Ever have/seen ignition of BP as it's being dumped in bore?

YES! My son didn't follow instructions to blow down barrel to extinguish any hot residue.When he poured in powder from the reloader,it flared.Gave him a nasty burn on his hand--not to mention soiled drawers!lol

Oh yeah, had it happen to me once & a few others on the line back when I was N-SSA, luckily it was just the charge for the weapon in the plastic or rubber tubes we used back then as pre loads.

"...blow down barrel to extinguish any hot residue..."?

This does not compute.

A friend of mine had a real bad one a couple years ago. It happened when he loaded the first shot. He had poured the powder in and he used his rod to clean the bore. Its a habbit he has. The rod shot through the roof of our range. No idea what happened. The bore was dry, no oil no nothing. Just the powder and the rod with a clean dry wad.... He didnt get any fingers shot of. Just wide open eyes and a black nose.

Something wrong with that last one also. Why would you load a charge, and then clean the bore?? I thought you were supposed to wipe your bore, and then proceed to load? Only possibility I can think of is, a dry wiper may have caused some friction on the way down, enough to ignite a charge. Still sounds like a reverse sequence to me.

Back in the late 70's I witnessed an incident where a man had a powder flask go off while loading a long rifle. He was injured but I don't know for sure. His friends rushed him to the hospital - he was stunned but responsive and appeared to be badly burned but that may have been just soot. Never saw him at the range again, and nobody at the local shop knew what happened to him.

Makes me wonder that during the civil war that this was a very common occurrence.

My friend just have that habbit. He just have to run a clean wad after charging. But that shouldnt have anything to do with it..... Its a wad and a brass jag, instead of a wad and a lead bullet.

Hendiadys said:

"...blow down barrel to extinguish any hot residue..."?

This does not compute.

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The introduction of more oxygen into the barrel is suppose to help cause any lingering ember to burn itself out faster by consuming all of its fuel.
The addition of moisture from the breath of air is suppose to help keep the fouling soft.

Using a wad nailed to the end of a wood rod after the powder was dumped in was common practice for loading a slug gun. To wipe any powder from the bore that might have stuck to it to the bottom of bore. Since the paper patched bullet only is a slip fit in the bore and does not fill the grooves, any powder granules can get wedged in between the grooves and bullet paper wrap making accurate loading difficult. Some now use a loading tube instead.

I read on one of these forums the story of the fella that poured the powder down the barrel and it wasn't until he was ramming the ball/wad down the barrel with the rod that the charge went off. The rod went through his hand. Maybe someone could give the details as isn't clear (from my memory) if the facts of the matter were that he had this thing already primed or the claim was that an ember supposedly set off the main charge. Don't take this post as fact....let's wait for one of y'all with a clear memory or the link to jump in and lay out the facts....just wanted to try to jar someone's memory....a little help here to kill or verify the details of this story.....

I'm no expert but common sense tells me that running a dry patch/wad down a barrel after charging could create static eletricity.

ClemBert said:

just wanted to try to jar someone's memory....a little help here to kill or verify the details of this story

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That was an inline on TFL that was loaded with Pyrodex. And it leads to wonder if the simple act of ramming or dry swabbing with powder already loaded in the barrel can introduce air that will feed any ember lingering in the breech at an inopportune time.

That happend at our club about 10 years ago. Lucky for the guy, he had a
round ball on his rod about the size of a tennis ball and it just pushed his hand
out of the way, and put a hole in the metal roof. That's why ALL my rods have a smooth round ball on them. It was determed that he had the hammer
down while loading and rammed the ball quite fast down the bore. Air in the
barrel was heated rather quickly and Boom! Take it slow and easy!!

It's rare but not unheard of in the N-SSA. I've had it happen to me twice in 34 years. That's why you keep your hand away from the muzzle, and use pre-measured charges.

K-Rod said:

I'm no expert but common sense tells me that running a dry patch/wad down a barrel after charging could create static eletricity.

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We have been through this before. Static electricity will not set BP off.

http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/sparks/sparks.html

in thirty odd years of shooting, I've never witnessed it nor has it ever occurred to me. Maybe I've merely been lucky 'til now...