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| One of Us |
Let me begin by saying I am not a Blaser hater. In fact I am seriously considering getting a couple. First a standard in 6.5x55, .270, and maybe 30-06 and later a Safari or Selous in 375 or .416. We all “know” that for years U.S. 7x57 and 8x57 ammo has been underloaded because of fear of some “weak” early military actions. In the case of the 1888 Commission rifle, particularly those rechambered for the “S” ammo while leaving the “J” bore unmodified, that is probably fair. In the case of the early 7x57’s like the 1892 & 1893 Mausers this is just not true. They are probably just as strong and can handle just a much of an overload as a ’98 Mauser provided the cartridge case head remains intact and contains the high pressure gas. These early Mausers have seriously hurt some shooters when they were fired with fairly mild pressure loads but defective brass. You see, the volume of the locking lug area of any turnbolt is large enough that, if pressurized, it will fail in a very spectacular manner. The ’98 Mauser, M70 Winchester, etc, quickly and efficiently vent the gas pressure from a case head failure before it can build up in the locking lug chamber of the receiver ring and blow it apart. The same is not true of the earlier Mausers and, from accident descriptions, I suspect that the Blaser R93 has the same problem. A Blaser R93 is probably considerably stronger than a Mauser ’98 or a Winchester M70 and can stand much more of an overload provided the case head remains intact and keeps the gas contained. But evidently it cannot vent the gas from a failed case head fast enough to prevent a build up of catastrophic pressure in the locking lug recess. The Blaser R93 doesn’t need to be strengthened, it only needs improved gas handling to make it much safer for the shooter in the case of a catastrophic cartridge case failure regardless of the chamber pressure involved. Brazos Jack (quickly donning flameproof suit) | ||
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The strength and gas handling of the R93 is not an issue worth discussing. It is only discussed to the point of boredom by its haters. | |||
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You are mistaken. Blaser R93s have two gas relief ports, one of which is located on each side of the locking recess just aft of the chamber. Each of these ports is 0.15" in diameter, making for a total port area of approximately 0.21 square inch. That is comparable to that provided by the Model 70 and the Mauser '98, and more than ample in any case. The nemesis of the Blaser R93 is the same as that of many other well-made rifles that have been made to blow up: grievous operator error. In particular, in the cases of which I am aware, inept handloading has been the culprit. No matter how fast and efficient the gas handling abilities of any action, use of an improper nitro powder can and will blow one up in a jiffy. Handloading is not for the careless. Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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There was a test with various rifles to the point of failure within the last year or two. If I remember correctly, the rifles were fired with occluded bores. Several well known brands and a Blaser R 93 were tried and the Blaser handled the overload much better than several well known brands of bolt action rifles. Perhaps someone here remembers the link to the videos. | |||
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Wanna show us that math ...???  | |||
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I'm sure it was an innocent error. Actual equivalent port size is approx. .21" (square root of sum of squares). This would seem adequate provided it is the most restrictive point in the potential gas escape path. Having never gotten to handle one or examine one closely, I cannot comment on whether this is the case. It's just that the details of the known accidents match a gas pressure failure of a receiver ring lug recess rather than a strength related failure from chamber pressure. However, as I said in my original post, this rifle seems to fill a real gap and I believe 2 R93's and a K95, each with appropriate barrels, will be the backbone of my future hunting battery. In a world of ever tightening airline baggage restrictions and smaller car trunks my retirement hunting opportunities will often be dictated by how compact a kit I can have. Brazos Jack | |||
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+1  Ron is right. Ron was the guy who sold me my first Blaser rifle a year or two ago. It is a superb rig and I don't have any concerns at all about it's strength. The only "problem" with the Blaser is that they are perfect right out of the box. You don't have to screw with the trigger or bed the action and they are almost boringly accurate. Ron, I owe ya man.Dave Dave DRSS Chapuis 9.3X74 Chapuis "Jungle" .375 FL Krieghoff 500/.416 NE Krieghoff 500 NE "Git as close as y can laddie an then git ten yards closer" "If the biggest, baddest animals on the planet are on the menu, and you'd rather pay a taxidermist than a mortician, consider the 500 NE as the last word in life insurance." Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading (8th Edition). | |||
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The only hesitation I have (besides price) isn't related to safety - it's the dreaded "click" of a bang you expected to happen, but didn't. If the bolt isn't quite far enough forward, the rifle won't fire - that's plenty safe to my thinking, but frustrating when i want it to go "bang." Here's my concern. Imagine I'm carrying an R93 through the brush with a cartridge in the chamber - perfectly safe, since the action is uncocked - and I drag the bolt handle against a limb, moving it imperceptibly to the rear. Then, when I prepare to shoot, I cock the rifle by pushing its safety forward, and squeeze off a round. Or, at least, so I hope. If the limb moved the bolt far enough back, the cartridge will fail to fire - "click." I suppose I could check the bolt forward and cock the rifle, but now we're getting into the area of "more trouble than it's worth." I might as well carry an empty standard bolt action and load on game sighting... | |||
