Blowing Up Guns

Ganderite said:
Many, if not most of my attempts to blow up a rifle failed on the first attempt. You really have to try hard. This is why a smile when someone worries about his OAL or switching primers and gets lots of internet advice of danger.

Even a case full of pistol powder in a rifle cannot be relied upon to blow up the rifle every time. Sometimes it just brazes the action closed with vaporized brass.
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One day I was shooting cast bullet loads in my M-17 .30/06 Enfield, the load was a 210 gr gas checked bullet over 25 grs of SR-4759. It was a nice day, and I laying prone in the warm sunshine, blissfully shooting the popgun loads, the chronograph telling me that 1850 was typical of the velocity. All of a sudden my ears where ringing, my shoulder felt like I just touched off a .300 magnum, and the chronograph suggested a velocity of 2850 . . . double charge! I tapped open the bolt with a short length of 2X4, the case ejected, but it looked different; the primer pocket now extended out to the lettering on the case head, and the flash hole was the same size as the primer pocket. The bolt face was permanently engraved with lettering from the case head. That rifle saw several more years of service, and remained accurate and reliable, despite the mishap, until it was lost in the house fire mentioned in the post above.

Anyway, I know exactly how that overload occurred. It was one of those nights where the interruptions wouldn't stop, and when I returned to the bench, I was frustrated, and rather than dumping the case to ensure it was empty, I charged it . . . AGAIN! So boys and girls, if you're interrupted while handloading, stop the process, and dump the case that is next in line to be charged, before continuing. I keep the prepped brass neck down in the loading block, so the one that's upright is the next one in line for powder. Whatever system you use to keep track of where you're at, never, never, never charge a cartridge as the first step you take, after being called away from the bench. Some might say that its inherently dangerous to use loads that take up less than half the volume of the cartridge, because a double charge might not be detected, but as with all handloading, a good loading procedure will keep you safe.
 
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Loaded a Lee Enfield with a case stuff full of Red Dot. Shockingly the rifle didn't blow up. I don't want to even imagine what kind of pressure that produced. It blew the mag bottom out, deformed the action rails and cracked the bolt in half but in the end the entire rifle remained intact.
 
While I have never been party to actually TRYING to blow up a serviceable privately-owned firearm, some things have occurred. It used to be quite a game for us to load rounds in a .303Br to see how far we could get a 180gn bullet out of the barrel without it falling out. I have helped "iron out" a few barrels. Un-like DogLeg, I have run a mandrel down a barrel or two and hammered out a few bulges, not filed them out. I figured it was sort of a reverse of ironing out a dent in a shotgun barrel, so we tried it, worked well enough.
I did, however, have a Lee Enfield that was in a house fire. ALL of the wood was gone, so we figured it shouldn't be strong enough for a full strength load. It was , and then some. We were way over max load before it did. Our shooting rest for such experiments was tires, stacked and bolted together. Tractor tire on the bottom with a 2x4 "X" bolted to it. Then a car tire bolted to that. That was the rest. Rifles were placed on that, sandwiched by another tire, bolted through. String run from the trigger to a safe place, usually behind the truck. Could never figure out a reliable rest for excessively heavy loads in handguns. We just kind of strapped it to a tree, and pulled on the string. We were just careful because we really didn't have the money to wreck a firearm and go get another.
Ganderite, you have had my dream job.
I have been involved with some "spiking" of shot-out machine gun barrels so that they would blow up. Put a C2 in a mount, stake it in place, leave the BFA on it and pull on the string. Perfect "Bug's Bunny" gun barrel split, couple of split sides. One we actually spiked. We hammered a spiral tent peg into the mouth of a barrel. It just shot it out. We drove another in deeper, the first round sealed the barrel, the subsequent rounds split it. No one had the guts to do it to a .50.
 
I remember reading an article a couple years ago, can't find it now of course, of failure testing Husqvarna modern Mauser actions (model 2500 or something?). Anyway they went well past 100,000 psi without failure. I think it was around 175,000 psi before anything significant happened to the rifle? Was quite eye opening.

That's a modern rifle made from modern steel though. I'm still cautious with black-powder-era rifles; I'm not planning on using the 45,000 psi data for 8x58R in my 1876 dated Swedish rolling block.
 
" I know exactly how that overload occurred. It was one of those nights where the interruptions wouldn't stop, and when I returned to the bench, I was frustrated, and rather than dumping the case to ensure it was empty, I charged it . . . AGAIN! So boys and girls, if you're interrupted while handloading, stop the process, and dump the case that is next in line to be charged, before continuing. I keep the prepped brass neck down in the loading block, so the one that's upright is the next one in line for powder. Whatever system you use to keep track of where you're at, never, never, never charge a cartridge as the first step you take, after being called away from the bench."


It was an interruption, exactly like you describe, that resulted in me double charging a 357 round that blew up my revolver.

Rifles are made differently. I saw the remains of a variety of rifles blown up with pistol powder. (I don't think you can do it with an over load of rifle powder).

Rem 700 - 270. Action shattered into 27 pieces.

Win M70 - 308 Bolt broke. Action and barrel appear ok. I installed barrel in another rifle.

Mini 14 - 223 Action split open

Ar-15 - 223 Action split open. Same box of ammo as the Mini-14 above. Some shooters are not very bright.

*Swing 308 (A heavy British target rifle) brass case vaporized from 46 gr of pistol powder. Barrel had to be unscrewed to get the bolt out. After cleaning it up, it was put back together and returned to service. Proof house estimated 150,000 psi.

Pressure gun - 308 (made from a 20 mm cannon receiver, I think) Gun destroyed at estimated 200,000 psi.

