January 9, 1933
"Ground thawed through. No winter as yet in this month.
I made the remark tonight that an auto properly taken care of requires as much time as keeping a horse. It seems true in many cases as I spend three or four hours every week on ours.
Last Friday night I was having a quiet game of checkers with Chester. While intent on the game I was smoking my brier pipe. Bang! went the pipe. The whole family enjoyed the explosion except myself. I turned pale and began to wonder if I were shot. For instantly I remembered I had been carrying .22 short cartridges in my tobacco pouch and had overlooked one before filling the pouch with tobacco. We found the burnt shell but not the bullet. After my explaining we all laughed more heartily that a tragic setting had made comedy."
January 9, 1933
D.C. Richard's Journal
When that happens the shell (brass casing) goes flying, and the bullet stays put, the lead bullet being far heavier than the hollow brass). Since there's no barrel to confine the expanding gasses, the pressure dissipates immediately, and the brass doesn't build up much velocity. I'd bet the bullet remained in the pouch.
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So you think the bullet was left in pouch and the empty casing had some gunpowder in it when it went into the pipe? This is an 80-year old mystery.
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Wanna play MythBusters?
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I meant to say the bullet remained in the bowl of the pipe, where the fire was, not the pouch. I'm guessing the cartridge went into the bowl with the tobacco and discharged when the fire reached it. The brass flew off the bullet and the bullet went nowhere, at least not until he dropped or threw the pipe.
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I actually remember D.C. I called him Pa Pa. He was the nicest old man. Was either sitting in a chair in his front room smiling and smoking a pipe or in the backyard garden. Laughed easily. He would have told us what happened.
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