Very lucky it was not worse. SOCOM II

yikes, one of my first thoughs was that there was one that detonated in the magazine.

Seems these M-1A platforms are of hard luck....that kind of mess is hard to reproduce in a bolt gun.

Yeah?

Load a charge of pistol powder into your rifle cartridge at equivalent grains, and I'd bet your bolt gun splits like an energetic banana peel. And even money on it doing the same thing in an M1A for that matter. I don't think an M1A anything is the real issue.

But much has already been said by those who know more about the subject than I in regards to speculation...
 
Yeah?

Load pistol powder into your rifle cartridge at equivalent grains, and I'd bet your bolt gun splits like a banana peel.

Anything can come apart if you try hard enough.

My thinking is that the ammo that turned that rifle into spare parts would not have made such a mess on most modern bolt actions that's just my opinion...doesnt' matter what I can do with a case full of pistol powder.

Anyways Im no M-1A pro (but I did sleep at a Holiday inn express last night) Looks like escaping gases went out to the right and down.....at least it deflected away from the shooter.....Case head separation?

Wook....let us know how it turns out.
 
Example of a reloading experiment gone wrong in a modern .257 Wby Magnum Vanguard.

Guy was apparently trying 'reduced' loads with pistol powder. Double charge of Blue Dot later and 'kaboom'.

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=341348

Following are photos of a .257 Wby Mag (Vanguard) that had a catastrophic failure apparently as a result of firing a round that had a double charge of Blue Dot.

[photos removed]


For quite some time I have been shooting reduced recoil loads that I have loaded using Blue Dot powder in my .30-30, .243, and .257 Wby Mag. I have never had a problem and have developed some very good loads using Blue Dot.

I had been working up some new reduced loads for my .257 using the 117 grain Hornady BTSP. At one point in my reloading process my wife had walked into the room and had asked me several questions. After finishing our conversation, I completed loading the set of variously charged cartridges. It was getting late in the afternoon and I wanted to go out and try them, so I hurried and got my ammo and gun and went to shoot.

I was shooting the lowest charged cartridges first and was working my way up, watching for pressure signs. The ammo was shooting really well when it happened. I pulled the trigger and for a few seconds I didn't know what had happened. I vaguely remember seeing the scope coming back at me and I knew something wasn't right. I looked down and saw that my gun was demolished. I realized I had had a catastrophic failure and went to check myself in the mirror for injuries. I was bleeding several places on my face and around my eyes.

I hurriedly picked up the pieces of the gun. The barrel was laying out in front of my shooting bench about 7 feet and it was intact. I went home an cleaned my wounds. I am so very fortunate--there were no serious injuries. I could easily have lost an eye, or even have been killed, but only minor cuts and bruising occurred!

I sent the gun into Weatherby to make sure the rifle wasn't at fault. It wasn't. They said it was the result of firing an extremely high pressure round in the firearm. Although I have never double charged a load before, apparently I did this time, and it was a double charge of Blue Dot.

I am sharing this incident as a warning of just how dangerous it is to use Blue Dot or other fast burning pistol powders for reduced loads in rifle ammunition. I am blaming no one but myself and I'm not saying its going to happen to everyone who uses Blue Dot for reduced charge loads. I know that thousands of rounds of Blue Dot charged rifle ammo has been successfully fired. I believe this event occurred because of negligence on my part. I believe that I allowed myself to become distracted while reloading this batch of ammo.

If you continue to load rifle ammunition with Blue Dot, PLEASE BE CAREFUL! Do everything you can to keep from double charging a load and do everything you can to check to make sure you haven't double charged any cases.

I am blaming no one except myself for this mishap. I am so lucky/blessed that I did not suffer a serious injury. You might not be so lucky.


No idea what happened in THIS case. Just saying. An improperly loaded round (factory or otherwise) generally seems to emerge as the culprit.
 
... we have 2 with destroyed barrels that failed due to metal fatuige. i do this for a living ( shooting) get off your sofa and shoot...

I am not fortunate enough to shoot for a living. I do, however, look at failed and broken metal for a living, and I can say I have NEVER heard of one single credible report of any firearm part anywhere failing due to fatigue. Which makes sense when you consider that classical fatigue doesn't begin until you are past multiple tens of thousands of cycles. Low-cycle fatigue can happen earlier, but I've never actually encountered that as an issue, either.
 
Somebody please call Dimitri.


Other 308 guns with stronger actions can handle other cartriges as well.
Humm, most of those rounds are well within the safe pressure limits for the M14. Both the M1 Garand and M14 series of rifles were designed to handle alot more pressure then the ammunition they are shooting. The M1 action to prove the design of it (which is shared with the M14) was tested to 120,000PSI and still managing to fire another 5,000 rounds of service ammunition safely.

Which of the rifles you mentioned have been subjected to that kind of proof testing?

Dimitri
 
I don't know if this will help you guys more, but here are some tighter crops of the photos

_JAY6285-2.jpg


_JAY6286-2.jpg


_JAY6284-2.jpg
 
VERRRRrrrry Interesting.

SNIP

UNLESS ,
the second round in the mag ALSO EXPLODED???]

4.] Bolt that was too hard and brittle

5.] While we are speculating on insufficient data ....
what happened to the rest of the loaded magazine???
Did the next round in the mag also detonate??

SNIP
.
[;{)
LAZ 1

Nicest analysis to date, good read Laz. Just a comment on the second round/rest of the mag thought. I've not seen this first hand, but from what i have picked up from various sources, would the second round, even if it ignited, burst violently if not confined by the chamber? The powder could flash off, but i wouldn't think that the mag would detonate. I think your bang on with your first thoughts, with maybe a casting flaw in the reciever being an dark horse.
 
Example of a reloading experiment gone wrong in a modern .257 Wby Magnum Vanguard.

Guy was apparently trying 'reduced' loads with pistol powder. Double charge of Blue Dot later and 'kaboom'.

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=341348




No idea what happened in THIS case. Just saying. An improperly loaded round (factory or otherwise) generally seems to emerge as the culprit.

Little known fact (at least it seems) if you load too light, your controlled burn that smokeless generally gives, can with certian powders turn into a detonation. Thus a very light load can give a sudden very high pressure event. This may not have been a double load, it may have been too light and on the edge.
 
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