Lyman Rifle Failure

Good thing you noticed the gap before pulling the trigger!

Send it back. Lyman's customer service is excellent.

cheygriz said:

Send it back. Lyman's customer service is excellent.

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I have been a big fan of Lyman and personally own many of their products. However, Lyman's customer service is NOT excellent if they in fact did not ensure communication of this serious recall information to their sellers as claimed by Bud's.

If Bud's ignored the information it's on Bud's, but if Lyman didn't ensure the proper communication, shame on Lyman.

Betcha Lyman issued the recall. They're too big, too old and too experienced in the shooting sports to allow something like this to go unresolved.

Boy, close call! I have a rifle and pistol. The pistol is in the range, so I have contacted Lyman by email. Thankyou for posting this.

EEK! Had you not noticed this, you could have been pulling a breech plug out of your brain!. Something like that should not happen, especially with blackpowder weapons. The manufacturer can use the absolute cheapest steels, the originals were wrought iron by gum, and then to have the breech plug threads break? What sort of quality control is going on at that factory?

Jlr2267 said:

I was lucky I guess. The next guy might not be...apparently there are a lot of rifles affected by the recall. What really alarms me though is that this rifle (confirmed to be under recall) was sold to me by a retailer, several months after the recall was started.

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If you had lost a hand, eye, or head, I don't think the retailer is responsible in any fashion. So, they make a sale, make a profit, and if the products they sell are good or not, it is between you and the manufacturer. So, why should anyone think they are looking out for you?

I was surprised when I first read about the extent of the recall.
Now I'm shocked to see the results and very disappointed that notice did not make it down the supply chain in a responsible fashion.

I think that Investarms is the most responsible for the mess.
It looks like they used some junk steel.

I hope that Investarms stays in business long enough to resolve fixing all of the recalled guns.
This is going to create an indelible stain on the reputation of both Investarms & Lyman if these incidents keep occurring.

Many thanks to Jlr2267 for posting and I'm glad that you weren't injured.
We should all help to spread the word about this thread and incident to help others understand the extent & seriousness of this Lyman recall.

Yes, Buds should have been notified by Lyman about the recall. How they were not notified is just plain crazy. They have their sources that keep up to date on products and something this serious, SHOULD have been well known by buds.

wow you should buy a lotto ticket.

I find it impossible that Bud's did not know. I do find it likely they did not pay attention or were lax in safety recalls.

thanks for the photo, glad you are ok!

from the fracture pattern, uniform all around, I would opine that the thing may have been overtorqued ....

yhs
shunka

There were other reports of breech plug failures with barrel separations on themuzzleloadingforum earlier this year.
It's also possible that poorly cast breech plugs may have contributed to the failures.
It appears that Lyman intended to notify distributors, dealers & retailers but I'm not sure if the notice was ever sent or how.
The photos below are from this thread--->>> http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusionbb/showtopic.php?tid/306625/

For what it's worth, I recall this Lyman recall was posted here in The High Road Blackpowder forum back in February as well...
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/lyman-muzzleloader-recall.832901/

The manufacture, distributors, and dealers are still liable if they are selling recalled items.

Hard to believe that a shop as well known as Buds would not have received the recall notice.

I wonder if this problem is similar to the Ruger Redhawk barrel failures where a single assembler was taking a shortcut getting the barrel aligned and instead of removing and trimming to get it to time properly he used some lube brought in from home and over-torqued them. This stretched the threads along with introduced a chemical reaction that eventually caused the threads to fail. All pictures of the Lyman failures look like they could have been caused by over-torque to get the plug lined up. As mentioned the original guns were made of wrought iron and far inferior materials to even what we would consider 'junk' steel....so I'm leaning to something mechanically being damaged causing the failures. Hope the final determination of cause is released if found.

I think RecoilRob is correct. That looks to me like and overtorqued part to me. With machined steel you may have got away with it. But a casting is a little more brittle.

Same for me, Guido the gorilla is at it again.

I've reposted your photo and event on nearly every forum that I could.
You've helped to resurrect the Lyman recall notice to a wider audience which can help to prevent more people from potential injury.
That also applies to Lyman now knowing about who Bud's drop-shipper is.
Thanks for the update.

I emailed Lyman a week ago about my Plains pistol. No reply yet.