Wall of Shame @ Epps. re: Cutting FMJ

Tyler

Tyler

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For anyone who has been to Ellwood Epps and has seen the "wall of shame" of various exploded actions from stupid mistakes, there is one that stands out for me.

On the wall, there is the barrel of an old Eddystone barrel that was split apart from the chamber end. The two halves were about a foot apart and the barrel formed a 'Y' shape, so I guess the action was completely destroyed.

The sign says that the shooter had cut off the tip of an FMJ round, for what I guess was an effort to make it expand when it hit something, maybe a bubba version of a soft point. The shooter died as a result, or so the sign says.

How can cutting the tip off of a round make the action blow up so violently? Did he cut too far maybe? Do FMJ's become inherently unstable when you alter them like that?

Anyone have any guesses?

Note: I would never contemplate this.... just curious.
 
I'd be guessing but I'd bet the bullet was cut too much and it either:
  1. Made the load over pressured, (given the powder wieght was not changed); or
  2. The Bullet got hung up at the rifling and jammed the barrel.
 
Don't see why it would cause a problem - other than shedding the jacket.
When you cut the tip off, you have an open ended jacket. The inner slug can be pushed through the jacket, leaving it in he barrel. Hatcher did experiments with shed jackets and they did not blow up the gun, at least in his test.
I've seen this on the internt, I think it was the box of truth that tried this. Worked OK for them, gave decent expansion. They warned about the jacket problem as well.
Cutting the tip off would lighten the bullet, reducing the pressure, not increasing it.
 
From my training, I know there is a heck of a lot of pressure sending up a projectile, and it is very rare the proper charge won't send a bullet out the muzzle.
When I worked at Can Am there were 2 bulged Lee Enfield b/a's out of approx. 10,000 #1's and #4's that passed through the shop over 20 years.
In the Army I personally witnessed a Canadian Sterling with 6 9mm slugs stuck in the barrel, and it was serviceable after repair. Browning Hi Powers with .004 faluty ammo that had serious problems, but no blow ups.
I had team members using faulty 7.62 ammo have bullets stuck in breech or barrel from a caseing that was empty of powder but had a live primer. Also mud in muzzle during 500M Run Downs and even a cleaning rod piece fired out a barrel......No blow ups on these FN's either.
But it does happen.
 
Obviously something went very wrong - it's 99% likely it was a very tight bore obstruction just past the chamber. Could be too that there was some amateur aggresive handloading at play as well.

I wouldn't put too much faith into what the sign says. Ask if anyone at Epps knows first-hand what happened, i.e. who (was killed), when, the exact circumstances etc. I'm willing to bet they can't answer any of that.

A great example of gun folklore. This is of course "proof" that the Eddystone is dangerous and shouldn't be shot. After all, a guy was killed shooting one - I know, because I saw the gun.... :rolleyes:
 
If you cut the tip off too far back and if the barrel was a little rough or tight it will strip the core out of the jacket leaving it as a bore obstruction.

44Bore
 
The lead squirted out of the first bullet fired, leaving the jacket stuck in the barrel, when another round was fred, it hit the jacket, which was an obstrucion, and ka boom.:wave:
 
"clipping the tip" on a FMJ is always a bad idea.


bullets are designed for a specific task, altering any bullet is a bad idea. bullets, even super high end premium ones are very cheap when placed agains the overall cost of a hunt, why bother altering cheap ones?
 
The copper jacket would retract, fold and form a wedge between the lead bullet and the barrel imediately forming an obstruction resulting in "KABOOM!" Always inspect your FMJ for imperfections and malformations before shooting.
 
This discussion of the folklore of blowing up guns reminds me of a test a former hunter educator told me. He wanted to see if a 16ga. in the barrel would blow up a 12ga. No. The shot column shoved the smaller shell down the barrel and out. (He had a sacreficial single shot fired with a string.) Maybe some chokes are less forgiving, but he refused to teach the conventional wisdom professed in the manuals.

I helped my father drill and tap 11 semi-wadcutters out of an 8" revolver barrel once. He'd loaned the gun and some ammo to a fellow, who didn't realize no shots were leaving the barrel until the cylinder wouldn't rotate.

The heighth of fallacy was perpetrated by the CFC when they distributed their own firearms safety materials to hunter educators. One was a serious videotape about how instructors should stand to one side or another of a shooter, because ALL FIREARMS ARE DESIGNED TO FAIL. I couldn't believe it. Maybe on a detached plain of engineering consideration over hundreds and hundreds of thousands of rounds and a percentage of firearms will have a catastrophic explosion, but this is not something to suggest is a matter of fact common occurence. Now that we know the extent of the sponsorship scandals, I imagine the CFC was told to hire Mr. X and pay him $Y and shut up about it.
 
maple_leaf_eh said:
The height of fallacy was perpetrated by the CFC when they distributed their own firearms safety materials to hunter educators. One was a serious videotape about how instructors should stand to one side or another of a shooter, because ALL FIREARMS ARE DESIGNED TO FAIL.
Click to expand...

If you look at some of the educational materials you will see that Coalition for Gun Control was on of the "contributors" to the material. Any more questions??


But seriously, may things are designed to fail in a certain way to protect people. Example, pressure vessels with a slightly weaker side or direction, cars that are designed to crumple in a certain direction when in an accident.... Even on guns there are paths around a bolt to release gasses in a safe direction if a case separates or primer punctures. Lots of examples. But I don't believe an entire action/gun is designed to fail in a specific way.

The display at Epps is quite interesting with many burst barrels, rifle and shotgun.
 
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Don't know how long that barrel has been kicking around the shop, but I wouldn't put it past old Elwood to have hung it up to discourage the backyard gunsmiths from cutting off cheap FMJ's to make hunting ammo rather than buying new stuff from him.
 
Then there was the .380 revolver with 6 bullets in the barrel and a seventh which didn't quite make it in all the way.
Reloading is fool proof. It's not DAMMFOOLPROOF.
 
I remember about 45 years ago (the long term memory is still working) seeing a friend's father grinding the tips off of .303 ball so he could legally hunt with them. He'd just grind thru the copper to expose the lead, not shortened more than about an 1/8". I suspect this may have been fairly common practice in the 50's and 60's but I agree, it is a risky practice.
 
maple_leaf_eh said:
This discussion of the folklore of blowing up guns reminds me of a test a former hunter educator told me. He wanted to see if a 16ga. in the barrel would blow up a 12ga. No. The shot column shoved the smaller shell down the barrel and out. (He had a sacreficial single shot fired with a string.) Maybe some chokes are less forgiving, but he refused to teach the conventional wisdom professed in the manuals.
Click to expand...


I'm a CFSC and CRFSC instructor, and tested the scenario they mention in the manual (20g shell in a 12g chamber, and a 12g behind it). An old CIL pump (full choke) and a length of rope. Know what happened - nothing. Didn't even cause a bulge or a ring near the choke. Did it a second time - same result. Finally "dropped it" into the dirt (muzzle first) put a 12 in, and pulled the string. Let's just say the results were different. :D
 
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