M 14 blow's-up

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deagle2008

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well my fellow CGN friends this was posted by a fellow CMP member.

who can tell me what happened?



jarheadteacher said:
Gentlemen,

At the range a couple weeks ago and saw a man shooting an awesome M 14. An SA. Was in his mid-70's, spoke very knowledgeably about shooting and reloading.
He was loading cartridges one at a time with magazine installed.
Saw him shoot factory ammo and then lost focus of him as I set up. Then I happened to look over and saw him very rattled. Went over to look and here are the pictures.
He said this happened with a reload, said he has been reloading for decades and he used 3031 powder.
He was not hurt in the least but man, was he shaking!
He calmed down and eventually packed up and left.

Pic set 1/2:

IMAG0451.jpg


IMAG0449.jpg


IMAG0464.jpg


IMAG0454.jpg
Click to expand...
jarheadteacher said:
pic set 2/2

IMAG0460.jpg


IMAG0457.jpg


IMAG0456.jpg
Click to expand...

 
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Was he putting the rounds in the mag then allowing the bolt to close or was he chambering the round and letting the bolt slam home on it that way?

Scott
 
Perhaps an out of battery firing,? the bolt is not locked closed when it either fires via trigger pull or slamfires throwing the firing pin ahead when it comes to a stop (can happen when bolt is closed too but does not usually damage the rifle).

Powder type would not have an effect on that. Soft primer, high seated primer, or improperly sized case are possibilities.
 
I'm not familiar with 3031 powder, can you fit enough of it into the case to cause this?
I'd think it fired out of battery, but I know sfa. :D
Glad he and any onlookers are ok.
 
I've seen that happen before. OOB caused by a slam fire. I wonder what his trigger pull was like??

I saw a Garand that was being loaded in a similar fashion and the fellow distinctly remembered holding down the trigger when he released the bolt onto the cartridge. There was no other reason for his Kaboom. The case looked identical to the pics you posted.

When the extractor holds the case back against the bolt face, it doesn't take a lot of pressure for the hammer following to give the firing pin enough push set off the primer. This would have happened with factory rounds as well if the condition was right.

3031, is a very good powder for the 7.62x51 by the way. For its time, it was almost the perfect powder for a 150 - 165 grain bullet in that case.
 
I think its pretty clear that the round fired out of battery. The damage of the case does not support the theory of an overload. This could be the result of insifficient sizing as Pathfinder suggests, or perhaps due to a primer that had too thin a cup, or a combination of the two.
 
deagle2008 said:
well my fellow CGN friends this was posted by a fellow CMP member.

who can tell me what happened?
lol i think i know but just want to confirm
Click to expand...

If you look at the brass in the last 2 pictures

I See brass extruded into the ejector pin hole

Contaminated powder with pistol powder??? ? overload ? or just a side effect of brass falure

the way he was loading could lead to a slam fire

load a m1a /garand m305 from the mag

on a side note I would load any semi rifle from the mag
 
Looked at last 2 picture again

looks like extractor ripped the rim off

over pressure so brass extruded in to bolt face =brass failure = hard extraction = rim ripped off
 
Will a harder milspec primer actually prevent an out of battery slamfire that would occur otherwise (obviously due to some malfunction, such as improperly reloaded ammo).
 
deffinatly not out of battery were dealing an overpreassure here faulty brass perhaps a combination of excessive firing pin protusion contaminated powder/double load faulty brass
but not out of battery lol i had seen in person a similar incident happen with a m305
 
Look carefully at the photos of the case. In particular, look at the ring where the case blew out. You can see where the case was supported by the barrel, and where it was unsupported. It flares out. It failed where it was unsupported.
Place a case in a M-14 chamber, and see how much of the case protrudes and is unsupported by the chamber wall. Compare this with the blown case. If more of the blown case was hanging out in the open, the breech wasn't locked when the cartirdge was fired.

The case failed out toward the extractor. Nothing there to support it.

There is no way to double charge a .308 case with 3031 powder.
Do some experimenting. Weigh out a book maximum charge. See how full the case is. Then fill the case flush. Not likely that someone would do this, and then somehow squash a bullet in. But fill the case level full, then weigh it. How many more grains of powder will go in the case when it it full to overflowing. Is it a double charge?

If the wrong powder were used, would only one round in the batch be charged with the wrong powder? All of them maybe, but only one? Very unlikely barring deliberate sabotage.
 
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