AR Blowup Question

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627PCFan

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I found this competition video. At the 30 second mark the gun blows up and it looks like he tries to reload a fresh mag. My question is (best or worse case) could the damaged gun fire with the fresh mag inserted after the blowup. It does go click but is it possible with the AR system?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhgyJMhQFbA
 
could the damaged gun fire with the fresh mag inserted after the blowup
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Obviously not in this case.

More to the point, this fellow is an idiot. If your rifle chambers a round and the hammer drops, but it fails to fire, you need to figure out why. Drop mag, lock the bolt open and look down the barrel for obstructions. He was not in combat, he has no excuse for doing what he did. He is very lucky that his carelessness/hubris didn't cost him body parts.
 
More to the point, this fellow is an idiot.
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Sad, but true. He did his best to maim himself there. The initial malfunction should have been a clear indicator of a problem, and the KB forcibly ejecting the magazine indicates AT LEAST that the bolt head lost some lugs.

As an idiot myself, I took a shot with my AR after it lost two lugs off the bolthead. Similar to this guy, i was moving, and when the gun failed to eject properly i cleared it, chambered it, and shot it. It failed to eject again, and it dawned on me that there was a major problem... but there was no crazy blast out the mag well!
 
Yep. Squib load. Should have asked for an alibi, or just forfeit the stage. His hand was just before the magwell, I think he is lucky to have all of his digits.

I know while I was watching the video I was screaming (like an idiot) "Don't do it! Don't do it!"


And he did it...
 
There is a similar video on youtube with the same end result. If it goes click 3x in a row something is wrong.
 
Yep. Squib load. Should have asked for an alibi, or just forfeit the stage. His hand was just before the magwell, I think he is lucky to have all of his digits.
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No alibis in 3 gun. That said, it's better to walk off of a stage, no matter what level the match, than to have a gun fail catastrophically.

I found this competition video. At the 30 second mark the gun blows up and it looks like he tries to reload a fresh mag. My question is (best or worse case) could the damaged gun fire with the fresh mag inserted after the blowup. It does go click but is it possible with the AR system?
Click to expand...

No, the gun likely wouldn't be able to fire. Frankly, I'm surprised he was able to apparently cycle the action after the detonation.

The damage probably looked like this:

1.) A split along the top of the upper receiver (you can see in the super-slow motion version that the gun blows gas out of the right side of the rifle.)

2.) Severe damage to the bolt and possibly bolt carrier from the gasses blowing out of the bottom of the rifle.

3.) That mag is trashed.

4.) Minor powder burns on the right side of the shooter's face. (This is why we wear eye protection.)

Repairs would likely require a new upper, a bolt and bolt carrier, and a new barrel.


As for the actions leading up to the detonation, I can almost guarantee you that if you were to pick up one of the rounds he cycled through the gun that you'd find the bullets pushed back into the case neck. He just happened to finally get one to push the bullet far enough back into the case that it chambered enough to allow the hammer to drop and...well...KABOOM.
 
I don't know if that was a "real" squib. That last round fired sounded quite normal and I didn't hear even a whisper of a pop after that - heard the hammer drop, but no pop.

I'm betting that round he ejected had a bad primer (or a soft primer strike which didn't cause ignition). When he extracted it, the bullet was pulled from the casing and remained on the lands. I've seen that a couple of times on weak crimps, especially if you're using rounds that don't have a cannelure. (My Yugo M76 8mm did that to me once, after that I changed my reloading process to include a heavy crimp on those rounds).

It would take manually cycling a few rounds before the bullet is shoved far enough up to fully chamber a round. He cycled 3 rounds, obviously wasn't getting a good chamber because you can see him hammering on the forward assist after the third failed to fire out of battery.

Then he chambered a 4th, you can tell it "STUCK" on SOMETHING because he had to really yank the handle to get it to extract.

Chamber the 5th round, that initial one left in the barrel has now been hammered home far enough to get a full chamber.

NOW you have a barrel obstruction.

And a weapon that no longer refuses to fire out of battery.

Boom.
 
(If it was a true squib, it's highly likely the NEXT round would have chambered and went boom because the bullet would have been pushed out of the casing a ways.)
 
Trent said:
I don't know if that was a "real" squib. That last round fired sounded quite normal and I didn't hear even a whisper of a pop after that - heard the hammer drop, but no pop.
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Thank you for this explanation... I was going to interject asking someone to explain what happened since, as I saw it, there was no sound other than a 'click' on the supposed squib.

Your explanation makes sense, and I thank you.
 
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