A rifle blow up

Bob Mc Alice · Post by **Bob Mc Alice** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:23 pm

This story and pictures were sent to me by a friend. Moral to the story: be careful when handloading.

Some pictures to show you what can happen when people mix gun powders by mistake when reloading.
The rifle was a Browning chambered in 300 Magnum, the powder was supposed to be 4350 but later they found it mixed with some other powder. He fired the rifle five times and from the beginning he and a friend of his noticed that there was something wrong because the extraction of the brass was difficult but he did not listen to his friend and continued to fire until the metal of the rifle weakened enough that it blew up. The person involved got away easy with only a black eye and a few small cuts in his hands and face.

BlauBear · Post by **BlauBear** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:32 pm

Rapid, unexpected self-disassembly at its finest...

sobrbiker883 · Post by **sobrbiker883** » Thu Oct 30, 2008 10:53 pm

Pay attention to your rifle, and what its telling you.

Good thing noone was seriously injured. Time for E. Hunter to see how Leupolds customer service is...............

Jim Beckley · Post by **Jim Beckley** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:47 am

Not to long after I started shooting Silhouette, A guy that was shooting next to me gun blew up on him. He had his powder meter full of pistol powder, forgot about it and loaded up his 06 ammo with it, totally damaged his rifle, a Mauser action, the only damage to him, the wing safety flew back and busted his lip. Another guy had his rifle blow up in Yuma, just needed a change of shorts! Shooting a .260 with .308 LC Match brass, didn't turn the necks and it caught up with him. He asked Tony Tello to take a look at the rounds that he had and Tony showed him where a bullet wouldn't fit into the mouth of a fired case and the guy said that he had fired hundreds of rounds like that, his luck finally ran out. If your gun is showing any kind of sign of pressure and if you choose to ignore it, maybe your picture is next, don't let your luck run out!

Bob Mc Alice · Post by **Bob Mc Alice** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:37 pm

I do have a comment on the wording in the story. I dont think the action was fatigued by expansion forces. The weak link was the brass case, it simply ruptured under the excessive pressure, quite obvious with all the smeared brass on the stainless steel in the photos. All the escaping high pressure gas could not possibly have been bled off by only a small hole or two drilled in the receiver. As a result, the action simply cracked and peeled under the escaping high pressure gasses.

The pressures on this gun certainly exceeded the "blue pill" proof test rounds.

Feel free to correct me if you think I am wrong.

Jim Beckley · Post by **Jim Beckley** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 3:50 pm

I wouldn't guess what happened to the action. It's just a wreck that you don't want to see. I was in Bruno's one day and a guy there was telling Bruno and Ocock had his bolt was sticking when he opened it. The reply was that the next thing to happen was his gun was going to blow up.

chickenchoker · Post by **chickenchoker** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:10 pm

The brass itself can't hold the pressure unless it is supported by the steel chamber. If you didn't find the bullet there was also a hole out the front beside the little one drilled in the side of the reciever.

Bob Mc Alice · Post by **Bob Mc Alice** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:34 pm

The tensile strength of thin cartridge brass is MUCH lower than the surrounding thick steel chamber walls. For conversations sake, let's assume that load generated in excess of 80,000 PSI. That soft brass will weaken and flow to the least supported spot, the bolt surrounded head of the case, and thin primer metal cup. I wonder if the bullet fully exited the bore before it blew up.

wasa43 · Post by **wasa43** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:36 pm

A local rangemaste showed me a rem 700 receiver that was in 2 pieces, neatly split lengthwise.

A guy was having trouble with handloads, bullets seated too far out. He had to use a cleaning rod to tap the bullets out of the leade of the rifling.

He was trying to figure out what was wrong (duh!) and touched off one with the cleaning rod still in the bore.

My handloads are better than that, but I can see myself doing something stupid like that when i am concentrating really hard on a problem. Boys, you know.

Anyway, when in doubt, stand back and think for a while!

Chris

chickenchoker · Post by **chickenchoker** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 4:59 pm

Bob, I think I read that it blew on the fifth round. The first 4 were probably not high tensile brass. Why didn't they blow? They had to be subject to the same high pressure as #5.

BlauBear · Post by **BlauBear** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 5:41 pm

Eventually, your guardian angel decides you've asked for it once too often.

drover · Post by **drover** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 6:42 pm

Now there is a scope to test just how far Leupold will go with their warranty coverage.

drover

Bob Mc Alice · Post by **Bob Mc Alice** » Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:51 pm

chickenchoker wrote:Bob, I think I read that it blew on the fifth round. The first 4 were probably not high tensile brass. Why didn't they blow? They had to be subject to the same high pressure as #5.

As we dont have any useful info on the load, we know it was excessive. The previous four rounds warmed up the chamber and were hard to extract. Maybe that fifth round got cooked a little before the trigger was pulled, or it had a grain or two in it more than the others? Either way, the cases were right on the fringes of failure. Who knows.

morerams · Post by **morerams** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 2:27 am

We do know there were 2 different powders in the case, assuming the mix was not intentional there is no reason to think that it was an even mix of the 2 powders, I would think there is every chance the case that failed had more of the wrong powder than the other cases did, either way excess pressure will eventually find the weakest point in the system wherever it is, cartridge brass, barrel or action components.

Bob Mc Alice · Post by **Bob Mc Alice** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 8:15 am

Found this:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m ... _105642918

http://www.leverguns.com/articles/taylor/blowups.htm

A rifle blow up

A rifle blow up

A Rifle Blow UP

another example