A real class act

M

MPH

New member
Went down to the gunshop this morning to look for any good deals. Was talking to the dealer/gunsmith when he showed me a Ruger Blackhawk .357 revolver that someone lodged 5 bullets in the barrel. Enough so the cylinder couldn't rotate.
Had to tell the smith that something would have to be seriously wrong with the person that couldn't tell that his barrel had a bullet lodged to keep on shooting.
Just can't feel sorry for these people that get themselves killed for dumb acts as it cleans the gene pool, yet this person was lucky and didn't even receive a scratch.
 
Sounds like someone's powder hopper ran dry. Probably not the one shooting it either.

Now that I think about it....something's just not right about that story. Are they sure some kid didn't just pound some bullets in there with a hammer or something?
 
I believe Mike is right on light powder charges as the dealer said it was reloads. Anytime I get reloads from a gun I bought, if I don't know the person ability on loading, bullets get pulled and powder dumped.
 
It just seems like the guy would have noticed something amiss on the second shot with light loads....third for sure....but five?. We're talking single action here.
 
sounds wrong

Sounds wrong, especially in Single Action. However, people say a lot of things are impossible until you show up with a bigger idiot... :)

Jeff
 
I used to shoot reloads (prepared by my Brother-in-law) in my super Blackhawk- that is until he slipped in a few squibs. Thank God, I noticed that something was wrong before touching off another round (3X). I can't imagine someone doing that five times. Regardless, it's one hell of a testiment for Ruger.
 
"Ah'm the roughest, toughest cowpoke hombre west of the Pecos, and ah'm gonna fan fahr ma Ruger!"

POP POP POP POP POP!

"Oh crap...."
 
I have mentioned on several threads that I did the same thing to a new (to me) model 27. I don't know how many bullets I stuck in the barrel but it was full end to end. Less than 12, more than six. No, I didn't notice anything at all out of the ordinary. Yes, I noticed I wasn't hitting the target, but since it was the first shots fired from the gun, I didn't know where the sights were hitting.
Contrary to all the hoopla, it didn't do anything to me or the gun either. Gunsmith fixed it and it is sitting in my safe.
Of course I am an idiot but working on being perfect.
 
Let me start a week prior to the purchase. I was out shooting with several friends including my local dealer. Local dealer is a cowboy shooter. He briefly flirted with using a pair of revolvers in .38 Special but decided he didn't like them and sold them. He therefore had 500 .38 Special cowboy loads laying around that he wanted to shoot up. He took a gun out of his display case to shoot them out of. It was a S&W 2" of some flavor. The loads were very light, but were fun. I shot a few through my chronograph and they were moving along at 400 something fps. I shot some of them out of my Ruger GP100 and they seemed accurate with no recoil at all.
Flash forward a week.
I was standing in gun shop admiring a beautiful 6" model 27 that had been in the case for a couple months. Dealer says, look, for you I will let that go for XXX. I finally gave in and said I would take it. After all the paperwork he asked me if I wanted the rest of those .38s we were shooting last week. I said, yeah, sure. So with new gun and some ammo, I decided to stop on the way home and touch off a few rounds (I live in a rural area). Not knowing where the sights hit I fired the first six shots at some piece of junk lying in the desert. Each shot sounded the same, there was no increased recoil, no loud noise, nothing. I didn't see where the gun was hitting, so I put up a target. I fired a few shots at the paper and said, ****, I am not even on paper, so I reloaded intending to move up closer to the target to see where this thing was hitting. Actually I attempted to reload but couldn't open the cylinder. This is when I discovered what had happened. Obviously I don't know why this happened but I have a couple guesses. #1, the loads were so light that they stuck in the barrel. I had fired these loads out of a 2" barrel and 4" barrel with no problem, but this gun was a 6" barrel. Maybe the extra 2" of friction was enough to stick the bullet. #2 Maybe the bore was rough causing greatly increased friction. #3 Maybe I had a squib, and didn't know it; plugging the bore for the remaining shots. These loads were so light, I don't know if I could tell a squib from a live round.
There was a little drama in getting it fixed, but you can read about that in the other threads.

Don't worry about the gene pool, I don't have kids. I am too stupid to figure out where they come from. Thank god we have guys like ar-snpr to produce the master race.
 
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I am sympathetic...

One project I have tackled off & on over the years are super-light loads for the .44 Mag revolver, using .433 dia lead round balls. The goal was to get these slugs, which weigh about 120 grains, to reliably and accurately shoot around 500 to 600 fps, purely as a fun load for kids & ladies.

Lest you think me a idiot, the load is/was recommended in the Speer manual, so this idea was not fueled by peyote or anything else immoral.

Suffice to say, I never could get them to work very well - the velocities were very erratic, and half the powder was staying unburned in the barrel. Half burned Bullseye has a very strange odor.:( It was not uncommon to hear a "wuff", then "tink..............tink........tink.....tink..rrrrrrr" as the balls bounced and rolled down range.:p

I had the idea to try 44 Special cases, thinking the reduced volume might do the trick. In a different .44, the first shot left the bullet sticking halfway out of the muzzle. I caught the problem immediately, knowing to watch out for squib loads, and didn't fire anymore.

I have since given up on roundballs in the .44 mag. It is more amusing to back them with blackpowder in a Colt Walker replica. They also make pretty good ammo for wrist rocket slingshots:D
 
Tex:
I have had real good luck shooting round balls out of rifles. They are very accurate out of my Finn M39. I am currently shooting a lot of round balls out of my '06 to brush up on my offhand shooting for the upcomming hunting season. Never tried them in a handgun.

Sticking a bullet in the bore is not a big deal. I have experimented for years with very light loads in both rifles and pistols. I have purposely downloaded cartridges until I found just how low I could go by sticking a bullet in the bore. The difference of course is that I was alert to the fact that a bullet would eventually stick in the bore. The problem is when you have it happen and arn't expecting it. That could lead to an accident or at least having multiple bullets in your bore. You want a real PITA, loading a ball into a muzzleloader with no powder is extremly frustrating.
I had a another interesting experience with my Ruger PC9 carbine. I was shooting on paper, zeroing a Leupold/Gilmore red dot sight. I fired a shot, nothing seemed abnormal. Report was the same, action cycled. I was too far away to see individual bullet holes in the paper. The next shot however was extremly loud. Sure enough, the bore was plugged with a squib, and the second shot was fired into an obstructed bore. Again, as far as I can tell, no damage was done to the gun. The bullets were pretty easily pounded out of the bore with a cleaning rod and mallet. This was full power ammo that I loaded. The fault was all mine, I appearently missed charging a case, although again, the report seemed normal to me at the time.
 
Not that uncommon at the range I shoot at their is a guy that reloads his own ammo .He has squib loads all the time he has a progressive loader at home ,sometimes moisture gets into the powder in the powdercharger and it clogs up ego he gets squib load because hes not paying attention. It hilarous because he carries a metal rod that sticks in the barrel to knock the slug out ouch!:rolleyes:
 
444: Thanks for the explanation. Thanks to my Bro-in-law, I'm real conscious about squibs...paranoid even. I used to crank out a lot of rounds on the progressive (and ran the hopper dry once without noticing) but now I've converted it to a single stage with multiple dies. But i't s good to hear that not every mistake turns out tragic for gun and /or owner.
 
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