This Saturday, the hunting associations of the canton of Zurich (Switzerland) put on their annual rifle sight-in event on the Embrach shooting range.

A older hunter (65-70, maybe), whom I have met and hunted with multiple times over the last decade was there, along with some 100 odd attendants over the course of day. After sighting in his rifles, he decided to have a go at the running boar target. He chose to shoot his drilling, as it is his weapon of choice for general purpose hunting and in particular for moving targets - it came equipped with a Bushnell Holosight and no scope.

I did not personally witness the incident, and only got note of it, when another friend said hello, and I was wondering what all the assorted bits of metal, wood and a broken Holosight was, which he held in his hand. As it transpired, there had been multiple people watching our unfortutnate hero from close by, no loud noise or explosion was recounted, but a lot of smoke and more than a few parts raining down on the ground... The result of a "classic" barrel blow up!

First things first. Through an absolute stroke of luck, it seems nobody was seriously hurt. The unfortunate shooter suffered no head or eye injuries. He was bleeding from his left hand and lower arm. Although I could not establish the exact nature of his injuries, they looked fairly benign under the circumstances, but were most likely caused by shrapnel from the gun. The shooter was taken to receive medical attention, and I can't comment any further on the nature of his injuries. One thing is for certain, though, both the shooter and the bystanders were INCREDIBLY LUCKY that nobody seemed seriously hurt. This impression was even more warranted, when you saw the damage to the gun...

The drilling had been completely torn apart. The rifle barrel and one shot barrel were still (barely) attached to the gun - but completely split apart and pointing away from each other in an angle of about 30 degrees. The rifle barrel had been split open, and I later saw a part of the chamber as a separate piece of jagged steel. The remaining shot barrel went missing for a few hours, until it turned up about 35-40 meters away - on the OTHER SIDE of a one story building approximately 5-6 meters high. It had been blown straight over the entire front of the shooting line (8 shooting lanes), across the roof of the building and had landed in the middle of the outside restaurant. Again, by a pure stroke of luck, nobody had been injured - probably most people were on the range and not in the restaurant at the time.

While attending to the unfortunate shooter, the friend who had picked up the pieces of the molested gun, had a cartridge in his hand - apparently from the batch shot when the accident happened. On examining the cartridge, it was immediately obvious what had caused the gun to blow up. The drilling was chambered for the 7x65R, but the cartridge fired was a 7.65 Arg!! This is an extremely rare cartridge in Europe, it is the first time I ever recall even seeing one. How the shooter got hold of these cartridges is a bit of a mystery to me, but the case I saw looked as if it was fairly new. It was apparent, that the 7.65 Arg cartridge had been mistaken for the 7x65R - a mistake which could easily have proven fatal, had it not been for some incredible luck along the way.

Apart from the obvious, moralistic approach of pointing out the stupidity of mistaking two cartridges, I think the true morale of the story should be to caution us all. Accidents are most likely to happen, when familiarity leads us to lower the threshold of discipline with which we deal with guns! The person in question is more a hunter than a shooter. But even if guns, calibers, ballistics etc are not his main interests, I suspect 30-40 years worth of hunting has provided him with a basic understanding and appreciation of the issues involved. I strongly suspect that the designation of the 7.65 Arg cartridge caused him to confuse it with the 7x65R - colloquially known as the "7 65". Unfamiliarity with exact cartridge designations, and the unfortunate fact, that the 7.65 Arg cartridge was capable of chambering and firing in the 7x65R chamber (in spite being rimless), but above all lowered levels of discipline and attention caused the accident to happen.

Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt!

- mike

Great post Mike. Thanks for telling us about it.

a .311/.312 bullet into a .284 bore. Damn that is rough Thank goodness no one was seriously hurt, it is sad that a drilling bit the dust though. Thanks for the post, I would have never though about someone thinking 7.65 being a 7x65.

quote:

Accidents are most likely to happen, when familiarity leads us to lower the threshold of discipline with which we deal with guns!

and this is a statement that shpould be hung on one's reloading bench in every reloading room in the world...

It's so true.

Sorry about the drilling but the fact that no one is seriously hurt helps.

quote:

Originally posted by Thaine:
a .311/.312 bullet into a .284 bore. Damn that is rough

Yeah, it is mind-boggling to think about. No wonder the pressure went up "slightly"...

Thanks for the comments guys. As you stated, pity it happened and about the broken gun, but thank heaven nobody was seriously hurt!

- mike