ak 47 type explosion?

Don't worry about it exploding. This isn't a common phenomenon by any standard. Guys who reload and use to much powder, or those of us who have never cleaned a magazine before.

I'm not saying AK's need constant cleaning, but they do need some cleaning. When the moon is full and you hear a distant howl, clean the AK. Then load a couple of magazines with silver bullets and pray your just been paranoid.

I've only seen one real kaboom in all the years I've been shooting. It happened with a Mosin Nagant shooting Czech surplus that my friend was firing. The round exploded when it was about 1/2 way loaded sending brass flying and lodging the bullet about 1/2 way down the bore. The base of the casing was still intact and the primer was untouched. My friend still has a piece of brass lodged in his wrist from this. At the time his entire face was bloodied as well as his right hand. Good thing he was wearing glasses. The rifle appeared undamaged from it. We had to drive the bullet back out of the barrel and disassemble the magazine in order to clear it though.

So I don't really know if this proves anything, except that out of battery firings can occur with bolt actions too. I've fired many thousands of rounds myself and been around people who have fired more than that and this was the only time I've seen it happen. Now I have seem plenty of bulged cartridges, cracked necks and burst primers, but that was the only bonafide explosion.

There are over 60,000,000 Kalashnikovs out there.

You're worrying over 1 in 60 million odds?

You're worrying about a contractor that picked up a (literally) battlefield pickup rifle that was in unknown condition? Your WASR has not been through anything like the rifle in the video.


You should worry about the lottery.

ineedmoney said:

was he messing around with the safety?

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Go watch the video.

A contractor is doing a mag dump and gets a double-charged round. POOF!

Nobody is hurt.

the only kaboom i've ever seen in 30 years of shooting (50K rounds of mine, hundreds of K others) was in my FPK (PSL). the 1950's brass case surp failed into the extractor cut and peeled open in an area about 1/8" wide and 3/8" length, circumferentially. the gun was in battery and only fired after i pulled the trigger. the dust cover blew up into my forehead and the receiver swelled 1/2", without coming unglued (it was a weld build done by yours truely on a cold steel solutions blank). the gun was easily repairable, and the shooter was no more than stunned for a moment.

was it fault of the gun? no. it was fault of the aged 7.62X54R brass.

AK's used to explode in Vietnam but we had a hand in that one.

I wouldn't let KBs keep you up at night. Fact is, most often the shooter will be fine afterwards- maybe some minor injuries.

Now, that is a lesson to always wear eye pro. You'll be fine. Don't sweat it.

naaa your ak is only going to kabooom if you spend 15k and get one that is FA

i got a friend that was cutting some branches and stuff on his farm and some how a branch popped him in the face and broke his eye protection...and a piece of the safety glasses got stuck in his eye, it was f***ed up for like 2 months, so there not bullet proof, but who knows it could of been alot worse if he didnt have them on ????

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Was he using real cheap safety glasses or quality stuff? There are a couple of different safety eyeware ratings floating around, plus if the eyewear is weakened or damaged from previous use...

I also don't trust made in China eyeware, that's for sure, and I inspect my eyewear often and replace my safety glasses on a regular basis, usually yearly. Obviously, I'm not wearing Oakleys, but I find UVEX to make good stuff at reasonable prices.

The AK is not pretty, it is not a tackdriver, it is not something you'd see in a Normal Rockwell painting nor is it the latest and coolest tacticool .223. But if there's one thing it is, is dead nuts reliable. If you're worried about an AK going kaboom, you may as well never touch any gun again.

was he messing around with the safety?

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When it happened he was in the middle of chambering a round. I'm pretty certain he hadn't touched the safety.

I also wouldn't worry too much about your MN. I'm almost entirely sure this was a matter of faulty ammo. Here's why. 1) It was a bolt action and when I drove the bullet out a few minutes later, the barrel wasn't anywhere near hot enough to cause a cookoff. 2) The primer wasn't even touched. There wasn't a dent in it or a scratch on it.

Absent excessive heat or an impact on the primer, there's absolutely nothing I can think of that the rifle could have done to cause a properly made and undamaged cartridge to fire prematurely.

My guess is that the jarring action of vigorously loading the rifle caused a defective primer to ignite without any actual contact from the firing pin.

The nice thing about modern firearms is that when they fail (not very common at all with factory ammo) they tend to fail away from the user. Most of the debris usually goes out the ejection port and down the magwell. Small pieces of powder and metal can come back and put your eye out, but that's why we wear eye protection.

BSW

>"My guess is that the jarring action of vigorously loading the rifle caused a defective primer to ignite without any actual contact from the firing pin."<

A "high" primer could cause that.