Quote Originally Posted by tacfoley View Post
Snide comment aside, I can only speak from personal experience, and from the experiences of other with whom I have been shooting for over fifty years.

I HAVE seen a 'ramrod launch', but I've never seen a flashpan ka-boom.

When I'm shooting with my fellows in the USA, I practice what THEY do.

The kind of trail-shooting I do over there is all from standing or kneeling, no benches to put stuff on so that it might get spark-sprayed and blow up. Powder is decanted into a powder measure, and the horn containing the powder is pushed around your back - out of the way of any sparks. Priming is done with a tiny priming flask.

With N-SSA-style shooting, it is practiced as it was during the WoNA, exactly - using paper cartridges. Again, it's standing or kneeling only, as carried out by the troops of the day.

When I'm shooting a BP pistol or revolver on a real range, it's the same as here - powder in phials is recommended, but not overly enforced unless you are taking part in a NMLA/MLAIC-style shoot, in which case it's phials all the way. The club I shoot at, Tri-Counties Gun club in Tualatin, has a number of ranges, including one of fifty places for pistol up to 50 yards, and a couple of smaller 20-position for 25 yards There is a separate qualifying range for the CCW courses run there.
Sorry if my post comes across as snyde, just trying to lighten it a little and not intended as a personal sleight - clearly I failed.

I have never seen a flask kaboom either but I know the victim of the incident personally and I have seen the damage it did. He put large holes in all of his flasks and blocked then with corks - his idea was that the cork would blow out thus reducing the pressures and potential for fragmentation. This was superseded when the MLAIC changed the rules and he now uses flasks only for filler and shot.