Here on the internet, many are the tales about rifle blowups. Some of them actually are true. Not often seen are accounts of accidents that came very close to being blowup disasters, but didn't quite get there. Here is one such event that came recently to my attention.

This story begins about a year ago when a local gunsmith completed a rifle for his Africa-bound client. The client had provided a Weatherby MkV action of Japanese manufacture. The gunsmith installed a Lilja barrel chambered for 300 Weatherby Magnum, and stocked it in a Hi-Tec synthetic stock.

While in Africa and in company with his professional hunter, client takes a poke at a Greater Kudu with his new 300 Weatherby Mag. Kudu takes off into the bush. Both client and PH believed the Kudu was hit, but poorly. For reasons unknown, PH takes client's 300 Weatherby Mag to follow up the Kudu. Client had fired one shot, leaving two rounds in the rifle. PH finds Kudu and proceeds to fire the two remaining rounds. With Kudu still on its feet, and with an empty rifle, PH digs around in his pockets, finds another cartridge and thumbs it into the rifle. Pulling the trigger of the 300 once again, PH notices nothing much unusual except Kudu was still going. (The Kudu was later found, dead, with *one* hit, far back in the lungs.)

Eventually it was determined that the cartridge the PH had found in his pockets and loaded into the rifle was a 338 Win Mag. The bolt was frozen closed and the extractor missing. Somehow the rifle was returned to the gunsmith in this condition (shipping a rifle with a closed bolt???) who got it open and pried out the cartridge case.

The photos below show what the cartridge looked like. Note the brass flow into the extractor slot and ejector hole, and the crack beginning at the edge of the primer pocket adjacent to the ejector hole. Expansion of the rim was stopped by the inside diameter of the bolt nose. The web and most of the original belt expanded into the small gap between the bolt nose and barrel recess, and a new 'belt' was formed by brass flow. The primer pocket was expanded to .243-.256", and the flashhole to .135" Headspace of the action was set back at least .010". The barrel was ringed inside just forward of the chamber, with a barely noticeable bulge and small cracks on the exterior. Both the barrel and action were scrapped.

What the pressure must have been, swaging the 338 bullet down to 308, is open to anyone's imagination, of course. But it seems remarkable that the rifle held together at all. That it did is probably due to design of the MkV breeching system, a well made action, a good barrel having a substantial contour, a good barrel installation and good brass. Absent any one of these, the world today likely might be less one PH - or at least the PH might now have a reason for his poor marksmanship.

Would anyone here care to guess what the outcome might have been had this rifle been built (as are many of this gunsmith's rifles) on a Pre-64 Winchester Model 70?

With tongue firmly in cheek, I'll say it first:

At least it wasn't a Blue Dot load!


A clear example of ignorance vs. stupidity.

quote:

Originally posted by meplat:
...Would anyone here care to guess what the outcome might have been had this rifle been built (as are many of this gunsmith's rifles) on a Pre-64 Winchester Model 70?...

Or any controlled-feed non-three ring of steel design.

It sure came close to being a Medivac though.

Thanks for the flicks.

I have a couple of photos depicting screw ups of mine at an early age while testing duplex loads. I will be willing to share if some one will post them for me. Never posted photos but will be glad to E-Mail them if someone will be so kind.

I believe one of these ranks a bit worse than the one exhibited. Not really proud. roger

Those are sobering photos! Amazing the rifle held up!

- mike

thanks Roy.

Once had to tear down Rem 760 on 30-06. It too was jammed closed and fired. When I finally got it opened up it had a fired 8MM Mauser that had flowed back into the bolt in a similar manner. Not quite as much pressure as this incident but not quite the lockup either.

i had the same thing happen with a pre 64 model 70 with a 2506 stuffed in a 264 mag chamber.gun fired killing groundhog,gas back in my face luckily i was wearing glasses.shell looked light that,had to beat bolt open.did no damage to gun.still using that gun today.

SHURE THE WEATHERBY BOLT IS WELL MADE. HERE YOU CAN SEE A PHOTO AF A BLASER R93 BOLT BLOWN UP.
PRETTY DIFFRENT,DO YOU SEE?

[IMG:left]1 Accidente en Austria [/IMG]

Here's another recent incident. This one occurred at a local range during the club's annual hunter sight-in days. Unlike the severe 338 vs. 308 mismatch above, the 'wrong cartridge' here was a 7mm Mauser fired in a 7mm Remington Mag chamber. Apparently, once was not enough. According to those present, it was gas and brass in his face on the second shot that alerted the shooter that something was not quite right. When asked why he didn't quit after the first shot, shooter said something to the effect that he thought it was just a bad cartridge.

Make of the rifle is unknown.