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Jaywalker: What you describe can't happen if you closed the bolt correctly in the first place and you are carrying your rifle on safe. You can't move the bolt rearward when the rifle is on safe. Dave Dave DRSS Chapuis 9.3X74 Chapuis "Jungle" .375 FL Krieghoff 500/.416 NE Krieghoff 500 NE "Git as close as y can laddie an then git ten yards closer" "If the biggest, baddest animals on the planet are on the menu, and you'd rather pay a taxidermist than a mortician, consider the 500 NE as the last word in life insurance." Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading (8th Edition). | |||
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Brazos Jack That would make an excellent hunting rifle battery. Over the years I have either owned or shot most every kind of bolt rifle made. The Blaser R 93 is my favorite by far. DOUBLE RIFLE SHOOTERS SOCIETY | |||
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The R93 is plenty strong enough to handle my special 9.3X62 scrawny coyote loads.  But they are a very boring rifle to shoot.  | |||
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You are correct. Apologies for the error. I have edited my post to correct it. As a functional matter, apart from the size of the ports, the internal mechanism seems to me to permit the flow of escaping gas without undue restriction. Ron - Nice group! Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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I guess the test you refer to was the swedish test, where they as a final "strengthtest" hammered a bullet 4" down the rifeling, and then loaded and fiered another round. This test will never show anything about the strength of the action, as the powder is almost 90% converted into gass when the bullet reach the 4" distance. According to similat tests we has performed, you barely gets a flat primer in this senario. The real result of this test primarely showed the quality of the barrelsteel. During the tests we performed, we made a total bloking of the barrel, by a threaded in allenskrew into the muzzle of the barrel,, and placed a steelrod in front of it. Then fiered up to 5 rds in the same barrel, the only sound you heard vas a clik, followed by a long hizzzzzzzzzz, when the gas slowly leaked the barrel. After 5 rd in a varmintbarrel, it finaly bulged out, and made a crack of .4" in length. When we performed the same test on a stainless barrel, it peeled like a banana. I dont have the energy to realy go into a debate about the strength of a Blaser, but the facts is that there has been multiple incidents with this action, where the shooters has gotten major parts of ther face blown away. 1 with a compositehousing and high presure load 1 with a compositehousing, and acording to the norwegian police, no sighn of high presure, but ther was a defective casehead. 1 with the aluhousing and high presure loads. Some atleast, where info is dificult to find, as there has ben made out of court settlements, forcing the injuried not to give info, against a reasonable financial compensation. About the gassvent system, there was only 1 tiny gasvent hole on the first many barrels, this tiny hole was 50% blocked by the bolthead. And as the bolthead fits tightly into a tube infront of the locking devide, The bolthead react like a bullet, if the lockingdevice fails. It could be interesting to calculate energy and velocity of a 3/4" bullet fiered out of a 1"barrel with a presure of more than 5000bar | |||
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That is really cool that there are only three blown up R93s in the whole world. Three of my neibors have blown up 700 Remingtons in the last two years, all due to high pressure loads. That must mean that the R93s safety record is better than a 700 Remington. Especially since all three of these guys knew each other. Must also mean that no rifle is strong enough to withstand somebody doing something stupid. | |||
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Guys, I need some help here. I have trouble squaring the above account with other accounts like a recent one where someone left his bore sighting "spud" in the barrel. Pictures were posted. In addition, in another forum on this board someone posted an account of blowing up his Weatherby with a load of Blue Dot. Why are we having all this trouble when even when the barrel is plugged we can fire up to 5 rounds without any harm to the shooter? Sorry to be so dense. BTW Ron, don't take any reloading advice from your friends! Peter. Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong; | |||
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Dave Bush, PM sent. | |||
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Hi Peter It is not that strange. The banana split from leaving a boresighter in the barrel muzzle, is not caused by high gaspresure, but by the expantion of the bullet hitting the boresighterrod. The bananasplit is more a sighn of a rather brittle steelquality, this brittlenes is mostly seen in SS barrels, and also some coldhammered CrMo barrels. If one uses more tough steel with bigger radial strength you only gets a bulge, as a snake who has eaten a mouse. To understand the Wea blow up, you has to understand the nature of burning powder inside a veapon. Mainly most powders produces the same volume of gass pr wheight unit. The differens is how fast the powder is transformed from solid to gas. This process is by slowburning types 95% completed when the bullet has traveled from 4" to 8", and by the fastest types, 95% is completed after 1"-3". After that point pracktikaly no more gas is prodused, therefor the rest is the efect of hot compressed air. Thats why you can stop a bullet inside the barrel after more than 95% combustion, without having high presure on the action. What the weatherby expierenced was a mutch faster gasproduction, than the expansion of the volume behind the bullet. This caused the high presure | |||
