Blow Up A Gun... Experience?

[Carl N. Brown]

Most catestrophic failure I have had shooting guns for sixty years now (have owned about 90 guns):
I had the weld fail on Grendel P10 action.
o factory .380 ammo
o testing function at the range in the snow
o high serial number (after Kelgren had left the factory and QC went to slap'em together and get'em out the door)

The action has a left and right slide rail welded to a monobloc; the right side weld gave way and cracked the polymer frame.

I did have a shotgun barrel peel on me (did not check the muzzle after stumbling on wet clay soil). The action was still tight and the case head showed no stress.

FWIW, I do tend to watch for bullet impact when I shoot, I was well versed on the dangers of squib loads by my Dad. When I reload, I follow my notes or a conservative handloading manual, and tend to reload for accuracy rather than hotrod performance. Plus charge each case one at a time and visually doublecheck each group of charged casings before seating bullets. And when shooting military surplus ammo, I have learned to countdown for hangfires rather than assume duds.


BTW, you don't have to have a barrel blow up on a rifle to have a catestrophic failure: the brass cartridge fails, or the primer gets pierced, you have 40,000 to 60,000 psi venting back. That can damage the action, stock and anything in the way of the pressure leaving the barrel intact. My son's Savage 110 rifles have non-rotating wings on the bolt that block the boltway, and vent holes on either side of the front ring of the receiver to bleed gas out that way, plus a rear bolt plug designed as gas shield.

 

[tarosean]

The point is, most guns seem to be hell-for-strong.

Least the old ones.... Not so sure about the ploy guns that are posted often enough...

 

[Mobuck]

How graphic do you want to get? Short version follows.
Action= WW2 vintage P14 (well known as one of the stronger actions available) had been sporterized years ago and fired considerably with the original barrel rechambered to 308 Norma mag.
Rebarrelled to 257 Wby. and hunted with for a year.
Disintegrated while adjusting scope on my range just outside my yard. Barrel (3# of steel) landed over 20 feet in front of bench. Furthest piece(that was found anyway) was a chunk of stock over 60'. Scope snapped in half. Bolt remained in the action but was destroyed. Left side of action peeled back, broke off, and imbedded itself(4" long, 1" wide, 1/4" thick) in my throat after shattering my jaw. This chunk made contact with my carotid artery but didn't tear it. Numerous other less severe cuts and dozens of fragments around the periphery of my shooting glasses. I lost 3-4 pints of blood, was lifeflighted to the closest trauma center, and was in surgery for 5-6 hours while the Dr's removed the bone fragments, sutured the damaged neck tissue, and wired my jaw back together. Twelve weeks with jaws wired shut and another 12 before I could eat solid food. Significant nerve damage and 12" of scars on the left side of my face.
Cause undetermined but most likely related to over annealing the top of the front action ring to facilitate drilling and tapping for the scope base. Rebarrelling overstressed the area and the drilled holes concentrated the stress causing the front ring to crack through the holes. The action split down the middle like it had been cut.

 

[Certaindeaf]

Contact user Clark. He's tried to blow up more things experimentally than anyone here, probably.. or at least look up some of his contributions here. I don't think he's actually published papers and stuff though.

 

[BSA1]

Deleted.

 

[BSA1]

I have personally witnessed a few;

1. Shooter lost half of his hand that was supporting the stock of his rifle when the action blew up.

Cause; Shooter accidently loaded a case full of smokeless powder instead of black powder. It was perhaps more amazing that the action held together for the first two rounds he fired. He had plenty of high pressure warning signs from those first two rounds but went ahead and fired the third one.

2. Schofield model handgun explode at a SASS match. It was an amazing sight and I visually tracked the upper part of the cylinder as it flew through the air and landed. What was more even more amazing was I watched that piece narrowly miss the timers head as it was launched.

Cause; Double charge of smokeless powder.

3. Colt SAA clone cylinder let go while I was timing the shooter at a SASS match. I was watching the shooting and his gun as he was shooting. The cylinder cracked and bulged but the top strap held everything (thankfully for me) in one piece. I guess Colt knew what they were doing when they added the top strap.

