I don't own a Blaser rifle, but I have noticed all the heat generated over the question of how strong the action is.

What if those of us who are interested in the question, each kick in say $10 or $15, purchase one, and have one of the gunsmiths here help us (purposely) load it to failure.

As you recall, P.O. Ackley had a nice section on these experiments in his "Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders".

Anyone game for this?

I'm in for $20.
We can figure out who we want on this board to be the "go-to" guy to hold the money.

This could be fun, and maybe a chance for a group of us to meet up over a beer and exploding (or not) rifle.

Garrett

1 rifle alone is not a statistically reliable test.

Further, perhaps 99% of Blasers are perfectly safe, but there is some manufacturing screwup that makes an odd one unsafe every once in a while. If we tested one that did not have the manufacturing screw up, we might conclude the rifles are safe when some of them are not.

I would rather look for documentation and photos concerning those that actually blew up. How many are there? I have heard of one in Florida and one in Germany.

I'm in. I'm not convinced they are any more prone to blow-up than any other design. The damage that occurs WHEN they blow up does seem more significant that with other designs. That collateral damage is what I am most interested in. JMO, Dutch.

Yeah, I'll go for it as well. Might ease my mind (or otherwise?) about my Blasers that I love to use, and still shoot.
- mike

A very interesting proposition whether or not it proves anythng! Let me know how to contribute.



As a relatively new Blaser owner, with a three barrel set yet, I was very interested in the "blow-up phenomenon"; I e-mailed Blaser and got a letter back promptly and also talked to reputedly the largest Blaser dealer in the U.S., KDF in Texas.



I'm assuming some don't know the following though the substance is probably being repeated; those for whom this is old hat, forgive me.



Blaser as you would expect denied any design flaw stating that with 100,000 rifles sold, the design has not been implicated in any accident where the rifle has been damaged and further each rifle is subjected to a pressure exceeding maximal allowed pressure by a minimum of 30%. They go on to say, however, that the R93 can withstand even higher pressures as demonstrated by in-house testing where pressure was increased to the 116,000 psi level with no deformation to the bolt head.



The gentleman at KDF (Phil) went on to explain that the .300 Wea that blew in Germany recently was the fault of the case being inadvertantly loaded with pistol powder and the "blow" before that, I believe in one of the Scandinavian countries, was also a reloading mishap as admitted to by the shooter.



Perhaps contributing to the problem, there apparently at one point was some sort of polymer part of the action that was determined to be a weak point and during a recall for another reason, was quietly replaced in American guns but not so efficiently in Europe because the recall wasn't as successful,i.e., the owners didn't send them in. Note that all blow-ups have been in Europe or elsewhere but not in the states, except one in the southeast. That one had the old polymer part in the action.



The fellow at KDF also intimated that there is also some intrigue or politics at play here. Apparently, there are even more cases of "blow-ups", reasons unknown at least by me, that happened further back in the past but that with the recent ones, were again brought back up to public light to make it seem like this is a problem that won't go away. Who would do this? The competition who now has a 20-30% of the market share for firearms in Europe as opposed to Blaser with 70-80% of the share? The implication at least is there.



This is the gyst of what I have been told by Blaser in Germany and the largest dealer in the states, both admittedly with expensive dogs in the fight. I pass it on for what its worth and at this point intend to keep mine.



GDV