Norinco M14 Blew Up

Dogleg

Dogleg

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After reading up on the sight setting procedure last night that got me inspired to shot mine today. On about the 40th shot I was peppered with shrapnel, the hand-guard hit the roof, bottom of the mag, magazine spring went flying and the replacement walnut stock is split. So ends my short career with Norincos.
The load was 45 grains of IMR 4895 under a 150 grain Sierra, pretty ordinary stuff.
 
guys are going to jump on this!

pictures?
what exactly blew up? the barrel, the bolt or the receiver?
 
sounds exactly like what happened to me years ago when i had a head give way- but my forearm stayed in place- the rifle was fine thereafter, but the stock and mag had to be replaced- it also locked the gun up in the forward position, but a detail strip( not a field strip) fixed that- once the mainspring was loose, a stout thump on the oprod opened the breech- and this was a SPRINGFIELD, not a norinco- winchester brass, but i don't know how many times through the press- probably range brass-and you CAN'T fit 90 grains of anything in a 308 case
 
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for those who like stats, the case capacity of a 308 win case is 51.769 of WATER- i looked it up
 
I hope you are alright Dogleg.

It is not possible to double charge a case with IMR4895...45 grains pretty much fills the case. In fact, hodgdon's reloading data indicates that their maximum safe load with this bullet/powder combination as 47.5grains and that it is a compressed load.

Eliminating the obvious such as using the wrong powder (ie: refilling a powder measure accidentally with pistol/shotgun powder midway through a loading session)or a squib where the case was cleared and followed up with a live round, my guess for the most likely reloading induced kablooie would be a high primer. I've had to modify my reloading practices considerably to specifically eliminate this possibility; prior to doing so an inspection after reloading with a dillon 650 would often reveal several with primers sitting slightly above the base of the case.

Second speculative guess would go to a firing pin seized in a dirty channel.

I would be real curious to see photos of the receiver, barrel, bolt, and specifically the firing pin and the culprit case.

Again, I hope you are ok.

Brobee

edited to add: 3rd speculative guess would be hammer follow (the firing pin channel and firing pin tang is supposed to prevent out-of-battery-firing in the event of hammer follow but I've seen lots of out of spec channels and firing pins abound...not a big deal if there is no hammer follow but a potentially big deal if there is), especially if the factory norinco was replaced with a USGI stock and no fitting of the trigger guard was done specifically to mitigate hammer-follow.
 
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my speer #11 lists 45 grains of imr4895 as the top end and 41 as the bottom- given that it's a 7.62 chamber and not a 308- never mind , lets see what the bolt head looks like and the chamber if you can- maybe it's brass you felt as shrapnel and just the head gave way
 
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