Took a buddy shooting with me yesterday, along with my Model 1874 Sharps Business Rifle. As he's plinking away with his Colt Sporter, zinging little 60gr pills into his 100 yard target, I'm lighting off my 500gr swaged spitzers, with 70gr black powder loads.
The storm front moved in fairly quickly in the afternoon, and the range got somewhat dark as I was finishing up my last few rounds. I was focusing on the target and follow-through, when my partner yelled "Wow, did you guys see that?"
Evidently, both he and the shooters nearby my bench saw something exit the muzzle of my rifle immediately after the shot, it dropped to the ground while still burning brightly. Now I know the Goex Cartridge black powder I use has a really bright flash and fireball from my 32" barrel, even I can see that from behind the trigger on a dark afternoon. So after checking the bore for obstructions or big chunks of powder fouling, I handed the rifle to my buddy with a couple more of the same 500gr loads, the intent being that I could watch the proceedings from a different angle while he sent rounds downrange.
I saw a big fireball, lots of white smoke, and sparks in a cone-shaped pattern going downrange. But I didn't see anything bloop out of the muzzle and drop to the ground burning.
My home-spun bullet lube is a combination of Crisco, lard, and beeswax. The bullets are pan-lubed, then seated on top of a card wad. The 70gr Goex Cartridge charge is then compressed about 0.300", leaving the case mouth and bullet bore rider transition flush. Then I crimp just enough to get rid of the case mouth flare, bullet tension is fine without crimping into it.
After just a few rounds of the above handloads, I have a nice lube star on the crown of my barrel, so I know that there's adequate lubrication all the way out to 32". My guess is that my fellow shooters saw either a dollop of excess bullet lube lighting off and blooping out the muzzle, or maybe one of the card wads separated from the bullet early and fluttered to the ground while burning.
Anybody else experience such a phenomenon? Weird!
The storm front moved in fairly quickly in the afternoon, and the range got somewhat dark as I was finishing up my last few rounds. I was focusing on the target and follow-through, when my partner yelled "Wow, did you guys see that?"
Evidently, both he and the shooters nearby my bench saw something exit the muzzle of my rifle immediately after the shot, it dropped to the ground while still burning brightly. Now I know the Goex Cartridge black powder I use has a really bright flash and fireball from my 32" barrel, even I can see that from behind the trigger on a dark afternoon. So after checking the bore for obstructions or big chunks of powder fouling, I handed the rifle to my buddy with a couple more of the same 500gr loads, the intent being that I could watch the proceedings from a different angle while he sent rounds downrange.
I saw a big fireball, lots of white smoke, and sparks in a cone-shaped pattern going downrange. But I didn't see anything bloop out of the muzzle and drop to the ground burning.
My home-spun bullet lube is a combination of Crisco, lard, and beeswax. The bullets are pan-lubed, then seated on top of a card wad. The 70gr Goex Cartridge charge is then compressed about 0.300", leaving the case mouth and bullet bore rider transition flush. Then I crimp just enough to get rid of the case mouth flare, bullet tension is fine without crimping into it.
After just a few rounds of the above handloads, I have a nice lube star on the crown of my barrel, so I know that there's adequate lubrication all the way out to 32". My guess is that my fellow shooters saw either a dollop of excess bullet lube lighting off and blooping out the muzzle, or maybe one of the card wads separated from the bullet early and fluttered to the ground while burning.
Anybody else experience such a phenomenon? Weird!