Savage BP Rifle Failure

B

BimmerBob

Regular
Rating - 100%
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Hi,

I was sent a link to this from a friend and since I had seen nothing like this on GunNutz thought this would be a good place to pass along the information and a link to some pretty grizzly pictures of the damage caused by the failure.

This is a note that was sent to me with the link following...

"If you guys know of anyone who is shooting a Savage like this let them know that there are many recorded cases of them failing such as Proc's did. Savage is the only muzzle loader that claims it can handle smokeless powder loads. Cabelas won't even carry this product anymore. This email has gone to the CEO of Savage Arms via another hunter who has contacted Trent. The same thing happened to him awhile back, he was lucky as his forend hand was on his scope as he was sighting in. Forward as you feel fit"

Here is the link to the picasa web photo's: http://picasaweb.google.com/tfproct...LGz3rj1-N6LvQE&feat=email#5400211948573486322

I hope this works, if not I will try something else...

Cheers, Bob
 
Wowwwwwwww.....

Only thing I can really think is:

A) smokeless capable gun... someone accidentally dropped in too much?
B) ball not seated well enough against the charge?
C) all of the above and weak design?
 
There was a thread last week on this subject. My first reaction is that someone did something to cause this problem. These guns have been around for some time, and many have operated safely for years. Time will tell if there is any reality to this aside from user errors. There's no reason a receiver that was made for smokeless powder and a heavy 50 cal barrel loaded with the appropriate powder and charge won't work, just because its a muzzleloader. Season's over now, so mine goes back into the closet for another year.
 
H Wally said:
Wowwwwwwww.....

Only thing I can really think is:

A) smokeless capable gun... someone accidentally dropped in too much?
B) ball not seated well enough against the charge?
C) all of the above and weak design?
Click to expand...



Looks to me like the bullet was not seated on the powder or the stainless barrel or the general shoddyness of modern arms... hard to tell , God its a ugly thing all plastic and shiny....???


YIKES!!!!! I just looked at the pictures of the guys hand, Poor guy what a horrible thing to happen.
 
Musketfire said:
Looks to me like the bullet was not seated on the powder or the stainless barrel or the general shoddyness of modern arms... hard to tell , God its a ugly thing all plastic and shiny....???
Click to expand...
Yep... These new fangled firearms just don`t have any style.....

YIKES!!!!! I just looked at the pictures of the guys hand, Poor guy what a horrible thing to happen.
Click to expand...
Yikes is right!.....It almost looks like his hand was on the barrel and not the stock when he fired it.....
 
WOW, that's one expensive pipe-bomb!!
We'll probably never know, but I'd like to hear the exact details of his loading procedure... from the powder scale to seating the bullet.
I guess I'll be shooting mine with hockey gloves now!
 
I own one of these rifles and would like to know what type of powder and what load. There are many loads of smokeless powders out there on the internet and found in gun magazines, however some of them exceed what the manufacturer approves being safe. with muzzleloaders you don't have any spent brass to examine or measure for signs of excess pressures (other than melting sabots), keep it simple and follow the recommended loads from savage.
 
I hear many questions but I am not sure of the answers to them all. I asked my friend, who sent me the information second hand, and the only additional information I can provide is that the shooter was using smokeless powder and checking the sight-in prior to going on a hunting trip.

From what I understand, everything he did was within recommended procedures. If I am able to get any further information I will pass it along, but for now I am thinking this was the firearm failing not the shooter.

And... for the comment about his hand being on the barrel not the stock, I am not sure, but there is not much stock left of the area your forward hand would be on.

Cheers, Bob
 
There were some failures with SS barrels on modern centrefire rifles , can't recall the manufacturer ? I saw one of them at Granlunds in Campbell River, it was split in 3 , right from the muzzle down to the receiver.
There was a recall , apparently there was a batch of barrels that didn't get heat treated properly, anyone else recall the details ?
I wondering if something like that caused this failure ?
 
I own two of these Savage 10ML and shot about 250-300 rounds using 3 different powder types and various bullets. I've never experienced any signs of overpressure with "scale weighted" powder loads. I shoot 1 moa group at 100 yrds easy...

I know that some guys are using Lee dippers, and take some huge risks of taking the wrong dipper size and overcharge the gun...

Honestly, I think that this rifle should be sold to reloaders and experienced riflemen only, you need to be very careful about every step in loading this cannon. This gun is not for beginner shooters IMHO...
 
I know the person and he is an experienced shooter. I have not been able to talk to him since the accident but I would suspect that if he says he did everything right than he did. He is definately not the careless type.
 
Fire said:
I know the person and he is an experienced shooter. I have not been able to talk to him since the accident but I would suspect that if he says he did everything right than he did. He is definately not the careless type.
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Thanks for speaking up, my friend knows him through work and passed me the info as he knows I am getting into BP shooting but I don't know him and having someone on here that does is a good thing.

When you speak to him, wish him all the best, I am sure he is pretty uncomfortable at the moment, hands have a lot of nerve endings and I think he impacted a lot of them by the pictures.

If you get a chance to find out what load he was using, it would be nice for us to know too.

Thanks again, Bob
 
re 38-55 barrel

H Wally said:
Wowwwwwwww.....

Only thing I can really think is:

A) smokeless capable gun... someone accidentally dropped in too much?
B) ball not seated well enough against the charge?
C) all of the above and weak design?
Click to expand...

I have a 24 inch 38-55 origional wichester oct barrel in good condition, open to an offer, TX Harold
 
tactical870 said:
I know a lot of guys with savage muzzleloaders and have never seen this happen although I do know of someone who double charged theirs and did that...
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Do you mean it exploded like that with a double charge? Do you know if it was the stainless steel or the blued one? Was he injured?

There is a lot of information on "Doug's Message board" (the new one...there is an old one that is no longer posted to) regarding these few Savage incidents. I believe it's a sub-board to the Savage smokeless board.

Paul
 
Kevlar protection?

Poor guy... I hope he recovers soon enough. Although it looks bad now, his hand should be pretty healed & in decent shape in a few months. Wish him all the best please... :(

On another note, a lot of the damage done to the hand is probably due to the shrapnel (pieces of metal, lead and most likely synthetic stock) that ripped the hand open like that and also cut off the upper portion of the thumb.

Personally, I firmly believe that the use of Kevlar-reinforced gloves would stop a lot of damage in these situations. I have a pair of them (police frisk/intervention leather gloves that I used to use while on the job) and I think it's a good idea to wear them when shooting anything shady (BP, hot loads, older guns, etc). If the Kevlar is supposed to be tough enough to allow you to grab on to a blade and remove it from an adrenaline-pumped suspect without sustaining injury to your hand, I'm pretty sure it would also stop such large shrapnel from cutting up your hand open like that. It's basically like having a layer of cut-proof skin on your hands...

You'd probably still end up with a lot of bruises though and *maybe* some snapped bones (depending on the force of the explosion)... but probably no open cuts whatsoever under comparable circumstances. Here's a link of what I'm talking about (The Kevlar stuff are the more expensive ones - $50 and up):

ht tp://www.thinbluelinesupplies.com/store/page4.html

HATCH_fm2000_gloves_200pix.jpg
 
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The triple charge blow up I refered to in another post makes this one look pretty tame.
That said, having any rifle come unglued in your hands is never a good thing.

Hope your friend is going to be OK and I wont speculate on what caused the burst barrel.
There's going to be plenty of that without me adding my 2 cents.
 
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