Unfired 7mm Mauser on the left; unfired 7mm Rem Mag on the right.

This reminds me of the following thread:

http://www.blaserpro.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1329

It seems some people don't take it too seriously which catridges are fired in which chambers... I was left shaking my head when I ran into this initially...

- mike

Actually, the only reason the first 300/338 rifle didn't blow up is because it was a MKV action. Roy Weatherby designed the action to handle enormous pressure, well beyond anything you would ever fire at the range. IIRC, he performed experiments such as the above to prove the actions strength. In one instance, he lodged a bullet in the barrel and fired a round without detonating the action or injuring the shooter. The MKV is one of, if not THE strongest rifle actions on the market. It's a very forward-thinking design from a time when high-pressure wasn't really that common!

This is about the 4th time I've heard of this particular combination happening. I don't know of any that actually managed to blow up an action.
On a slightly lighter note, this is a sure way to make all of those lugs fit at the same time!

quote:

this is a sure way to make all of those lugs fit at the same time

Pictured below is one row of lugs on the MkV bolt from the above rifle. Note the metal upset on two of the three lugs. I counted at least four lugs with very obvious upset on the locking faces, and and there was maybe a fifth. And, yes, it appeared all lugs were bearing... for the final shot, at least.

quote:

Originally posted by meplat:
... a 7mm Mauser fired in a 7mm Remington Mag chamber. ...Make of the rifle is unknown. ...

Hey Meplat, I'll "guess" it was a "Controlled Feed of some sort that managed to get hold of a piece of the Extractor Groove.

The reason I believe that, is because I had a guy ask me "WHY???" his 7mm wouldn't fire a good number of years ago. He was at the far Right of the Benches and I was on the far Left. He was with another fellow and I walked down to discover he had 7mmMauser ammo for a 7mmMag rifle.

I asked him why he had the WRONG ammo and he said that was what the guy at K-Mart sold him. Proceeding a bit deeper into the problem, he had told the guy he just needed 7mm Cartridges. The K-Mart employee told him he needed to know which kind of 7mm cartridges and this fellow told him he didn't realize there was more than one kind. The K-Mart guy told him the 7mmMauser was designed for an older rifle and didn't shoot as "hard as" a 7mmRemMag. "OK, it does kick pretty hard, so just give me the stuff with less recoil!"

This guy had a Controlled Feed something(not a Remington) and apparently the Ejector pushed the Cartridge far enough forward that the Firing Pin could not reach the Primer.

As luck would have it, I had some 7mmRemMag Cartridges with me and showed him what he needed. He once again mentioned the rifle Kicked a lot with the BIG Cartridges. I'm not real sure he ever understood, but he and his buddy finally left and I never saw them again.

quote:

I'll "guess" it was a "Controlled Feed of some sort that managed to get hold of a piece of the Extractor Groove.

My guess too, but really don't know.

This sort of thing is not limited to rifles... I was over at an indoor pistol range not long ago and found there on the floor a goofy-looking fired case. It turned out to be a 380ACP that had been fired in a 40 S&W chamber! Somehow it had been loaded and held up under the extractor of a 40 S&W pistol. No splits or other evidence of 'failure'. Just a case mouth belled up to 40. I've got it around here somewhere and will post pics if found and time permits.

TALKING ABOUT BLASER RIFLES, YOU CAN SEE PHOTOS OF A BLOWN UP BOLT IN THIS:
http://www.deportiro.com/armaslargas/bl10.shtml

NOTE THAT ONE THING IS A WRONGLY RELOADING AMMO GOING VERY HIGH PRESSURE, BUT ANOTHER THING IS YOUR RIFLE EXPLOTING ON YOUR FACE!!

SHURELY THE GUN MAKER CAN SAY THERE`S NO CONTROL OVER AMMO, BUT WHO CAN EXPLAIN A WEAK MATERIAL -SPACE AGE- BOLT?

IN THIS WEB PAGE YOU CAN SEE PHOTOS OF THE WOUNDED SHOOTERS, BY LINK.

SHURELY WEATHERBY IS STRONG, SO STRONG IS THAT THE MULTIPLE LOCKS ARE THE COPY OF A CANNON SYSTEM.

BY THE WAY, MAUSER MILITARY BOLTS ARE TESTED AT 110.000 POUNDS OF PRESSURE........

Jabali, this seems to be your pet theme. After all, it is the second post you made on this one subject within a matter of 2 days. Nobody reacted to your initial post, that seems to have inspired you for a repeat performance.

I'm not going to argue with you about the strengths or weaknesses of the Blaser R93 system. There have been countless threads covering that issue within the last couple of years. As far as I can see, the evidence in its totality (including the set of destructive tests done by the Swedish military of late) is inconclusive - is the Blaser more or less safe than other constructions?

