Free Finger Amputation with Your Muzzle-Loader
What you see above is what happens when you shoot the wrong powder in a muzzle-loader. Specifically, a charge of smokeless powder was used instead of black powder or black powder substitute. The difference in energy (by weight and volume) between black powder and modern smokeless powder is huge. You should never, ever run smokeless powder in a black powder recipe. The result can be catastrophic. In this case the hapless shooter lost a couple fingers. So he got a free twin-digit amputation, thanks to his reloading mistake. The lesson to learn here is to always double-check your propellant before loading. And never “re-bottle” smokeless powder into a different container with a different label (or worse yet, no label at all).
This incident happened in Indiana a couple years back. As reported by the Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR), this was a classic case of “user error”: “Corporal Eric Doane worked a firearm accident last night in Martin County that resulted in the shooter losing a couple fingers. This is what can happen when you shoot smokeless powder out of a muzzle-loader designed for black powder.”
Credit to The Firearm Blog for finding this story.
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Tags: Black Powder, Detonation, Firearm Blog, Muzzleloader
With the obvious exception of the Savage muzzleloader that IS (or was as I am not sure it is still being produced) designed for a specific smokeless powder load. Just to confuse the issue.
Just another dangerous attempt by modern bolt action rifle manufacturers to make a few dollars.