Catastrophic Firearm Failures

i was standing behind my friend firing his hk93 when an american eagle round had a case seperation.it blew the rollers out,knocked the acog off his clawmount,and sprayed black crap all over his face and hands.amazingly he was unhurt,i kept the offending brass,because i nor any of the r.o.es had ever seen a round end up like that.i don't know what the cause was,but after that event, i can't shoot commercial .223 anymore.

Took this pic in a liquor store (Green Onion) in Wyoming. Story is there was ice in the barrel?

Fast Frank said:

At the range where I shoot, there's a rifle mounted up on the wall with a description of what happened to it.

I haven't looked at in in a while, so bear with me if I get a detail or two wrong.

It's a bolt action rifle, and I believe it is in .25-06 caliber. It's a high quality rifle with nice bluing and beautiful wood. I want to say it's an old Weatherby, but I'm not really sure. I remember that it has basket weave checkering on the stock.

Somebody loaded that poor rifle with the wrong cartridge. I'm pretty sure it was a .308.

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The Carter's Country on Treashwig?

Yes, it was a .25-06 that had a .308 round fired through it. I don't recall the model.

If any of you folks out there remember reading this chime in. A number of years ago in one of the guns mags, I think Guns & Ammo they did tests on a number of differant military rifles. I think a Swede Mauser, K98, 03, and I think a jap Arisaka. But what they did was to progressively start overloading the cartridge to see what would happen. But long story short I think they got 'em to do things like bulge the barrel, break the stocks, blow out the magazines, things like that but I don't think they ever got even one of them to have the receiver or bolt fail in a fashion that would have allowed the bolt to hit the shooter.
Also on US military rifles of old like 03s, Garands when you see the "P" stamped in a square on the stock I believe that means the rifle was fired 5 times with overloaded ammo at the arsenal when built and the "P" is the "proof" mark that it passed this test. If anyone has more detailed info on that process it would be interesting to know.

Quote:

Apparently he was making "reduced" loads using some kind of pistol powder (possibly Unique). He claimed it was the dreaded "detonation," but everyone else was pretty sure it was at least a double charge.

I've read that if you don't have enough of the case volume filled with powder, the primer flash can vaporize the powder, rather than inducing it to properly deflagrate with a nice, smooth pressure curve, and the vapors can then detonate a few fractions of a second later, causing a catastrophic pressure spike. This is the bane, apparently, of subsonic loading.

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Fast burning pistol/shotgun powders are not a problem with reduced loads, but slow burning rifle powders possibly are- but that's debatable as noone has ever been able to duplicate the so-called 'secondary explosion effect'. Double charges of pistol powders will disassemble most firearms easily.

I've seen 3 destroyed guns in person, though I didn't see the events happen. Two were pump shotguns- a Remington and a mossberg that had an obstructed bore resulting int he barrels banana-peeling, the thrid was a Ruger M77 that a guy was shooting reduced loads in which he freely admits to it being caused by a double charge.

Local shop

Local shop had a 7mm STW that somebody had fired with the barrel plugged full of snow/mud (don't use your rifle as a walking stick kiddies).

I am sure that was pleasant on the ears.

I witnessed a M2 have a round detonate on the feed tray, at least thats what we cold guess what happened, my buddy was shooting, I was down in the truck, driving if i remember correctly. he was shooting away then it just sounded different, later on we went back and found the remains of the round. brass was torn into 5 pieces, primer remover. damage to the gun was blown out and twisted J block, distorted round stop. no injury to my buddy though.

I've also seen a M16 A2 fire out of battery but all that happened was it destroyed the mag and scared the kid, no damage to the rifle itself.

...loaded his rounds with bullseye instead of 4350...

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DOH!!!

I arrived at our range one day, and was unloading near the 100 meter rifle range when one guy (suprisingly with a lot of experience) had a kaboom that was dramatic. He had cleaned his rifle from the breech and the patch had come off, so he had pushed the ramrod from the muzzle to push out the patch. He started talking with folks, put the bolt back in, talked some more, chambered another .300 Win Mag, talked some more....(quite the chatterbox, this guy!)

Then, he fired a round WITH THE RAMROD STILL IN THE BARREL. It destroyed the rifle. Burst barrel, shattered stock, and the ramrod flew quite a ways downrange. His face was covered with blood from embedded stock pieces, but he was essentially unhurt, but it had looked very, very, serious for a moment, and the recoil had pushed him off the bench.