Posting pictures of blown-up actions hardly qualifies as evidence one way or the other. If yes, the following pictures could also be used as conclusive evidence of the lack of safety of widely used firearms types:





- mike

P.S. Why don't you turn off the Caps-Lock when you post. Posting in upper case letter makes it sound like you are shouting.

I dunno.... maybe it's me (and I really shouldn't be surprised) but I find it hard to believe that there are folks out there who knowingly do these kinds of things.

I was taught at a very young age to never, ever mix different cartridges. It's one thing to make a mistake. We're all human. But to knowingly put a 9.3x62 into a 9.3x64 rifle is just insane.

MHO
Here's another Contender "failure" for your collection. The barrel was chambered for the 375 Win round, however the guy doing the reloading used 375 JDJ data for this batch of ammo (how he got all the powder into the 375 Win case is the question I want answered)

quote:

What the pressure must have been, swaging the 338 bullet down to 308, is open to anyone's imagination, of course. But it seems remarkable that the rifle held together at all. That it did is probably due to design of the MkV breeching system, a well made action,

Swaging a .338" projectile down to go thru a .308" bore couldn't be any worse than swaging a .308" bullet down to go thru a 6.5mm bore. Such an incident happened back in the 1950's when a fellow rechambered his 6.5mm Arisaka to .30/'06 without the prerequisite reboring of the barrel for the bigger slugs. The gun seemed to function OK with no illeffects. This incident was reported in the American Rifleman at the time.

Later on, P.O. Ackley offered some rather generous reward to anyone who could prove that any gun had been damaged by shooting oversize bullets, provided that the chamber throat of the subject weapon was large enough to permit the cartridge case to freely release the bullet!As far as I know, no-one ever did it! In this incident, I would suspect that it was the .338 Win. case mouth being jammed up into a smaller size chamber neck that caused the sticky bolt, rather than the .338" bullet having to be swaged down to fit the .308" bore....... (overlap of .002", if both cases were max.: 2.500" for the .338, 2.498" for the .300 W.M. neck....) JUST enough to cause this to happen. The photo of the case in question supports this idea. (BOY!! That Sako brass is GOOD STUFF!! It kept this incident from being a lot worse!))

Hey Mho! Im no shouting, only saying that I,m never, ever, saw a MAUSER bolt blown up!!

Yes, you can blown a barrel, but brake a bolt is a big issue. I don`t care about Blaser, and I`m not tying to convince anybody, but if you show me the same pictures with Sakos, o TC, I will take in to consideration.

Try to find photos of MAUSERS BOLTS BLOWN APART!! GOOD LUCK!!

There was a report in a Swedish magazine 5-6years ago about a gunsmith who tested a clients rigle, it was a Weatherby Mark V chambered for 270Wea. and he fiered a 7mmRem in it. This teared of all 9 lugs, and blew the bolt out trou his check, and into his shoulder. So Mark V actions insn always so strong.

According CRF rifles our tests indicatet that with standart brass6,5x55 and hot loads, both M96 and M98 had total failures at estimated 75000 psi, while several PF actions handled more than 110000 psi, and one handled over 140000 psi before blowing up.

The reason that the CRF rifles gave up way before the PF was mainly because the lack of support of the casehead, resulting in casehead failure, resulting in a shortterm increased preasurearea om the boltface, resulting in major lugsetback and the reciver beeing riped apart near the thumbcut, when the 3 lug started engaging.
All this at a preasure where a PF action didnt ewen show heavy boltlift

that is contradictory to Ackley's findings half a century ago. He took an Enfield and fit a 270 caliber barrel to it. He then chambered it in 35 Whelen and fired 250 (?)gr loads in it. Several of them, in fact. In a properly designed and vented action firing a 7x57 in a 7mag chamber should not be an issue. A little gas out the ports/vents is about it. There is too much space for the case to expand and then rupture ahead of the web. Many years ago I bought a P17 Remington that was supposed to be an '06. I loaded some cast 200gr bullets to about 1800fps and headed to the range. Gun would not fire. I went back to the house and pulled the bullets, then reseated them to a slight crush fit, then back to the range. I held the rifle at arms length with the bolt facing down and fired the first shot. Gas everywhere, the bolt opened a bit stiff, but ok. The '06 case split from ahead of the web to nearly the shoulder. I took the fired case and the rifle back to the shop I got it from, and the owner liked to of S--T! A chamber cast showed it to be a 308 Norma Mag. IIRC, Speer did a lot of research into this in the late 1970's and published the data in a reloading manual.

Rich
DRSS
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...