So here is an interesting little story. A few months ago a fella on my route asks me one day if I'd try to clean up a black powder rifle for him. The rifle had belonged to his brother and after his brothers death, it now belonged to him. He doesn't hunt or shoot but he held onto for a few years. One day he looked in the case and saw it had some rust on it. So knowing I dabble in these things, he asks me to look at it. I did and I told him to hang it the wall as it's likely done for. He told me to keep it. Just what I need, more junk.
Well today it's a blizzard outside and I'm cleaning a few rifles from hunting season for myself and others and the rifle is in the corner. Well lets take a look and see how bad off this is. I got some of the rust off and the plug out and low and behold the damn thing is still loaded. I don't have a cleaning rod or any other rod small enough to get at through the breech end to push it out. But what I do have is compressed air and a reckless disregard for my safety. I couldn't quite get the air in there and needed something long enough to get at it from the back. I rooted around in the tool box and found a punch. Some disassembly and pipe tape, that should do it. So I'm sitting there in the kitchen blasting this thing full of compressed air when my wife walks in from the toy drive she was helping with today.
"What the hell are you doing" she exclaims!
"I'm cleaning this rifle" (as if it weren't obvious )
"This is what happens when I leave you alone in the house"!
And then at the most perfect moment the bullet blasts out of the muzzle and strikes the refrigerator at the base of the door.
"Wow, it worked" I said.
"You tried to do that"? As you can imagine she was less enthusiastic with my self proclaimed brilliance.
Here are some pics. All of the numbers and letters survived.
Here is the small dent left after clean up.
Found the sabot portion, haven't recovered the bullet. I think it went toward the dishes in the sink.
the rigged up items.
I'm still surprised it worked. I couldn't get a very good seal between the punch body and the blow gun. I thought the whole thing was amusing and if you're stuck inside today and read the whole thing, I hope you are amused as well.
Have a great day.
Austan
Well today it's a blizzard outside and I'm cleaning a few rifles from hunting season for myself and others and the rifle is in the corner. Well lets take a look and see how bad off this is. I got some of the rust off and the plug out and low and behold the damn thing is still loaded. I don't have a cleaning rod or any other rod small enough to get at through the breech end to push it out. But what I do have is compressed air and a reckless disregard for my safety. I couldn't quite get the air in there and needed something long enough to get at it from the back. I rooted around in the tool box and found a punch. Some disassembly and pipe tape, that should do it. So I'm sitting there in the kitchen blasting this thing full of compressed air when my wife walks in from the toy drive she was helping with today.
"What the hell are you doing" she exclaims!
"I'm cleaning this rifle" (as if it weren't obvious )
"This is what happens when I leave you alone in the house"!
And then at the most perfect moment the bullet blasts out of the muzzle and strikes the refrigerator at the base of the door.
"Wow, it worked" I said.
"You tried to do that"? As you can imagine she was less enthusiastic with my self proclaimed brilliance.
Here are some pics. All of the numbers and letters survived.
Here is the small dent left after clean up.
Found the sabot portion, haven't recovered the bullet. I think it went toward the dishes in the sink.
the rigged up items.
I'm still surprised it worked. I couldn't get a very good seal between the punch body and the blow gun. I thought the whole thing was amusing and if you're stuck inside today and read the whole thing, I hope you are amused as well.
Have a great day.
Austan