I had seen that rifle before, and it had had one of the finest pieces of walnut I had ever seen.

Pay attention to what you're doing!

Its more common with shotguns I think than rifles. Thats partly why the shells are color coded. A 20 Ga will slide down a 12 Ga barrel half way then get caught.

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How can that possibly cause overpressure if you cant even set it off?

I had a DCM GI Garand go hand grenade on me in a match. It slam fired on GI LC ammo. Luckily, it was during the slow fire stage and I was single loading, if it had been in my shoulder, I probably would not be here. The charging handle let me have a bunch of stitches, and you could read the head stamp from the case in reverse on my palm. The bolt was blown to the rear hard enough to blow the back of the receiver off into oblivion (never found it, or the front half of the case). The stock was cracked and a big chunk blown off at rear where it met the receiver.

DCM gave me a brand new, and I mean brand new, never issued H&R. At the time, you didnt see, nor could you buy them like that. They never did tell me what they thought the cause was. My guess was something to do with the firing pin. I did not detail strip the bolt when I got it, although I did clean it out well with Gun Scrubber and the firing pin seemed OK.

To this day, I can still see the bolt on an M1 or M1A working as I shoot without thinking about it. Took me awhile to be comfortable shooting them after that, even though I did right away. I'm very picky about the ammo they get now, and I only use a SLED in the M1 for the slow fire strings. No more loose round in the chamber and let the bolt go.

LeibstandarteAdH,

...by following it with a 12ga. shell and then firing?

*racks pump*

*pulls trigger*





*racks pump*

*pulls trigger*



gp911

Easy

20 gauge shell will wedge in the forcing cone.

Goes like this.

You load your gun.
Sometime later you go to shoot and it goes click.
You open the gun and there's no shell in the chamber. Doh, you for got to load it.
Drop a shell in.
Go to shoot and Kaboom!!!
The 20 gauge shell that you accidentally loaded earlier slid down into the forcing cone.

Easy to do in the middle of a hunt.

Ahh.. you'd have to intermix them, now i see.

This post is starting to scare me especially AK103K's post

Two revolver kabooms stand out - I was on RO duty both times (South African range).

1. Brand new .44 Mag Ruger Super Redhawk on its first range-trip - the top-strap let go with factory ammunition.

2. Taurus .357 Mag 6" - shooter was cranking away fast DA with handloads; I heard the pop of a squib on around the 4th round and was opening my mouth to yell a warning when he touched-off the next round; blew out the entire top-strap and the top half of the cylinder.

Neither shooter injured although one visitor took shrapnel in the second incident.

It's a soft "pop", about the same as one of those old toy cap-guns - fire a case with only a primer in it, no powder or bullet, and you'll recognise it if it ever happens to you (unless you're shooting too quickly to notice, like that chap was doing)

The only catastrophic failure I have ever witnessed was when I was about 11. My step dad had some unknown 12 ga. O/U. He fired the first round and the stock basically disintegrated. Looked more like a spear than a stock when the smoke cleared. He was picking gunpowder, wood and fragments out of his face for weeks.

At the time, the shotgun was thrown about 10' and the firing pin area was warped. To this day I don't know what caused it but I remember it clearly, I was supposed to shoot it next after he test fired it for safety.

Peterson did some tests on the M-1 Garand early in it's life to see how much it could take. The gun didn't start to crack until they put loads of 120,000psi in to it and it only started to crack. Afterwards, they put lighter but still very hot ammo in it (somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000psi if I remember correctly) and the gun still shot just fine despite having a crack in the receiver.
That's pretty impressive since the hottest SAAMI rated load is only 65,000psi!

One thing I would like to see is more effort to reduce the damage of catastrophic failures if they happen. Beretta for instance made a pretty nifty little feature which involved putting a rim on the mainspring pivot pin and a gap in the slide for it to fit in. If the slide separates, that mechanism catches the slide, causing no damage to the shooter. It may be good to put something made out of light but solid metal under the barrel with padded gripping so that if the barrel peals against the shooter, it will inflict little harm. As for bolts, I guess this varies from gun to gun but it should be easy to make the receiver to where it catches the bolt in the event of a backfire.

at my local shop hanging on the wall is a 12 ga with teh top blown out.

typical 12 behind a 20.

i have seen photos of a S&W with 2 of the charge wholes blown out from 1 bad round.

