist it was safe as the firearm was unloaded. Many, many times when I cleared the firearm a cartridge fell out on the counter.

I see your point about marking the ML, but I have also seen the idiots. Of course if it is marked loaded you should treat it as loaded, but if it not marked you should also treat it as if it is loaded until you personally verify.

The old saying is that nothing is idiot proof in the hands of an idiot. I agree with you about the benefits of marking the firearm, but that does not obviate the four rules of handling a firearm. As Ronnie said, "Trust but verify."

 

[Matthew323]

Last Saturday while I was running the store I had a person bring in a ML for shipment to a relative. He assured me it was unloaded as he had not used it for many years. I ran a rod down and it did not go all the way. He still insisted it was not loaded, became grumpy when said if it was not loaded something else was in the barrel. He then tried to blow down the barrel, and that did not work. He left with the rifle saying he was going to shoot out whatever was in there!

Some people are just born to be fools, and no amount of well intentioned advice will ever have any effect on the way they think, nor their actions.

 

[Fyrstyk]

I thought the best advice was to pull the breech plug and see what was in there. It could very well have been a load, mud daubers, or both. That was my suggestion. Heck, I even offered to pull the plug.

Speaking of Mud Daubers, I had a friend that kept his muzzleloading shot gun hanging on the wall when it wasn't in use. Come hunting season, he took is shot gun down and loaded it up. First bird that went up he shouldered his gun, pulled back the hammer and CLICK. He tried several caps, but not fired off the gun. We pulled the over shot wad, drained the shot, pulled the over powder wads and dumped the powder. The powder looked strange, kinda brownish, but we didn't that much on it. Fired off a few more caps but there was no movement of leaf debris on the ground at the muzzle. Removed the nipple and tried blowing down the barrel, but couldn't get air to exit the nipple seat. Finally I put the worm back on the ram rod and ran it down the barrel and twisted it. Heard a strange grinding noise. Pulled out the ram rod and the worm was full of hardened mud. Seems a mud dauber used the barrel to make a nest in. Our loading of the gun pushed the nest into the breech area preventing the gun from going boom. Lesson learned. Always run a patch down the bore before loading a gun after storage to be sure it is not loaded and to be sure there are no other obstructions.

 

[Matthew323]

I had the mantra, "Every gun is to be considered loaded until you open up the action & prove to yourself/any bystanders that it is actually not loaded" drilled into my head at 10 years of age, until there was no way for me to ever forget it.

I make a habit of opening up any firearm to verify that it is unloaded, even if I am in a gun store looking at multiple firearms that are sitting on top of a counter for my perusal in the hopes of my purchasing one of them. Even if all of the firearms on the counter have never been out of either my sight, nor the store employee's sight.

Regardless of the type of action that any particular firearm that I am handling might have, & even if just 30 seconds ago I have opened up the action & verified beyond any question to myself, and the salesman that that particular firearm was unloaded, I still do it again.

No matter how many times I pick that firearm up, and subsequently place it back on the countertop, I check to be sure it is still unloaded.

This habit might be more than a little OCD, but I always know the status of every firearm that I touch. I can tell you that I have irritated more than a handful of gun store employees over the past 50 years by my insistence on acting this way.

I insist on doing things this way because I was taught that "Every single time you pick up a gun, Bruce, you better damn sure open it up to make sure it's not loaded!"

 

[Matthew323]

I hope everyone here has a safe, and successful huntng season.

 

[snapbang]

Mine is loaded right now. I stuck a range rod in it with a standard size piece computer paper. On the paper it says

LOADED

 

[Matthew323]

I had the mantra, "Every gun is to be considered loaded until you open up the action & prove to yourself/any bystanders that is is actually not loaded" drilled into my head at 10 years of age, until there was no way for me to ever forget it.

I make a habit of opening up any firearm to verify that it is unloaded, even if I am in a gun store looking at multiple firearms that are sitting on top of a counter for my perusal in the hopes of my purchasing one of them. Even if all of the firearms on the counter have never been out of either my sight, nor the store employee's sight.

Regardless of the type of action that any particular firearm that I am handling might have, & even if just 30 seconds ago I have opened up the action & verified beyond any question to myself, and the salesman that that particular firearm was unloaded, I still do it again.

No matter how many times I pick that firearm up, and subsequently place it back on the countertop, I check to be sure it is still unloaded.

This habit might be more than a little OCD, but I always know the status of every firearm that I touch. I can tell you that I have irritated more than a handful of gun store employees over the past 50 years by my insistence on acting this way.

I insist on doing things this way because I was taught that "Every single time you pick up a gun, Bruce, you better damn sure open it up to make sure it's not loaded!"

Living by the above rules, I have never had an issue with any muzzleoading weapon, because I considered each one that I ever handled to be loaded, until such time that I ascertained that it was not loaded. By whatever means that was appropriate for the particular rifle, pistol, or smoothbore in question.

 

[HV-Muzzleloaders]

I use a small light like those used to inspect the bore of a rifle.
Shine the light in the primer hole of the breech plug, and look through the muzzle.
If you cannot see the tiny point of light, the rifle is either loaded, or something is blocking the tiny hole in the breech plug.

I also like the tag ideas found above.
You cannot be too safe.

 

[mnoland30]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I oil my guns before I put them away. I run a dry patch down the barrel to clean out the oil before I load it.

I usually think I'm really smart, but I have a bunch of scars that tell me than I'm occassionaly an idiot. Safety experts tell us that the people that have accidents are often the ones that have been doing something long enough to take the safety rules for granted. Any gun should be treated as loaded until it is verified empty.