Cause; Shooter was using illegal high power ammo loaded with jacketed bullets.

4. Interesting one. The barrel of a 1875 Remington clone split lengthwise for several inches blowing off the ejector rod housing. Shooter and witnesses were positive the previous round had exited the barrel and hit the target. (A stuck bullet would have most likely caused a bulge. The barrel split lengthwise stopping just short of the end of the barrel).

Cause; Undetermined.

5. Another interesting one. The barrel on a brand new S&W K-Frame revolver cracked and fell completely off the gun while a officer was qualifying on the range. Another revolver on the line from the same batch has the frame cracked where the barrel screwed into the frame.

Cause; Quality control? What is quality control???

 

[AK103K]

I had a DCM M1 Garand cut loose on me during the slow fire stage of a match.

I was single loading it when it slam fired/fired out of battery as the bolt went forward. Bolt blew the rear of the receiver off at the serial number and big chunk of the stock off. Bolt was jammed back into the rear end of the receiver and the rifle was toast.

All I ended up with was the palm of my hand tore open from the op rod handle, and a bunch more "crickets" in my left ear.

I was lucky it didnt cut loose during the rapid fire strings with the gun in my shoulder. Id probably got that piece of the receiver in my head. It did double on me a couple of times in those stages, and I thought it must have been me milking the trigger beings the gun was new (to me) and all. Afterwards, when the brass was recovered, there were a few cases with the necks blown out, so it must have been slamming then too, just before lockup.

 

[watergun]

20 gauge blowup

When I was younger (stupider) I hunted with a Sears 20 gauge bolt gun. When hunting rabbits one day I shot at one and blew about 6 inches off the barrel. The 6 inch part fell close to me. I had gotten mud in the barrel and didn't notice it. Carried it home and hacksawed the barrel off smooth and hunted with it many more years. It was hell on a covey rise!

 

[wally]

put his thumb behind the slide on a 22 colt challenger pistol before he shot it. The slide ripped his thumb open pretty good!

I've stopped many a first time auto shooter before they fired their first shot because of this. Its an "instinctive" grip, so its something I'm always looking for with inexperienced shooters coming to the firing line.

 

[Safetychain]

My son and I were shooting a mint condition WWII aged 1911 using reloads. Can't remember what the powder was but at the time I was loading mediocre-low loads using a powder that resulted in a 90% load density in mixed cases with lead self cast bullets. It was a published "Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, 3rd edition, 1980" (I think) load using a leftover powder I was using to load 12 g. shotshells. That's what I had at the time. The lead bullets were tested to be 18 in hardness and had been through a lubrisizer. I cannot believe that there could have been an over-charge. Son was shooting. While reloading up the four magazines, the box got knocked over and some rounds went onto the floor. We picked them up and finished loading up. About halfway through the 3rd magazine, boom. The magazine blew apart out the bottom of the grip and the barrel bulged and locked up the slide. No personal damage other than a stinging hand and that look of "what the hang just happened". Took the gun to a gunsmith to get it apart. No bullet in the barrel. Pretty sure there was definitely not a squib the previous trigger pull. We had just discussed the sound and feel of a squib during the loading session done together the night before while following all the visual checks. This was a training session. We discussed the possibility of a squib after the boom but he was sure and I was sure that there hadn't been one. The spent case was ruptured at the head. The only two possibilities I see is that either the fall from the table seated the bullet way in and created a compressed load or that we picked up somebody's previously dropped 'way over powered' reload. Being that we had used mixed cases and about half of the ejections went out onto the range floor in inaccessible territory, I couldn't count brass so, I cannot discount the possibility of picking up a discarded hot round. I'm pretty sure that we would have noticed a severe case of bullet setback but then with a very high load density, it may not have taken much movement to cause a high pressure situation except that with those shotshell powders, compressed loads appear to be common and are noted in the book. None of our brass we could pick up showed any signs of overpressure. None of the remaining shells on the table had any setback or could be pushed back by finger pressure. We used a Lee factory crimp die that kind of squeezes the brass into the bullet making setback in a lead bullet kind of remote. When back from the gunsmith, we set up a heavy piece of sch 80 6 inch diameter bronze pipe on my driveway and dropped the remainder or the cartridges several times onto the concrete and could not get any to experience any setback whatsoever, at elast no more than maybe .002 inches. I was sure that the drop is what had caused the problem. I have since shot the remainder of that loading recipe session bullets with no mishap. I feel that the possibility of picking up somebody's dropped hot load remote. This still keeps me scratching my head. It shook me but didn't bother my son who went on to shoot a box of jacketed 44 mags in a Ruger SRH. Over the years since, I have gotten a squib in the RSRH using factory loads. Ended that range session. I now carry a few wooden dowels and a few brass rods when at the distant outdoor national forest range. On discussing the squib with a gunsmith, he said he had just removed 4 bullets from a RSRH 44 mag barrel. He says that it was a case of powderless shells but that they still had pressure built up between the bullets as they were pushed out of the barrel.

