Stopped by a local shop the other day and saw what was left of a Remington Model 742 in .30-06. The action was pried open at the bottom, the magazine looked like a smashed pop can, the forend was gone, several lugs had sheared off the bolt, and the breech was coned -- and lined with case remains.
Shooter had to have surgery to remove metal fragments from his arm.
His story was that he ran out of his favorite powder, and replaced the load with 50 grains of 2400, another "rifle powder," under a 150-grain jacketed bullet.
Does anyone have software that would tell us roughly how many pounds of pressure the load had? The gun shop owner said his guess was that the load was well over 100,000 CUP!

quickload predicts 117,000 psi---BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT HE would have gotten about 3264 fps. Actually the good news is if no one got hurt --AND maybe it was time for a new gun before hunting season???

Yet another experiment in the process of Natural Selection. Looks like this one slipped through; just hope he doesn�t breed.

Don, just pray that he decides to give up shooting. Otherwise, he might turn up in the woods close to you. And by the way, you look a lot like a deer.

Education is a dangerous process. Some live through it; some don't.

This reminds me of a joke:

What's the last thing a redneck says?

"Hey Ya'll, watch this...."

[This message has been edited by Zero Drift (edited 11-01-2001).]

The late great Jerry Clower once quipped something along the lines of:

"Stupid people should have to carry signs that explain to the rest of the world just what the hell is wrong with them..."

"I'm gonna jump off this bridge."

"Hold my sign?"

And accordingly:

"I substituted for my normal powder."

"Hold my sign?"

Jerry Clower was great...
"That food is so good, if you put some on your forehead.....Your tongue would beat your brains out trying to git it!"

This fellow reminds me of what reloading and karate have in common..." a little bit of knowledge is dangerous".

Sounds like a guy who would need 2 helpers to screw in a light bulb.

D--n shame he didn't have a container of BullsEye - he might have gotten 4000fps!
Regards,

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'Trapper'

A friend of mine had a similar occurrance. He's an older fella and been smithing and reloading since the 50's. Well ha pulls down a can of H414 to load some 30-06. Then assembles about 40 and steps out to fire one. He says the last thing he saw was a bright light. When he recoveres his sinces he's holding a piece of wood in both hands. The barrel is laying about 20 feet out in front. The scope and mount still attached is bent double and laying about 30 feet to the rear. The bolt is laying between his feet and scattered all around is pieces of action, magazine, trigger. He was unhurt except for splinters and such. Hearing came back in about 2 hours.

The rifle was an A3-03. Barrel was unhurt and now is on another rifle. After close examination of the remaining loaded rounds he discovers the problem. With his over confidence that he new all of the pitfalls of reloading, he pulled a can of H110 instead of H414. And didn't double check the writing on the can.

His cans now wear BIG LETTERS that show whathey are instead of the factory sizes.

Lesson here? Double check everything. Take nothing for granted.

Ray

I needed a "blown up" gun for a school seminar I was going to do, so I took a 7.65x53 M 91 Mauser and filled the case with Bullseye.

Tied the gun to a Truck Tire,and pulled the trigger via a string tied to the trigger as I hid behind the shed 50 feet away.

When it WENT OFF, the gun flew 50 ft in the air, and looked like it was cut in half with a cutting torch.

If a guy would have been holding that when it fired, kiss him good bye.

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May I be half the man my dog thinks I am.

Had a couple of these things come back to the gunshop , years ago:

1. "I want some pistol power for my 45" Clerk sold him bullseye, pistol was an original Colt cap and ball! Took off the top of the cylinder and split 4' of the barrel. 30 grains of bullseye will do that!

2. Reloading the old original all plastic shotshells. Not the clear ones but, the ones made for the clay bird outfit. Alcan maybe? Anyway they were real soft, the Remington wad apparently flaired out the gas seal into the case wall. Stuck real tight. Opened up the M-1100 like a soup can with a cherry bomb in it. Said right on the box, "do not reload"

3. Worst one, Winchester M-100. The "Gunsmith" , (Not our gunsmith) a local hack though, ramped the hell out of the chamber, as if it were a 45 pistol. The case let go at the solid head. That one really blew the crap out of things. Hurt the shooter pretty bad too. No fault of the shooter here.

4. Tried to blow up an Ariska, on purpose. Not so easy a task! A case full of bullseye will wreck thinks pretty well though. It took the loads 2400 fine though.

I read somewhere that a long time ago Ruger conducted a remote "test" of a #1 rifle in .458 Win. Mag. by tapping a 500 gr. FMJ into the lands, and then loading a case full of Bullseye behind it. The gun did not blow up, but the action was literally welded shut, and the forearm splintered into several pieces. Bill T.

an older gentleman at our range had a Smith and wesson 1500 in .222. fired 5 overloads (flattened primer flattened primer, pierced primer, pierced primer, then ka-blamm) before the case head let go. blew the pieces out of the bolt through the extractor into raceway where they couldn't open the bolt. once they pulled the barrel the pieces fell out. he was about 2-3 grains over.

Sometime ago a match rifle shot tried his hand at reloading. He made up some loads with norma 201 (5.56) and having finished the can went to the local shop and asked for a can of Norma powder. The new kid behind the counter asked which type, the bloke didn't have his book with him but it was 'Norma and had a 1 in it'

He duly loaded a batch and went of to the next match. At the first sighter there was an explosion and he was rushed off the firing point by ambulance. Luckily it was a mauser style action so the bolt stayed where it was.

Examination of the can showed that he had bought Norma R1 the fastest of them all. (on a numeric scale R1 is 1 and Bullseye is 3!)

In the subsequent legal action the proof house was called on to test the load. They assembled the load, put it in a test bed which is enclosed in a 'hut' On firing the 'hut' was totaly destroyed. They thought it might have been a freak so replicated the test and destroyed another hut.

At a "mixed" match (civilian/military) at Ft. Meade, MD, in 1956, the rules were that only military rifles and military ammunition were to be used. One old gent plops down on the 600 yard firing line with an '03 Springfield. About the fifth shot the bottom blew out of the rifle. Other than a few splinters, only the old gent's ego was hurt.

Turns out he was using 1934 M1 172 gr. GI ball ammo. which, unbeknownst to him, had a habit of separating-out the nitro.

Good shooting.

Robert

Read Ackley's book where he was testing military actions.50gg of 2400 was what it took to blow up a #1 mk 3 Lee Enfield .You would think the Rem 788 would be stronger than that.

Rich

Enfields forever

Don
The Enfield was chambered in 30-40 crag what does quickload estimate for that one.

Rich