Lee Enfield 303 Seen a number of these. Bolt breaks, receiver bends. The actions are very flexible, but strong.


*Newbie reloader goes into gun store and asks for a can of Nobel Rifle #1 (about 3031 in speed). "Sorry, we are out of Rifle #1, but we do have Pistol #1." Hero goes home and loads his ammo with the equivalent of 46 gr of Unique.

The story of what happened on the firing point when he touched it off is interesting. Balls of flames, mushroom clouds, but just a rifle with a stuck bolt when smoke cleared. Please don't try this at home....

I have shot ordinary rifles rigged with pressure measuring equipment. On a well made rifle, the first sign of pressure is a sticky bolt lift. I have one where the bolt lifts up easily, but then stops and there is a little "tich" as it pops open. That happens at 75,000 psi. That is proof pressure. Some guys load at that level all the time.
 
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rookie wildcat said:
While I have never been party to actually TRYING to blow up a serviceable privately-owned firearm, some things have occurred. It used to be quite a game for us to load rounds in a .303Br to see how far we could get a 180gn bullet out of the barrel without it falling out.
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BulletStuckinBore.jpg


Do I win?
 
Closest I have some to blowing up a rifle, is a AG-42b with federal ammo (out of battery detonation, blow off the floor plate of the magazine and scared the crap out of me). The other major thing that has happened to me was firing a Krag in 6.5x55 and I didn't realize the chamber was corroded, so I had to beat out the brass with a cleaning rod and hammer.

Thinking on it I really haven't had much luck with guns in 6.5x55.
 
Hmm. Never have had a rifle blow up on me, always reloaded within very safe limits. Almost did though... squib load in a 7.62X54R Mosin that the bullet lodged and luckily I saw it. Know how it happened too, I sprayed my powder charged case with lube by mistake along with all the other non charged cases. Guess my brass lube soaked the powder a bit much... whoops. So! I'd love it if we could compile some "Issues arise/Fails at approx ######XX CUP/PSI" numbers here. Interested in milsurp numbers... 8X57 Mauser in a Kar98K, 8X56R in a Mannlicher M95, 7.62X54R in a Mosin Nagant M91/30. Anyone have a guess or numbers for these three?

Cheers mates!
 
In my first post I forgot about a 7mm mag that came into my possession after a buddy had a mishap with it...he did a header over the handlebars of a trike and jabbed the barrel end full of moss. His dad counseled him to "just pull the trigger to clean it out". He did and split the barrel back about 2 inches from the muzzle . I purchased the gun for "parts" but as there were no other signs of damage, I decided to have David Henry cut and re-crown it just to find out what it would do. It shot very well and I carried that gun as my go-to hunting rifle for several years thereafter.
 
fingers284 said:
In my first post I forgot about a 7mm mag that came into my possession after a buddy had a mishap with it...he did a header over the handlebars of a trike and jabbed the barrel end full of moss. His dad counseled him to "just pull the trigger to clean it out". He did and split the barrel back about 2 inches from the muzzle . I purchased the gun for "parts" but as there were no other signs of damage, I decided to have David Henry cut and re-crown it just to find out what it would do. It shot very well and I carried that gun as my go-to hunting rifle for several years thereafter.
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Dubbing the muzzle in the dirt is so easy to do. Sometimes you don't know you have done it.

I once inspected a rifle that was a smoothbore for 2" at the muzzle. I assume this was from dirt or sand in the bore, but not solidly packed in.

I have dubbed barrels several times while hunting. I carry a pull through to clean the bore, once I get he dirt out. If there is water around ( a puddle will do) I swirly the muzzle around in the water, until the dirt falls clear, then I pull it through. If there is no water, I pick at the mud with a twig, then I piss in the chamber.
 
@Ganderite: I know what you mean about the danger of interruptions while reloading. Never fired a bad round but have loaded more than a few--I either have a touch of ADD or the attention span of a gnat--so these days weigh every round and use a case gauge.

A few years ago while shooting at the indoor AMA 20 yard range someone started firing what sounded like squibs, one after another, a couple of stalls away--you could SEE the bullet en route to the target :-/ Not sure if it was intentional. In any case the RO asked him to desist.
 
liberty said:
Granderite, you're continuing Hatchers experiments with modern firearms,,lol,,,
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In what way(s) was the firearms Hatcher experimented with not modern by todays standards of materials, workmanship or cartridges used?
 
Originally Posted by liberty
Granderite, you're continuing Hatchers experiments with modern firearms,,lol,,,

In what way(s) was the firearms Hatcher experimented with not modern by todays standards of materials, workmanship or cartridges used?....
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Uh, let's see,,remington 700, mini 14, swing action, ar15,,
 
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I had a Husky 3100 .270 win fire out of battery once. I was blasted pretty good but unhurt. I didn't even own pistol powder at the time and my load was about 90% case capacity and not pushing the top end.

On that rifle with the bolt half closed, it would click up or down when the trigger was pulled. I was shooting at the bench and guess I didn't close it all the way. Blew out the magazine, split the stock in half, cracked the receiver threads and blew the bolt open. The bolt stop saved my face but was non existent after the one big stop. bolt fell out when the gun tipped up. Thanks Husky :)

Really too bad, it was a nice rifle with sentimental value.



LUTNIT said:
I remember reading an article a couple years ago, can't find it now of course, of failure testing Husqvarna modern Mauser actions (model 2500 or something?). Anyway they went well past 100,000 psi without failure. I think it was around 175,000 psi before anything significant happened to the rifle? Was quite eye opening.

That's a modern rifle made from modern steel though. I'm still cautious with black-powder-era rifles; I'm not planning on using the 45,000 psi data for 8x58R in my 1876 dated Swedish rolling block.
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