Some people should not own firearms, ever.

[hotfxr]

Wasn't really sure where to post this one (a sad situation since I supposedly work here) but think it will go best here. This is a tale of stupid people, pertaining to firearms. And out here in "do as you are told, no thinking for yourself" land, we have more than our fair share, specializing in an amazing pool of ignorance about firearms. Before I get to far I must qualify a few things. First off, make no mistake, I am not now and never will be a gunsmith. What I do know about muzzleloaders I have learned from this forum, lot's of talking to other BP owners, an ability to understand how mechanical things work, and lots of trial and error. Lot's and lot's of trial and error, usually heavy on the error. I have been fortunate to be close friends with a succession of gunsmiths here for the last 35 years. There has really only been one true gunsmith at a time serving our county of 800,000 and the last one was burned out a year or so ago. We got a new one 5 years ago and now he is the only one in the county, and I have been helping remodel his home for the last 5 months so I have gotten to know him pretty well. In the devastating fires last year a lot of firearms were burned and a good number were muzzleloaders. He and his apprentice did not know a lot about them so I have been helping out. That brings us to the subject of this post.

Rob had a customer that brought in a nice looking T/C Hawken that was not working. They said the nipple must be plugged up and they could not remove it for to clean it out and there was a shot in the barrel. All he told me at first was the nipple was frozen and he had it in a vise so I brought over several wrenches to give it a try. Well it broke my two heaviest duty ones so I asked for more info. That's when he told me the whole story and the number of mistakes the owner made were numerous. First off, the owner only used Pyrodex, a terrible thing to do. They had never cleaned it. They had torqued the nipple down and epoxied it because they were afraid that was the weak spot on the rifle. They loaded it with pellets instead of loose powder because the powder was harder and harder to light off. Backing off from it, looked the whole thing over and grabbed the ram rod and set it down the barrel and discovered that the maxi bullet (what ever happened to PRB's) was lodged halfway down the barrel. Pulled the bullet out then managed to use a bigger extractor and pulled the plastic base out. Then using the puller and a breech scraper managed to get the pellets broken up and powder free to the breach. The powder that was stuck in the channel of the breech was a black gummy mess. Then rinsed it out with some hot water that went in clear and came out like black soup. After I was sure that nothing was left that would flash up the barrel we dropped a light down to see what was up. (Get it? down the barrel, what was up? Oh never mind.) The inside of the barrel looked like the inside of a galvanized water pipe that had been in the ground way too long. He was going to remove the breech today and work on the bore so I will find out what the verdict on the barrel is tonight.

The things that they did to this rifle make me cringe in fear that they might be out somewhere where I am shooting and can cause several casualties. Why basically weld the nipple in place? Why use Pyrodex? (I know why, they didn't want to go through the process of obtaining holy black, so that question is rhetorical) Why own a muzzleloader without ever cleaning it? Why try and use pellets in a rifle with a recessed powder channel? How the heck could they not know the bullet was only halfway down the barrel? How could you own a muzzleloader with absolutely no tools, not even a vent pick? The owner of this one should have it taken away from him and use it to smack him upside the head until he either learns the proper steps to muzzleloading or agrees never to have a firearm in his hands again. If I had pictures of it, Mongrel would come out of his hiatus and rain his  common sense down upon them. (Oh I wish he was here)

[old salt]

hotfxr
You will find that this not as uncommon as you may think.
I have bought several muzzle loaders that were badly abused as you have described. I have even see a few of the [un mentionable] modern fir arms that have never seen a cleaning kit. Some folks are #1 not intelligent enough to clean there guns or #2 to lazy.
Enough of my rant, before I get in trouble.
Old Salt

[hotfxr]

You can't get in trouble from this camp, you outrank me.

[William]

  Wow....that's about it.

Maybe that is why the unmentionables have become so cheap inexpensive as they are viewed as disposable?

[pilgrim]

      Several years ago I was at a customers house working on their heating system. I mentioned about having an interest in Muzzle Loaders.  This guy was an avid hunter and shot and had just about every different type of rifle, imaginable.  Also he showed me a Hawken  rifle that his brother had once owned.  He said he was at his brothers house and saw the Hawken leaning in a corner of the garage, when he questioned his brother, the brother told him that he fired it numerous times and just set it aside, never cleaning it.  The barrel was very bad.  So his brother gave it to him.  After cleaning the barrel, he ran a bronze brush wrapped with 0000 steel wool, soaked in  water base Valve Polishing Compound,  down the barrel.  After having done this until the barrel once again shined, he checked for bad pitting, finding no problem,  he sighted the rifle in and went to a BP shoot and  won a prize for his shooting.    The rifle you are talking about can possible be saved in the same way.

      At the very least,  it could be polished enough to transform it into a Smoothbore.

[Hawken50]

   You would be surprised what i have found in the barrels of some i have worked on. Every thing from 70 grains of SMOKELESS to a big freaking spider that scared the hell out of me.....almost as bad as the smokeless did    Seriously some people have NO business around a muzzleloader. Oh by the way the spider was harmed in that escapade.....

[Hanshi]

It seems too many will buy a muzzleloader without either reading about its use or even not asking for or taking any advice.  They might know a little about how to use modern cartridge arms and assume a muzzleloader is just like the suppository ones.  They wouldn't buy a car without knowing how it works; but think of a front stuffer only as a toy.  Ignorance isn't a flaw; it can be easily corrected.  But combine ignorance with stupidity and it IS a very dangerous character flaw.

