Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1884 — Bursting a Gun. [ARTICLE]

Bursting a Gun.

Those old enough to carry a loaded gun should be too old to play tricks with it. They also ought to be so familiar with its use as to know that a slight resistance at the end of the muzzle will burst it, when fired. The following illustrations are suggestive as to the carelessness which arises from ignorance or foolhardiness: In bravado a young man placed the muzzle of his fowling-piece under the water and fired the charge. The result was the bursting of the barrel near the breech and the mutilation of his hand. Another placed and held the muzzle of his piece against a piece of plate window-glass and fired the charge—powder and bullet. The glass was shattered, so was the gun-barrel. Another instance was that of an experimenter who had heard that a candle could be fired from the barrel of a gun through an inch board. He drove a candle into the muzzle of the gun, fired, and the explosion split the barrel almost its entire length, and did not even drive the candle from the muzzle. Still another burst of a gun-barrel was caused by the use of wet grass for a wad, well rammed down over a charge I of shot.