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Nobody knows how many R93 has blown up, but those 3 incidens is well described, because of the sever damages to the shooters face, resulting in extensive scull and plastic surgury. How many of the blown up rifles of other brands has resulted in the same near death expierinces. There is no doubth that any rifle can blow up when overloaded. The diference is how badly the shooter is hurt | |||
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JA: Here is my suggestion. If you are afraid of the R93 you should buy something else. I don't know what you guys are doing overthere but here in the USA we are shooting them without any problem but then again, we usually don't leave an obstruction in the barrel when we shoot them! Good luck with you Husky. You Blaser haters just gotta let this go. Dave Dave DRSS Chapuis 9.3X74 Chapuis "Jungle" .375 FL Krieghoff 500/.416 NE Krieghoff 500 NE "Git as close as y can laddie an then git ten yards closer" "If the biggest, baddest animals on the planet are on the menu, and you'd rather pay a taxidermist than a mortician, consider the 500 NE as the last word in life insurance." Hornady Handbook of Cartridge Reloading (8th Edition). | |||
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I guess if you blow up a Blaser with an overloaded round it is OK to sue. It is nice to know that those guys were awarded for their stupidity. Two of the guys I know have perminant eye damage and the other one lost a finger. They never evan considered sueing Remington. I guess their moral standards were higher than that of the three Blaser owners that settled out of court.(Must not of had much of a case if they settled out of court) | |||
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This sounds more and more like lack of ability to handle the gas volume in the locking recess AFTER a case head containment failure - whether or not higher than normal pressure was involved. It also sounds like compared to early barrels Blaser now has at least twice the gas escape vent area (two 0.15" vents versus "1 tiny gasvent hole ... 50% blocked by the bolthead". If the gas is vented efficiently, an overload may still wreck the rifle, but it won't launch the bolt back into the shooter's face. That can only happen if gas pressure balloons the locking recess enough to release the bolt. It would be interesting to know if there were any failures resulting in serious injuries with newer barrels made since Blaser increased the gas vents or if all had occured only in the early barrels with inadequate vent area. Brazos Jack | |||
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First i ame sorry for your friends, that they got injuried. It was not the 3 mentioned blaserinjuried who made out of court setlements, it is others. In Europa there is no tradition for the courtsystem to judge for those werry large compensations, as heard of from US. That might well be the reason for accepting an out of court settlement. Because now you have 2 winners. A person getting beter compensated than he could expect from a court settlement?. Also a company who dont get any dokumentable cases. Therby allowing them to clame that nothing happened | |||
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As a result of the failures Jorgen has cited and extensive testing to determine the cause of the problem, Blaser recalled and replaced all R93 composite bolt housings years ago. Aluminum is now used in place of the composite. As far as I know, and I do have a couple of fairly early barrels, all R93 barrels have always had two gas ports. Mike Wilderness is my cathedral, and hunting is my prayer. | |||
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Hello! I'm not sure if I have posted here before. In case I didn´t I say hello to everybody....In case I did I'm glad to say hello again and that I like to be here with so many knowledgeable people. I have learned a lot with your post. Thank you very much. I was reading your very interesting writings for many month now and decided to post this information here because I believe the security of many could be at stake and people should know and be informed no matter what... In the morning of the July 24th a Blaser R93 rifle exploded on his owner's face injuring him very seriously.It is said that he lost his vision. The rifle was brand new and his owner was shooting his very first's for sighting in. The caliber was the 7mm.Rem.Mag. and the ammunition was factory loaded Remington Premier with 160 grains Swift A-Frame bullet. This unfortunate accident happened at the Canto Blanco shooting ground near Madrid. As usually some people is trying to put the blame on the ammunition...but no reloaded ammo was used this time and the shooter was a very experienced person with the handling and using of many firearms. I put a thread about it on one of Spanish's firearm forum. That thread was deleted. I posted it again and protested such dictatorial behavior resulting in my expulsion from the forum and the delection of the entire thread. I was told that it seems that the forum belongs or it is related somehow to the Spanish Blaser importer or one of the main seller...I don't know for sure.... I thought that Blaser R93 problems were a thing of the past...it seems not. Best regards. Mannlicher7. | |||
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Mannlicher7,Have you got any sort of written report concerning the accident from the authorities that you could post? Thanks Ron | |||
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The authorities usually do not make statement or report on ANY accident unless they are big and really serious... Does the US. authorities issue a report or statement on all the traffic accident? I don´t think so,but if one is released be sure I'm going to post it here. This is the link to one newspaper reporting it: http://www.larazon.es/noticia/...-su-rifle-en-la-cara and here you can read the testimony of one of the witnesses and see a photograph of the injured man.It was taken with a mobile phone: www.saxtech.eu/Waffen/Blaser-R93.htm It is almost at the bottom of the page and if you further scroll down you will find a photograph of someone's foot that has a hole in it. This gentleman thought that the R93 safety was foolproof. The legend is written in German so I couldn´t understand it very well but with the online translator you could get the meaning. Regards. Mannlicher7. | |||
