MineArchive

Shot-firing

Also known asShotfirer (The man qualified to do it), Shot firing (Unhyphenated spelling), Blasting (General term for the same work), Blaster (Modern and American usage)
CategoryMine Workings & Access

Breaking coal or rock at the face by drilling a hole, charging it with explosive and detonating it. In British collieries the work was reserved by law to a qualified shotfirer, and the procedure surrounding it — testing for gas, clearing the district, stemming the hole — mattered more than the explosive itself.

Historical usage

Gunpowder was used at the face from the seventeenth century onwards, but shot-firing as a regulated occupation belongs to the era of electric detonators and permitted explosives. By the twentieth century the shotfirer held a ticket, drew a fixed number of detonators from the surface explosives store at the start of the shift, and worked ahead of the coal fillers so the face was ready for them. He was on staff pay rather than piece rates, which mattered: a good coal filler on bonus could earn more than the man firing his shots.

How it worked

The regulation procedure, as a Nottinghamshire shotfirer recorded it, ran like this. Holes are bored into the face at about six-foot intervals and six feet deep. Each is scraped clean of loose coal dust and checked with a break finder for cracks; a hole with a break in it is not fired, and a new hole is bored instead. The district is cleared and sentries posted at least twenty-five yards either side, round a corner or behind cover. Gas is tested at the hole and at both sentry points. A pricker opens the soft cartridge, a detonator with seven feet of wire is pushed into it, the charge is rammed to the back of the hole with a wooden rammer, and non-combustible material — clay — is rammed in behind it to stem the hole. The cable is reeled out twenty yards, the sentries and the gas are checked again, the key goes into the exploder, 'Fire' is called, and the key is turned. Only one shot may be stemmed and fired at a time.

Why it was used

Machine cutting undercut the seam but did not bring it down; a round of shots did, and did it fast enough to keep a longwall face advancing on shift cycle. On a face where the coal was hard, there was no practical alternative between explosives and hand tools, and hand tools could not fill a face in a shift.

Risks & limitations

The procedure was the safeguard, and the procedure took too long. A shotfirer was expected to fire around forty shots a shift, starting only two hours ahead of the fillers; done by the book, that was a full day's work and the fillers would have nothing to fill. What actually happened, by that shotfirer's own account, was that all forty holes were charged at once with little or no stemming — an extra cartridge of powder used in lieu — and fired one after another off a short cable, the whole quota gone in an hour. He is explicit that this was unlawful, that management above and below ground knew, and that a blind eye was turned by one and all. The consequences are written across the disaster record: an unfired break in a hole, an untested pocket of firedamp, or an unstemmed shot blowing out into coal dust has been the recorded ignition source for explosions at Millclose in 1887, West Stanley and Bersham in 1909, Valleyfield in 1939, Haig Pit in 1931 and William Pit in 1947, where a single shot in shot-hole No. 3 killed a hundred and four men.

Regional variation

'Shotfirer' is the standard British term and 'blaster' the American one; in many pits the deputy carried the shotfirer's ticket and did both jobs, which is why the inquiry into the William Pit explosion criticised the workload of a single deputy firing forty or more shots a day alongside his other duties.

Related terminology

Afterdamp, Deputy, Firedamp, Longwall, Powder House, Safety Lamp (Davy Lamp)

Mines associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis — not every mine where this might plausibly apply.

Disasters associated with this term

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis, with the nature of the relationship stated — not every disaster where this term might plausibly apply.

Sources

  1. (primary) Chapter 35 — Shot Firing, Middleton Broom Colliery — Jack Gale, via the Northern Mine Research Society
  2. (primary) Mining accidents and disasters index — Durham Mining Museum — Durham Mining Museum

Record created: 25 August 2026 · Last researched: 25 August 2026