 

[critter]

Wife's granddad had a 'pedestrian' mail order catalog S X S 16 ga that he accidentally plugged with snow. Made a nice 'blossom' when he fired her. Cut a few inches off the barrels and used it many years afterwards.

I had a Colt Delta Elite 10mm. Reloads using too soft lead bullets, previously pooched and resized cases and too much 'horsepower' for the above combo. Blew out the bottom of the case in the unsupported area. Blew the guts out of the magazine. No harm to the gun or to me, but it sure was exciting!

 

[BaltimoreBoy]

30 years ago a friend lost his Mark IV Series 70.

Squib load blocking the barrel followed by a regular round was the cause.

The gun actually handled the situation rather well.
Barrel was bent slightly and split for a good portion of the length.

He let it sit that way for 25 years before deeding it to me. Once I managed to get it apart, there really wasn't anything wrong with it except for the barrel. A friendly gunsmith replaced it and it has been a good shooter since.

 

[230RN]

AK103K

I was lucky it didnt cut loose during the rapid fire strings with the gun in my shoulder. Id probably got that piece of the receiver in my head. It did double on me a couple of times in those stages, and I thought it must have been me milking the trigger beings the gun was new (to me) and all. Afterwards, when the brass was recovered, there were a few cases with the necks blown out, so it must have been slamming then too, just before lockup.

M1s (both the RIfle and the Carbine) have free-floating firing pins which will dent the primer slightly while chambering since the firing pin keeps going forward when the bolt stops. You can verify this for yourself by feeding a round with the bolt being allowed to slam forward normally and then examining the primer of the unfired round. You will find a light ding on the primer. Remember that the bolt stops before it rotates into locking position and the forward clearance of the bolt lugs to the bolt lug recesses is tightly controlled in this gun --so when the bolt stops, it stops short. (This was done for reasons of headspace control.)

Normally, with proper ammunition, this is not a problem.

I wonder if it is possible that your slam fires and firing out of battery resulting in a KB were due to accidentally using large pistol primers in the cartridges, which are softer than the rifle primers. Additionally, a dirty firing pin channel can leave the firing pin stuck forward. (This happens a lot with the SKS free-floating firing pins as well, although replacement firing pins with springs are available for the SKS series.*)

Terry, 230RN

* http://www.murraysguns.com/sksown.htm

 

[Sgt_R]

My dad had an el cheapo .22 revolver disintegrate in his hand. I was standing about 10' back and to his left at the time and watched it happen.

Near as we could tell, the timing was off so bad that the round impacted the frame. Kaboom. No injuries though.

R

 

[AK103K]

Terry,

I was using DCM issued LC 69 when this happened. No reloads.

I sent the gun back to the DCM, but they never would give me an answer as to what they thought it was.

I stripped, cleaned and lubed the rifle when I got it, and everything seemed fine (it wasnt my first). While I didnt strip the bolt, I did blow it out with Gun Scrubber, and the firing pin seemed fine.