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If there is an official report ever made,please post it. Until then all speculation is nothing but heresay. Thanks Ron | |||
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Speculation!!? What do you mean by speculation? We read the report from the person who went with the injured to the shooting ground in order to sight-in the rifle. The ammunition was Remington's factory loaded. At the FOURTH shot the rifle exploded with a loud bang gravely injuring the owner. The shrapnell that came from the rifle slightly wounded two other people. The bolt after hitting the shooter's face flew several meters hitting a wall..... These are the facts....I can´t see any speculation here....I´m not trying to tell why happened ...just that has happened. Regards. Mannlicher7. | |||
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Well, I can't read Spanish or German, but if there are newspaper reports, then it is beyond speculation. Speculation would result from trying to determine the cause of the explosion and the resulting damage. I don't think that M7 is doing that. Incidentally I own an R93 with 3 magnum barrels! Peter. Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong; | |||
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Mannlicher7, you have allready decided the Blaser was guilty, but until I see an official report I will not and I can not do the same. Newspapers are only interested in selling newspapers, the actual truth takes a much lower priority. I do not mean to offend but I question your motives here. Ron | |||
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I read both spanish and german, and I still think the Madrid report is largely speculation. There are no details, no independent verification, simply a report of an accident by a non-specialist. I would have loved to have read that someone had actually examined the fired case and made sure it was the right caliber. On the german article, well, that stuff has been studied ad nauseum, and it still seems the key learning is that you can't engineer out stupidity. | |||
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G and L can you post a translation of the Spanish article if it isn't too much work? Thanks, Peter. Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong; | |||
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I am the OP. Since beginning this thread, I have ordered an R93 and several barrels that will be the backbone of my retirement hunting battery. I plan to order a second stock/reciever so that I can have 2 complete rifles (100% redundancy) on any out of state hunts. So I'm no R93 hater. Without getting into finger pointing, exactly what calibers have been involved in R93 acidents? Those I'm aware of have all been belted magnums or other ultra high capacity cartridges with bores of 7mm or less. Regardless of fault, has there ever been a complete bolt failure with serious injury like this in a non-magnum R93? Have any been in bore sizes of .30 cal or greater, even if it was a magnum? Brazos_Jack | |||
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I don't read spanish or german, but I looked at the photos. Most of those photos have been circulating around the internet for a few YEARS. I call BS on all of Mannlicher7's comments.  I have owned Blaser R-93's for 5 years and have fired literally thousands of rounds shooting both reloads and factory ammo, and I have never had a seconds trouble with them. I also own T/C Encores and have never had any trouble with them either, but here is a photo of a blown up Encore. If someone wants to blow up a gun and tries hard enough, it can be done.  | |||
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Now aint that just the truth!  | |||
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Sullivan: You can hide your head under the sand for as long as you want. Is up to you.... But please don´t call me a lyer because I'm not. And talking about bullshit....please follow the market trend on several brand...specially yours. Mannlicher7. | |||
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Very few if any factory rifles blow up, even rifles that are over 100 years old, unless overpressure loads are shot in them. This is caused by shooting the wrong cartridge in the gun, such as a 270 Win, in a 270 Weatherby, or by reloading with the wrong powder. Bore stoppages can also cause a problem. Again these problem are operator error. A sporterized Mauser worries me a lot more than a Blaser R 93. DOUBLE RIFLE SHOOTERS SOCIETY | |||
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Well I can't read Spanish, and it looks like the German website has a lot of old stuff plus a brief account of this latest incident. Unless Mannlicher7 produces additional information I am afraid I am going to call this BS as well. Even allowing for differences in US and European outlooks and law, I find it hard to believe that someone in the EU cannot hold accountable a firearms manufacturer who MAY be liable for a defective product. Don't they have firearms or sporting magazines in Spain? Don't they investigate this stuff? I really wonder about someone who has a total of six posts posting something like this on AR! Peter. Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright, that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless and do no wrong; | |||
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What in the world are you talking about? It appears to me that the market trend is moving toward switch barrel guns like Blaser, Mauser, and Sauer. It is quite obvious that no one here has first hand knowledge of ANY of the supposed Blaser "kabooms", and until someone produces some hard first hand information, I am still calling BS. | |||
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The Accurate Reloading Forums THE ACCURATE RELOADING.COM FORUMS Rifles Medium Bore Rifles Blaser R93 Strength Versus Gas Handling
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