I was e-mailed this respons from Blaser after asking them about the recent accident involving a R93:
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- As you mentioned in your email, on January 10th, 2004, at a shooting range
near Koblenz Germany, a Blaser R93 has been damaged and in that accident the
shooter was injured.

Unfortunately this issue has been taken and exaggerated from various people
in order to discredit the R93 in an un-objective and dubious way.

On January 22nd, 2004 the CEO and Technical Directors of Blaser Jagdwaffen
GmbH were able to look at the rifle in question, with three police officials
with the permission of the public prosecutors office Koblenz.

The steel showed deformation in the lockup area as well as two definite
cracks beginning at the rear end of the chamber. Powderized brass was found
in the lock-up area.There was deformation on the bolt head as well as
deformation on the bolt head elements.The cam plate, which supports the
assembly in locked position, and the right rail were broken away from
position while the assembly was in a closed and locked position.

In a series of tests through DEVA (Deutsche Versuchs- und Pr�fanstalt f�r
Jagd- und Sportwaffen e.V.) measurements of the gas pressure were increased
to almost 8.000 bar /116.000 psi, whereby under this pressure there were no
measured deformations to the outer contour of the chamber area in the
barrel. There were also no seen deformations to the bolt head.

Without wanting to anticipate the results from the public prosecutors office
and after examination we have concluded clearly the damage was caused
through extreme overloaded gas pressure. With consideration to the above
mentioned DEVA examination, it is our opinion that the cause of this
accident is without doubt due to the ammunition and cannot be related to the
rifle.

At this point we would like to clearly state, that the technical design of
the R93, with more than 100 000 rifles supplied, has not been found
responsible for any accident where the rifle has been damaged. Every single
R93 is controlled and tested by the state/county proof-house according to
the C.I.P. regulations using proof cartridges exceeding the maximal allowed
gas pressure by a Minimum of 30%. The R 93, however, withstands loads / Gas
pressures way above proof-level as our in-house / combined DEVA-tests
clearly document.

In the test reports from DEVA it was confirmed that there is no reason to
doubt or fear the R93's strength and durability.

DEVA states:
"In the case of destruction to a rifle with an (illegal) gas pressure of
8.000 bar or above, this eventually may result in injury to the shooter.
This cannot be related to the rifle."

There are no reasons for us to doubt the safety of the technical design of
the R93.

Unfortunately, it happens in individual cases that the use of defective or
incorrectly loaded ammunition results in damage to the rifle and/or the
shooter, no matter what brand or type of rifle is used.
For example in 2003 we were aware that in Austria alone, three cases of
destroyed bolt-action rifles occurred due to incorrectly loaded ammunition
with three different rifle-manufacturers being involved.
Even through the enormous numbers of R93s on the market there are extremely
few cases occurring through inadmissible, well overloaded gas pressures
where a rifle is damaged or destructed. For this there are appraisals from
different institutes with clear statements:
In none of these cases a weapon-lateral cause of the damage was determined.

The Blaser R93, through its exemplery safe and practise suited technical
design is one of the most popular hunting rifles offered on todays market.
The straight fact is that with the enormous numbers of R93 rifles in the
field today it is extremely rare that a rifle is destructed through
incorrectly loaded ammuntion.

This is argument enough for the R93.

Best regards,

BLASER Jagdwaffen

Christian Socher -

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Erik D.

www.dunia.no
North Cape - Cape Agulas 2002/2003

I would like to see some information on an examination of the ammo the fellow was shooting.

The trouble is that while 116,000 PSI seems like quite a lot of pressure, most US manufacturers hold to a "triple" max pressure standard. That's about 180,000. Before catastrophic failure. If the fellow had been shooting, say, a Savage, it would have maybe broken the rifle, but likely not the shooter.

The one thing I dislike about the Blaser design is that it does not include allowances for the fact that s***, in fact, does happen. JMO, Dutch.

I would also like to know how many times the rifle had been previously fired, both before the day it "blew up" and on the day it "blew up."

Gentlemen



The accident I have heard of has been in caliber 3006, 8X68S and 300 weatherby. I doubt that any manufacturer in public would admit that their product were not safe. A public not admiting error would cause the company to loose it's brand name and reputation of a long time.





Cheers

/ JOHAN

Blaser it's good rifle but have a problem don't have a design to allow escape gases , it is an overpressure it explode , in a M98 you ended with a damaged rifle but not hurt the shooter, before if explode the base case on the left said burst the hot gases are directed via left rail to the rear then they find the thumb cut , if some gases could go through the rear bridge and found the bolt stop and if some hot gases miss the bolt stop they find the flange of the bolt shroud but never the face of the shooter , if more gases are present and the bolt start to move to the rear splitting the front lugs at the receiver ring after moving 1/36 of an inch the third lug engages in the rear bridge cut stopping the bolt movement to the rear , and to avoid this problem Mauser made the receiver case hardening , it means hard surface and soft inside with the bolts very deep case hardening , the hard lugs bite the soft steel of the receiver but not shear , someone saw or read of a hunter shooter with an M98 in their face ? and 100.000 rifles are a lot of rifles , M98 are millions (they produce in 1895 200.000 a year ) and they saw any use and abuse , M98 are designed in an era of bad brass corrosive primers and powders , brass failure was not uncommon , Paul Mauser designed an action to solve this problems brilliant , Blaser design a good rifle but not how to handle over pressures the radial system closes thigh over the barrel , where is the way to allow the gases to go out safely ? BTW the overload for me it�s not as a powder overcharge maybe a half charge and detonation, I feel better and safe with an OLD M98 Mauser than with a New Blaser .
Daniel

Daniel has explained the inherent construction flaw briefly but excellently. I need not repeat him.



The Blaser reply purposefully misrepresents the *actual* findings and warnings in the (published) DEVA expertise which they purport to quote. DEVA did warn that a similar accident could happen, even after the replacement of the bolt covers. Now it has happened. Blaser is not in an enviable situation.



That the cartridge would have had severe overpressure and rearward gas escape is trivial. Of course it did. Rifles must be built to handle such situations properly. The Blaser R 93 can't. The pertinent question if what kind of damage to the shooter would have happened in another rifle ? And this question has already been answered above.



One further annotation: the question if not the "cause of accident", which is a red herring (of course it's due to overpressure, either a faulty cartridge or a barrel obstruction). The question is the "cause of damage" - two rather different notions. Blaser very smugly tries to confound the two .

And nobody would really expect that the metal of the barrel or of the lockup system would have been found at fault - it wasn't in the other R 93 accidents either. If a flaw were inherent here, it would lie with the rifle design itself. So let's wait and see how the expertise will come out.

The probability of a loss of containment accident (of the gas pressure) is above zero, and any good rifle design must be able to prevent injury to the shooter in the event of such a loss of confinement.

Because rifles are proofed does not say anything about how well or not an individual rifle will handle gas in a loss of containment accident.

Blaser will probably be paying for this one.

jim dodd