why I'm here instead of somewhere else.

[Winter Hawk]

Ohio has the rule that the gun is unloaded if the prime is out of the pan, or the cap off the nipple.  I have had powder dribble into the pan when driving from one hunting spot to another, with the rifle "unloaded" by dumping out the prime.  That happened only once, after which I made sure the rifle was laid down with the lock up.   Touch hole was drilled out to 1/16", no larger, and the load was Fffg.

~Kees~

[Bigsmoke]

A fellow I knew in North Idaho who had little regard for himself learned the hard way that it is a bad policy to carry the rifle with the hammer pulled all the way back.
Seems like one night he was going to grab his rifle off the rack on the back window of his pick up.  Of course, it was loaded and the nipple was capped and the hammer was in the full cock position.  Well now, he reached into the truck, grabbed a hold of the barrel and gave it a tug.  Well, the trigger was set off by the loop of the rack, it went boom and a .490 ball traveled up the length of his arm, shattering the wrist, elbow and shoulder, and coming to rest right on his spine.  Fortunately the ball was about out of gas by the time it reached the spine, so no damage done there.  But the arm was toast and the surgeon relieved him of it.

[KDubs]

Wooooow!
 

[Doc Nock]

Back on page 2 Rollin quoted me and then added something about full cock...

I surely hope that nobody interpreted I traveled that way or ever left the gun on full cock..

I did have it go "Off" without pan powder once and have to surmise that the Ross Siefried altered touch hole liner allowe some Kernels of 3F to dribble thru but that was at the range under controlled conditions...

But it freaked me enough that though I always did the main charge and PRB down the tube, I decided to also keep the gun pointed toward the tailgate and not the cockpit albet, the gun was snuggled in a case un- cocked but I opted to put a quill in the touch hole to prevent any powder coming out or a spark going in.. I hope that was clear...Just my way of being super careful... 

[rollingb]

Back on page 2 Rollin quoted me and then added something about full cock...

I surely hope that nobody interpreted I traveled that way or ever left the gun on full cock..

I did have it go "Off" without pan powder once and have to surmise that the Ross Siefried altered touch hole liner allowe some Kernels of 3F to dribble thru but that was at the range under controlled conditions...

But it freaked me enough that though I always did the main charge and PRB down the tube, I decided to also keep the gun pointed toward the tailgate and not the cockpit albet, the gun was snuggled in a case un- cocked but I opted to put a quill in the touch hole to prevent any powder coming out or a spark going in.. I hope that was clear...Just my way of being super careful... 

I'm sorry for any confusion I may have caused with what I said,..... I was simply expanding on your comment when you said "From then on, I used a feather quill in the touch hole and made sure on the trip to my hunting grounds in the dark, that the gun muzzle was pointed rearward in the covered truck bed, and never cocked..." 

Not that you transported your muzzleloader "on full cock".   

[Doc Nock]

Thanks Rolinb,

To add to the conversation for newbies, or such, I had another gun, (also a T/C Pos) that I'd reamed out the touch hole liner and on loading loose powder and firing it went Pffft- small boom... I KNEW something was amiss.

That POS gun had a removable breech plug while it was still a flinter, and I took it apart, checked the bbl for obstruction and it was clear... Then standing in ankle deep snow I noticed where I'd loaded the last shot and rammed home the patched ball there was a goodly bit of loose powder lying on top of the snow...

Mystery solved: when I dumped in the main charge and started to ram home the greased patched ball the ball exerted enough pressure on air in the tube (bbl) to push out a goodly amount of the powder onto the snow...w/o snow, I'd never have known, so while it fired, it was a super light charge and fortunately it cleared the bbl...

Now, with the GPR and ANTE chamber of smaller diameter I may still have had an issue as the ball may not have been sitting on the powder and left an air gap... luckily the T/C Firestorm POS with removable breech plug wasn't built with an ante chamber so it didn't turn into a bomb but it sure made me hinky from there on... At that point, I used the feather quill in the touch hole to both load and transport if main charge was in the gun...

Thanks for clarifying rolin b and one can never be too cautious when handling firearms--- they are perfectly safe when all procedures are followed to a "T" but get sloppy nd they can and will bite the hand that feeds them...