Gun Exploding

Melvin Eades · Post by **Melvin Eades** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 7:19 am

I called my friend last night and talked for a while. He is doing OK. He said his hearing sounds like he has a head cold, but its getting better every day. He was shooting a 110 gr. Accubond Bullet. He didn't remember how much Reloader 19 he was using without going and looking it up. He said it was backed down a grain or so from max. He had shot several of these loads, matter of fact he shot a ram 5 days before with this load.
I was always under the belief that once you pucture an ear drum that you wouldn't have hearing anymore. The doctoer said both were puctured but they would heal back. He didn't have hearing protection on. He said when he shot there was a loud explosion like sound and he didn't know what happened till he looked at his hands and was only holding the stock and forearm. It took him a second to notice there was blood on his hand from a minor cut. As he headed back to his truck to go home he said he talked to hiself to check his hearing. He said he could hear but not through his ears. It was like he was hearing hiself through the bones of his head. The next day he could start hearing without a very high pitch noise.

The barrel was clean. The only thing he can think of is either the action wasn't completely closed or he had a cracked case. I'm just glad he's alright.

It's a learning lesson for all of us to be careful in our reloading.

Bergcrane2 · Post by **Bergcrane2** » Wed Jan 31, 2007 4:51 pm

I've have the eardrum pucture before. It's no fun. Hope he's ok.

skipper · Post by **skipper** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:36 am

My XR-100 and several other rifles I own have a small hole drill in the side of the chamber. Isn't this hole intended to vent any pressure that could cause an explosion? Does the TC not have a pressure relief system? I was just wondering because if it did have the hole and the rifle blew up anyway, then I'm operating with a false sense of security.

Ruger No. 1 · Post by **Ruger No. 1** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 5:31 am

skipper wrote:My XR-100 and several other rifles I own have a small hole drill in the side of the chamber. Isn't this hole intended to vent any pressure that could cause an explosion? Does the TC not have a pressure relief system? I was just wondering because if it did have the hole and the rifle blew up anyway, then I'm operating with a false sense of security.

Thats what I always thought.

Rick in Oregon · Post by **Rick in Oregon** » Thu Feb 01, 2007 6:52 am

skipper: Those vent holes in rifle receivers are only to vent gas in the case of a blown primer or case failure. They will not prevent catastrophic failure if some sort of detonation occurs, only vent escaping gas.

There are many documented cases of this sort of thing, and as I mentioned above, they are very many times caused by doses of using slow burning powder with reduced charges. Makes no sense I know, but the phenomenon is fully documented many times over.

There's no way of knowing if that happened to the poor fellow above, but it's a wake up call to all of us to follow loads and components from the manuals that have all been pressure tested.

I'm guessing that maybe the action was not fully locked up, or something got inside the bore somehow causing a bore obstruction, but we'll probably never know for sure.

ODS9091 · Post by **ODS9091** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 7:19 am

Talking with a friend of mine whose father is a gunsmith, another explanation could be that this was a 25-06 chambered out to 257 STW.
If that is the case, his father declined to do just such a job at his shop. The reason was the depth of the tapped holes for the scope mount was too deep to be safe (in his opinion) after opening up the chamber for the larger diameter case. Maybe this was the case here? Just a suggestion/explanation of what could have happened.

flunkedchemistry · Post by **flunkedchemistry** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:02 am

Even with a vent hole like you see on bolt action rifles, it is usually not big enough for all the gas to escape out the side of the action from a pierced primer or from a case failure. Definitely not with a case failure I would think.

Some gas will rush back through the bolt races and into the shooters face. Even a pierced primer will be vey noticeable. That's why shooting glasses should be worn at all times.

And no, I didn't just read that somewhere on the internet. It happened to me, a pierced primer, on a new rifle with factory ammunition about 10 years ago. The company said the firing pin was "defective" and replaced the entire bolt mechanism as the face of the bolt was scarred by the escaping gas.

I was wearing shooting glasses but I definitely felt the hot gas hit my face. And the entire action around the bolt and the magazine smoked for probably 10 seconds.

Verminator2 · Post by **Verminator2** » Mon Feb 05, 2007 9:45 pm

Sorry to hear about your buddy

I hope the rifle and scope had a good waranty.