I am having an 1893 turk mauser built that was re-heat treated in the 30s i plan to put a few rounds of ammo thru it at first by pulling string from a ways back. if it holds together, then i will put my face on it and shoot it and inspect it every few dozen rounds for any stress. not super worried since they were re-aresenaled to 8mm in the 30s by the turks. whats a few thousand psi / cup among friends ?

Peterson did some tests on the M-1 Garand early in it's life to see how much it could take. The gun didn't start to crack until they put loads of 120,000psi in to it and it only started to crack. Afterwards, they put lighter but still very hot ammo in it (somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000psi if I remember correctly) and the gun still shot just fine despite having a crack in the receiver.
That's pretty impressive since the hottest SAAMI rated load is only 65,000psi!

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I dont doubt the M1's, or M14's for that matter, will hold together IF the bolt is locked up. The only problems I've ever heard them having is what I had happen, the gun fired out of battery.

While it is a fairly rare occurrence when you consider the number of rifles being used, its does seem to happen fairly regularly to some extent and at various levels of catastrophe. Over the years, I've personally seen guns that "doubled" without issue, but when the brass was recovered, the neck was blown out distorted or missing.

I've also seen a couple of others in pics where the rifle was in pieces. The last M1 I saw like that was here on one of the forums. It was a new made Springfield that came apart badly. The stock split lengthwise the whole length and the metal was in pieces. They must have had the lawyers on that pretty quick, the thread disappeared in just a day or so and I havent seen anything about it since. There is also that M14 kaboom that shows up now and then thats in little pieces.

Not a catastrophic failure but probably very close. The attached pic is of a .30-06 round fired in a M-1 Garand. The pressure was so high that it formed a belt on the unsupported portion of the case. The brass sticking out the rim of the shell actually flowed into the extractor and ejector cuts of the M-1's bolt face. The case head measures .487 where it should be closer to .473. The primer pocket is oval measuring .245 x .254 where it should measure .208-.209. Explanation of events leading to the incident are that the shooter ran out of brass for his match loads so he purchased a couple boxes of Federal loaded ammo from Pay N' Save. He went home and pulled the bullets, emptied the powder then loaded the shells up with his own loads using the Federal primers. Come match day, half way into the shoot, he gets this boom and a bunch of smoke coming out of the receiver of his M-1 Garand. thankfully, the strong M-1 Garand holds up to the apparent overload. Next day he discovers that the barrel has come loose of the receiver. Speculation is that he never completely emptied the factory powder charge from the Federal case and loaded his own charge over the left over powder resulting in a mixed powder charge.

About four months ago I was right next to a guy shooting a brand new Weatherby Mk V in .240 Weatherby Mag. First 20 rounds went off without a hitch. There was a cease fire for target changes and then the line went hot again. I just finished a 10 round string when I heard an unusually loud boom. My first thought was "who snuck in the .50 BMG?" Came off the scope and looked to my left to see the bolt of this guy's brand new Weatherby impaled in his face.

Blood was flowing and he was stunned (obviously). Bolt was driven a good 1 1/2 inches into his face just below his eye socket. I began first aid, got the line cease fired and had someone call 911. It was surreal. Blood was pumping out with each heart beat and this guy didn't have a clue he was wearing half his gun on his face.

The gun looked like someone put a grenade in the mag well. The stock (synthetic) fractured and blew apart on either side of the mag well. The mag well itself was obliterated into a half dozen pieces. The bolt was wedged in the guys face past the thickest point on the Weatherby bolt and eventually fell out. The bolt handle was found about a half hour later some 40 feet away. The bolt face was destroyed, bolt handle broken off, and 7 of 9 lugs sheared. Surprisingly I didn't notice any barrel bulging or peeling. Barrel was clear and there was no hole in his fresh target. The only part of the brass ever found (the next day) was the face sans primer. Everything else was effectively vaporized as far as I was concerned.

Luckily, he was airlifted out and in surgery within 3 hours. No vision loss or damage to his eye. His orbital socket was fractured, jaw broken, several teeth knocked out and several frag puncture wounds on his left arm. He had a steel plate installed near his temple and under his eye and his jaw was wired shut. Surgeon stated it looked like a broken egg shell when he got inside for repair.

I don't know the exact cause as to what happened as I haven't had a chance to talk with him again since I saw him in the hospital two days after the event. I think he spent 4-5 days in the hospital. He was expected to fully recover.

Trash,

Any idea what caused that? That's pretty disturbing.