Blown-up firearms - post your pictures

sgtrock

sgtrock

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Northeastern Ontario
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Well it is spring and everyone is in a hurry to get out and enjoy the nice weather. With all the new inexperienced reloaders (and us older wiser types also) a picture is worth a 1000 words or more.

I am sure I will get lots of pm's and posts re: this picture, more pics will be posted if requested.

I am putting this thread up to show what can happen when you rush when reloading (or get distracted) I was going to post in the PISTOL forum but this applies a bit more to the RELOADING forum. The following is the SHORT version of what happened!

I was present when this S&W mod 10 (.38 Special), the shooter using his own reloads, experienced CATASTROPHIC FAILURE. We could only find half of the cylinder, the shooter was ok (a miracle!) the back strap is buckled, the crane is sprung and seized, the bbl. no longer is straight to the frame, the internals are locked and jammed solid. The shooter had just installed a NEW bbl the day before. I purchased the mod-10 to show for H.S. PAL/POL and CLUB LEVEL 1 H.G. Safety course.

POWDER- UNIQUE
CHARGE - well below minimum charge (very little)
CAUSE - DETONATION
REASON - not watching powder level when trying to get last bit of loading from near empty powder measure

I have articles in old mags where the put a solid bbl on a mod-10 and shoot +P loads, prying open the cylinder after each shot ,removing the splattered lead from between the cylinder and the forcing cone and then shooting it again. They gave up after many shot without any visible damage to pistol and it worked fine after test (MAGNUFLUXING may have proved them wrong possibly) This is a strong pistol, so much force occurred to cause this much damage, BE CAREFUL WHEN RELOADING.

Thanks

Rick
 
we did a version of BLOWN-UP Firearm CSI, disassebled remaining ammo and examined his reloading set up. We found that a least one other round had little (almost no powder) and none from the batch had over the load amount of powder his lee powder measure was set for. He tried to get 50 reloads out of 48 reloads worth of powder (by volume) Random selection of rounds resulted in one of the first 6 being the second to last round reloded in that batch,his bad luck.
rick
 
Thats why i weigh each charge and dump in my powder with a funnel and wait till the house is empty to start reloading! no distractions.

the guy was lucky talk about a hand granade :eek:
 
actually the other half of the cylinder went over 50 yards, we went over the area the full length of the shooting line and on the side that flew off was a clear area of 50 yards and then over to the side berms. We figured it went over the berm and may still be there to this day.The only reason I have this half of the cylinder is because it was next to a 4x4 post as he was practicing PPC shooting. Neat and different sound when a handgun GRENADES'
rick
 
I have never blown anything up but being a gunsmith I have seen the results of many.

Here was a dramatic one. A Magna Ported Olympic barrel in .340 Weatherby on a Browning A Bolt.

Snow in the muzzle caused this and it split right though the ports back through the chamber. This barrel is in two pieces. The action held it together until it was unscrewed and then with very little pressure it pulled apart. It is amazing how much this bent... you can hold one half of it in a vice and put your weight into it and it just springs back like a very large sping.

Broke the stock and scope. Minor injuries to the shooter due to the fact he had his hand under the floorplate, elbow against his side standing up when he touched it off.... otherwise he may have lost fingers or a hand....

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And here is a BT-99 after a faulty reload was fired... the barrel actually blew off and pivetted in the shooters hand and the muzzle whacked him on the side of the head... He was wearing shooting gloves and eye protection and suffered no damage.

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I don't understand how that revolver could have blown up like that with to little powder ? Maybe some one can explain ?
I seen a guy last week experimenting with ppc loads, (with way to little powder) but the biggest probs he was having was the bullets getting stuck in the barrel. I hope he sees these pics.
 
The problem with too little powder in a load is that instead of it burning (relatively) slowly through the charge is that there is enough temperature and pressure to set off the whole light load at once causing detonation so all the gas is released at once rather than over a period of time.

Result? Bomb rather than projectile.

This is why you don't make really light loads outside of the range suggested by a loading manual. Subsonic centerfire rifle loads are notoriously dangerous for causing this.
 
This is what happens when you load at the range and forget which one is your pistol powder and which one is your rifle powder......
garandkboom.jpg

I forget who the owner was, he is a member here though....lives in BC I think.
 
Hitzy said:
This is what happens when you load at the range and forget which one is your pistol powder and which one is your rifle powder......
garandkboom.jpg

I forget who the owner was, he is a member here though....lives in BC I think.
Click to expand...
Wow!!!:eek: :eek:
 
wow,brings back another memory.
When a local pd asked to have all their revolvers checked prior to sale a funny thing occured. I was trying to see down the bore of a very dirty and holster worn S&W model-10.I pulled out a metal (BRASS) rod to clear the bbl. The police officer overseeing our inspection indicated that that particular pistol was fired only once in its 25+years of service and that was to dispatch a rabid dog that seemed unwilling to die by pistol.
A couple of taps and out popped a semi-wadcutter. Utter disbelief that his fellow oficer had carried this pistol with a blocked bbl. through many more years till retirement(if he had ever needed to save his or anyone elses life they would be s.o.o.l.)
Cannot see down bore,tap tap,plop another semi-wadcutter.officers eyes get bigger. Finally cleared bore with 4 semi-wadcutters sitting on table.
His first shot hit dog,now deaf from report he blasts away four more times with #2 shot sqibbing almost out and #3,#4 and #5 stacking up in bbl.
Bore NOT BULGED, marked from bullets sitting in rifling for many years but shootable with cleaning.
MORAL- if when shooting something sounds weird or not quite right ,STOP, and check things out,have seen this happen with pistols at ranges when SQUIBB loads occured .
rick
 
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