Today, while watching our County Memorial Day Parade, a group of Civil War re-enactors let out a volly of shots up in the air while marching. Scared the bejesus out of a few spectators (.50 cal black powder). Well, I guess one of the guys forgot to remove his ram rod and holy crap, thank god there was nobody sitting where it landed. It punctured the roof of some poor soul's mini-van when it came down! Has anybody ever forgotten to remove a rod? I once forgot to pull a laser sighting device out of the barrel of a carbine I was using to sight in a new scope and lemme tell ya, when it hit the target board @ 50 yrds, it desinigrated into a zillion pieces! Lucky it didn't blow the barrel like an obstruction!!!!!!
Memorial day parade boo-boo
- Thread starter Capt_Vin
- Start date
Playboypenguin
Moderator
A guy I know did that with one of those laser boresight things one time. I nearly wet my pants I laughed so hard.
Did the ramrod make a whistling noise as it flew through the air? Berdan Sharpshooter Wyman White mentions in his diary that some soldiers would do that to amuse themselves during the Siege of Petersburg.
BTW, for precisely what happened, most reenactors don't use their ramrods when they load their rifle-muskets. Impaling another reenactor is not something that is supposed to happen.
BTW, for precisely what happened, most reenactors don't use their ramrods when they load their rifle-muskets. Impaling another reenactor is not something that is supposed to happen.
jakeswensonmt
New member
How long before some "journalist" gets their hands on this story and perverts it into anti-.50 (or just plain anti) propaganda (ramrod from .50 caliber black powder assault rifle could have shot down aircraft...)
Yep, like the man said, it did happen plenty in the CW, when you were being shot at and trying to get a load in fast and fire back. Other malfunctions also from rushed reloading. I am suprised that they did it though as they were under no pressure for a fast load. Wonder if the problem was that instead of the under barrel rod, they were loading with a second rod? Some folks with non mil. ML rifles will leave the easily broken wood rod on the gun and load with a fibreglass rod or something like that. Otherwise you bust your rod, you are done shootin.
rem870hunter
New member
it sucks that it damaged a vehicle. i am glad it didn't hurt anyone. but i can't even imagine the attitude at the repair shop. probably something like this ok ok so a ramrod hit your roof? ha ha ha yea right whaddy think i was born this morning? ramrods don't just hit cars. the cost of repair is gonna be 599.94.
44 amp.
my father has shot his ramrod once. target shooting at the end of a hunting day. shooting at an empty soda bottle. seeing who can hit it. he forgot to remove it. fired, went to reload. and it was gone. it happened on his third shot. i had to laugh. we had no idea where it went. couldn't find it. it wasn't stick out of anything. no marks on the ground. was the original wooden one. has a fiberglass one now.
44 amp.
my father has shot his ramrod once. target shooting at the end of a hunting day. shooting at an empty soda bottle. seeing who can hit it. he forgot to remove it. fired, went to reload. and it was gone. it happened on his third shot. i had to laugh. we had no idea where it went. couldn't find it. it wasn't stick out of anything. no marks on the ground. was the original wooden one. has a fiberglass one now.