 

[Squint]

I had the mantra, "Every gun is to be considered loaded until you open up the action & prove to yourself/any bystanders that it is actually not loaded" drilled into my head at 10 years of age, until there was no way for me to ever forget it.

I make a habit of opening up any firearm to verify that it is unloaded, even if I am in a gun store looking at multiple firearms that are sitting on top of a counter for my perusal in the hopes of my purchasing one of them. Even if all of the firearms on the counter have never been out of either my sight, nor the store employee's sight.

Regardless of the type of action that any particular firearm that I am handling might have, & even if just 30 seconds ago I have opened up the action & verified beyond any question to myself, and the salesman that that particular firearm was unloaded, I still do it again.

No matter how many times I pick that firearm up, and subsequently place it back on the countertop, I check to be sure it is still unloaded.

This habit might be more than a little OCD, but I always know the status of every firearm that I touch. I can tell you that I have irritated more than a handful of gun store employees over the past 50 years by my insistence on acting this way.

I insist on doing things this way because I was taught that "Every single time you pick up a gun, Bruce, you better damn sure open it up to make sure it's not loaded!"

I've never kept A loaded firearm in my gun room, only in the bedroom, so some 40 years ago I inherited a marble game getter pistol that was used on trap lines back in the 30s and 40s. They were a simple little thing with a brass barrel. Anyway I just stuck it in my gun room without thinking anything about it and some 20 years ago a fellow showed up and I was telling him about it, and he wanted to see it so I went and got it, it was in a holster Just the way I received it from his wife, handed to him and it was loaded. They were 22 caliber and I must admit I was dumbfounded, because the fellow that owned it first just had It hanging on the wall and I never realized it was loaded. I'm sure it my fault for not looking, I didn't prove it was empty when I received it and I should've. All firearms are loaded till proven otherwise. You just can't be too careful.
Squint

 

[Matthew323]

In my lifetime I have had 3 different people hand me a firearm that they insisted was not loaded, waving it around in an unsafe manner with the muzzle pointing at other human beings, including myself, only for me to break the gun open & find live shells in the chamber/cylinder.

Needless to say, all three quickly stopped being my friends/coworkers/acquaintances. I had to get physical with one of them when he became furious after I read him the riot act over his unconscionable behavior.

 

[MrTom]

When I was a kid about 15 years old a local hardware store, family owned, had a super sporting goods area. Fishing. hunting, reloading....great place. The owner's two sons worked the gun counter. I knew each of them quite well. Both were late teens, early twenty's. The oldest son died at the gun counter when someone brought an empty .22 pistol in to trade and was demonstrating how well the gun worked. That .22 bullet hit the guy square in the heart and he was dead before he hit the floor.

I wasn't much more than four years older than when that kid was killed in the hardware store when a friend handling my Ruger Single Six got careless and shot me in the knee. I never shot anything but .22 shorts in the regular cylinder, thank God. We had been out shooting and he had been using the Single Six and said the gun was empty. I assumed he looked to be certain. Back at home I was sitting at the cleaning table cleaning a 44 Super Black Hawk. He'd taken the single six out of the holster and spun the cylinder and snapped the trigger. The shot went thru the table top at an angle and hit my right knee. 4"of penetration and four weeks of daily packing and cleaning of the wound. While it was an accident and we stayed friends for years he never handled another of any of my guns and we never hunted together after that.

As much harping on this topic as there is there is nothing more to the point than if its YOUR gun, YOU make certain its empty. Period. Witness marks on rods offer a sure check. Storing guns with the plugs out of them is fool proof. Certainly though, find some way to be certain any gun is empty unless it is loaded for a reason and then let everyone in the house KNOW that it is loaded and for what reason and that if for any reason the gun has to be handled that YOU are the only one to handle the gun. As much as it pains me to say it, trust absolutely no one. Your gun, you are responsible for it.

 

[Renegadehunter]

I can personally verify the gun is unloaded myself and I'll still handle it as if it were loaded. My dad instilled the #1 rule of always pointing the muzzle in a safe direction no matter what at a very young age.
I don't think general gun safety was the topic of this thread though, more about safety in not double charging a front stuffer and how we go about remembering if we leave one with a charge in it. You could handle it as safely as possible and still wind up injured if you double charged it and the barrel didn't hold up to it when fired. Using a witness mark and/or flagging one as loaded go a long way with muzzleloaders.

 

[brownisdown]

No matter how much we preach on checking to make sure that YOUR gun is unloaded,someone out there will find out at some point that they were wrong.I just hope that it turns out it is not serious WHEN it does happen.

 

[sdporter]

I always check mine when I get out of the truck. Just to make certain the bullet hasn’t moved.
Have double loaded before and had to pull the charge. I don’t have a witness mark on all of my ramrods, but I know how far they go down the barrel when there’s a load in there.

 

[Waxxy]

I was taught to treat EVERY gun as if it was loaded, no exceptions.

 

[snapbang]

I was taught to treat EVERY gun as if it was loaded, no exceptions.

exactly,

Had a friend bring another to do some shooting. After shooting the other was waving the gun in all directions. I grabbed the end of the barrel and exclaimed quit pointing that gun at people. They looked confused and said the gun isnt loaded. I said a lot of people get shot by guns that arent loaded. They were further confused so I explained. Not sure they really got it but they will not be invited back.

 

[Okie Hog]

Yep, a friend stored his TC Black Diamond rifle with the breech plug removed. The plug was lost in a move. Luckily i had two breech plugs from trashed rifles.