I've given help to a few new-bees with MLs and they did listen; I try and stay as far away from them as possible.  Just a very few years ago on another forum an experienced ML shooter, who had posts in the thousands, stated categorically that he NEVER cleaned his guns!  If he wasn't lying about it then he obviously knew something no one else on the forum knew.  Highly respected or not, I would not get within 100 yards of him if he had his ML with him.  Stupid people are potentially very dangerous.

[beowulf]

just a tad over a year back I was in north carolina visiting a cousin , her boyfriend had recently bought a few guns from his boss , a ruger m77 , a ruger 110 , and three muzzle loaders  , a tc hawken , tc renegade , and a navy arms hawken , as well as a remington automatic shotgun ! all in bad shape !the rugers and the shotgun were salvagable , if you were willing to put the money and time into them ! the muzzleloaders ? barrels were so badly corroded that entire sections of rifling were gone , stocks were usable , locks , triggers and other furniture were fine , but all three needed a new barrel ! he paid $365 for the lot ! , and I`m stll not sure he was`nt cheated , even with the value of the locks stocks and furniture !  did`nt have the heart to tell him his boss was a bunghole !

[Red Badger]

hotfxr
You will find that this not as uncommon as you may think.
I have bought several muzzle loaders that were badly abused as you have described. I have even see a few of the [un mentionable] modern fir arms that have never seen a cleaning kit. Some folks are #1 not intelligent enough to clean there guns or #2 to lazy  Are you pointing fingers at me ?  .
Enough of my rant, before I get in trouble.
Old Salt

I can agree with everything you Old Salt said and will admit to ignorance.  When I got my first B.P. rifle (Poacher) in Colorado I was very unsure of myself - I was a modern gun owner and was also an apprentice teaching hunter safety, so I had to cover black powder or I would never have gotten into it most likely... Long story short (well....)  I met Old Salt and he convinced me to go to my first Rendezvous with him and he taught me how to shoot Poacher properly.  I still think back with fond memories  walking into the Museum Rendezvous and after 5 min of talking to Old Salt, he asked me to watch his collection of pistols and more importantly his jug (of coffee)!while he used the facilities.... the start of a long friendship that I will treasure for the rest of my life.

[Otter]

This whole thread brings back the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I found the new to me flinter that had just arrived was double loaded. 
And to think I'd almost pulled the trigger to see the pretty sparks from the frizzen!! Glad that a number of Sergeants and range officers had drilled firearm safety into us.

[mongrel]

Too damn many people (and I am referring specifically to GUN people) don't regard muzzleloaders as "real" firearms and therefore worthy of any respect or attention. Turn the attention to flinters and the situation becomes even worse, demonstrated by the number of times I've been asked by experienced muzzleloader shooters, "Do those things actually work?" But that is a topic for another discussion in which Dogshirt will no doubt muse on tightening barbed wire strands or some such nonsense....

Something that was both good and, well, not-so-good happened when movies like "Jeremiah Johnson" and events like our nation's Bicentennial brought muzzleloaders back into focus for a lot of people. The good was that suddenly a lot of people, and not only gun people, wanted one of the old-timey firearms, for reasons ranging from actual shooting and hunting to being used as "Early American" decore in homes where firearms might not otherwise have ever been seen. This created a demand that led to a lot of good guns becoming available, the T/C Hawken not least among them. However, the not-so-good was that, when a shooter (or a shooter's loving spouse or kids) bought and shot one, in many cases the novelty wore off quickly and people accustomed to the ease and efficiency of brass cartridges chambered in repeating rifles set the front-stuffers aside -- uncleaned after the final unfulfilling shooting session -- and effectively forgot about them. This has resulted in a fair number of guns floating around that are in externally very nice shape but have bores like sewer pipes. Some, as in the case that is the topic of this thread, were buggered-up in various ways by owners and even gunsmiths who didn't understand or completely accept/trust the old way of doing things.

I'm not going to froth at the mouth about this. I'm somewhat paradoxically happier and more content, now, than I've ever been in my life, yet at the same time have an all-time low opinion of the human race in general and am just fine with offering zero advice or commentary to save the vast majority from running with scissors and thereby damaging various bodily parts related to thought and/or reproduction. The shooting fraternity rates a wee bit higher estimate, in my thinking, but not much. People is people and they will screw up pretty much anything they put their people paws on; so be it.

[old salt]

Very good read, old friend.

[rdstrain49]

The aw inspiring stupidity of certain segments of the population is certainly not surprising to me, nor should it be to anyone who has ever shared the road with those idiots. My $0.02 spent

[Hanshi]

Interesting post, mongrel.  Although I also have a rather low opinion of humanity in general, I have found enough equanimity to keep my stress level fairly low (difficult at best).  But, of course, as soon as one finds a spiritual refuge from idiots; they come up with a new strain of idiot.  It keeps me on my toes, however.  IMHO, dogs are the finest people in the world.  I've long felt this way, and being a dog lover and dog advocate, I mostly prefer to live around them than around big brained?? primates. 

[Dogshirt]

The more people I meet, the more I like my dogs. I don't know who said it first, but humanity proves it right every day.