Spencer Mag Kaboom

[Sean Thornton]

At a reenactment a user of a Spencer .56-50 repro got a little over energetic and started pushing the magazine tube a little to hard.  In fact according to a witness he was actually hitting on it since he was having trouble pushing the magazine tube back in.  When it went boom it blew the butt plate off but the user was not injured severely.  He was using the all plastic blanks. Other than that I do not know much more.  I am not sure what caused him to have trouble reloading.  I have encountered a similar problem with blanks that are all plastic with the plastic rims. It just goes to show if you have to force something then something is probably wrong.

[PJ Hardtack]

Yup. Sounds like a qualifier for a Darwin Award under the "Don't force it - use a bigger hammer" category.

Way back when Dillon presses didn't have a blast shield over their primer feed tubes, a pal tried to clear a jam with a coat hangar wire.
He caused a sympathetic detonation that blew a piece of tendon out of one finger (found plastered on a nearby filing cabinet) and terminated his reloading career as far as his wife was concerned.

I'm not gonna tell ya some of the things I've done and got away with .... ;>)