They sent back a brand new H&R as a replacement. This was back in the mid 80's, when the guns were still going for $165 and what you got was pretty rough looking, but serviceable rifles, and nothing like what you see today. My wife got a rifle at the same time, and hers was a bit rougher looking than mine, but shot fine and with no issues.

 

[230RN]

Double post. Sorry.

 

[230RN]

^
Apparently, things weren't going well in Lake City in 1969. There seems to be some controversy about this ammo. As far as I can tell without deep research, this largely depends on whether the "LC69" was re-manufactured by Talon or not, and possibly whether it was de-linked machine gun ammo or not.

Search-engine "LC69 Ammunition."

(I don't use the Gargle search engine, so your results might vary.)

However, this is getting to be a bit of a thread veer, and I'd like to hear more KB stories.

Terry

 

[AK103K]

What search engine are you using? I didnt really come up with anything on Google or Bing.

Ive shot a lot of LC69 over the years and still have some of the issue lots we got back in the 90's squirreled away. Never had any other problems with any.

Im suspecting there was something wrong with the rifle I got, and it was just one of those bad luck things.

I did make some changes in how I reload an M1, especially single loading, and how I reload ammo for them after that little incident.

No more just dropping a round in the chamber and letting the bolt go home on it. Now I use SLED.

I dont use military brass for reloads (rifle), and I'm a bit picker as to what I do when I do reload for the M1's and M1A's.

 

[Plain Old Bill]

C96 Out-of-battery

Had a Mauser C96 go off out of battery- factory ammo, so I'm thinking the breech face made contact with a case that had popped up too far. Short version- bullet hit me in the sternum after bouncing off the face of feedramp/barrel. Bruise only. The case entered my forehead at the hairline and skidded back along my skull to the back of my head. Many bits and pieces of brass dug out of my face, forearms. Eight hours in the emergency room and many, many, many stitches later, I have almost a whole case and bullet for a good luck charm.

Thank God for shooting glasses.

 

[jstein650]

WOW.. I've learned more from your experiences than I thought I would when I started this - and some grisly stuff. Glad the folks that had really bad KB's are here to write about it, though. One thing I've slowly learned over the years: being lucky enough to walk away from some bad mistakes, and some downright stupid things relatively unscathed (meaning me), sure doesn't mean very bad things can't happen.

 

[gamestalker]

Yep, I had bolt action a 22 LR kB in 1970. I have no idea what went wrong, other than bad ammo, but the bolt just came flying out of the receiver.

GS

 

[ViniferaVizslas]

Browning buck mark twice with Remington ammunition. The cases blew out the back and the slide rode up the hammer and bent the top strap. Solved by replacing the strap with a heavier scope mount and not using Remington. Just CCI and Copper plated Federals.

 

[JRH6856]

...the barrel bulged and locked up the slide. No personal damage other than a stinging hand and that look of "what the hang just happened". Took the gun to a gunsmith to get it apart. No bullet in the barrel. Pretty sure there was definitely not a squib

The bulged barrel is a certain indicator of an obstructed barrel. The exact same thing happened to me while firing double taps. In my case, I felt the squib but was already pulling the trigger for the second shot. The second bullet forced the squib bullet out of the barrel and followed it so there was no bullet in the barrel on inspections, only a bulged barrel and a jammed slide. I didn't have a ruptured case, so you may have had a hot load as well.

We had a somewhat heated discussion of this here a while back

 

[jstein650]

Some real old guns seem to have been made rather frail, but some from the 50's and later seem more than robust. I had an old Mossberg M51 that I noticed had developed an almost imperceptible bulge about 1/2 way down the barrel, and a corresponding dark ring when looking down a clean bore. Must have been a stuck bullet. I couldn't even recall doing it! Still shot great after that too. It also had the tendency to go full auto from time to time! Shots so fast you couldn't make the distinction between shots. Just a louder BANG and 2 or 3 empties would fly out. It was kinda' cool...

 

[ap55]

Banana pealed a Ithaca 37 that I cut for screw in choke.I was shooting sporting clays with winchester super X 1 1/4 oz high brass.I cut it back and now cylinder bore.It was old style and newer barrels would not fit