Wow... hope the shooter is ok!


-DallanC

Wow ..... I wonder what went wrong...........

WOW i was thinking my god and you are typing?? then i realized it was someone else... man oh man!

Someone had to have gotten hurt, I'd like to know the full story behind this one
Keep it coming...

OUCH!! If ya find out the story on it let us no.
Joe

Barrel obstructions are the most common cause of catastrophic failures such as this, but like everyone else, I'd sure like to know the whole story if you ever find out. I'm thinking this dude is HURT!

I don't know and I hate to speculate here, but that ripped open at the chamber. If it was a barrel obstruction, the bullet had to be stuck just into the ledes. I might tend to believe that an overly exuberent handloader got carried away with his powder. Just my guess....

Good observation Bushmaster. Just looking at the destuctive force it took to do that much damage, whatever caused it, it's scary.

Couple notes:

1. I dont know anything more about the picture. It was just emailed to me to got it emailed to him. I guess the story will surface some day on what really happened.

Bushmaster wrote:

I don't know and I hate to speculate here, but that ripped open at the chamber. If it was a barrel obstruction, the bullet had to be stuck just into the ledes. I might tend to believe that an overly exuberent handloader got carried away with his powder. Just my guess....

I'd bet he used the wrong powder.

Anyway I think I mentioned before the tv show Mythbusters. They tried to explode a rifle barrel in an experiment. They made barrel obstructions... hammering in a bullet from the crown end... they even went so far as to WELD a piece of steel at the crown. They were unable to blow up the barrel. I think their test was flawed as they used a cheap foreign rifle that isnt as high powered as some of todays super mags. It was an interesting show but I do think their test was flawed, we see pictures about every year of exploded rifles so that it happens is not up for debate.


-DallanC

Have a friend who's wife "bulged" (not ruptured) the barrel of her model 10 (Smith) revolver shooting very light wadcutter loads. A squib left a bullet in the barrel, the next round was cause for some excitement... stopped the whole match. They shot matches together.

One of the most famous types of rupture even has a name ... it's called the 12/20 burst. 20 guage round gets just past the chamber, 12 guage is fired after. Shotguns work at substantially lower pressures than high intensity, high powered rifles (Usually around 12,000 lbs cup as opposed to 40 or 50 or 60 or.... well you get my drift).

For pics and many more dramatic examples of barrels ruptured by barrel obstructions, refer to Frank DeHas wonderful book "Turnbolt Rifles".

Damn, it is weird that it happened at the chamber end. I can think of a few causes, but for the most part the person loading that gun would had to make a major screw up. I hope he or she wasn't hurt too bad.

I just can't imagine that much damage being done regardless of the circumstances. I had a PUMA lever action 94 (?) in .454 Cassull that developed a donut ring about a third of the barrel length from the chamber. I must have fired 15 to 20 rounds through it, where I couldn't hit any where close to point of aim regardless of distance, before I did a visual of the gun. The gun was new, first time out. I was using full house loads I put together for my Ruger Redhawk, figuring a rifle should handle it better than my revolver. To this day, no one knows what caused the problem. I got my money back and bought a Marlin 1895 in 45-70.

The PUMA didn't look like the barrel was about to split open. I didn't push my luck though. Point being, I just can't imagine what would cause so much damage like in the picture at the beginning of this thread. If it were a shotgun, I could see it, but a rifle...
Keep it coming...

That happened to me with a 444 Marlin Encore pistol in 1996. No barrel obstruction. Factory Rem ammo.
Sent the remains to a reputable Encore gunsmith. Result was the 2 scope mount holes over the chamber were too deep. Stress cracks developed and boom. The barrel had been rechambered from 44 mag. In the 44 mag configuration the 2 holes were well ahead of the end of the chamber.
I got 36 stitches to close the gash in my left hand. no long term ill effect. Just a big scar.

I would suspect something similar in the one above due to the barrel splitting along the top center, leaving the lug intact at the bottom

4rum wrote:

One of the most famous types of rupture even has a name ... it's called the 12/20 burst. 20 guage round gets just past the chamber, 12 guage is fired after. Shotguns work at substantially lower pressures than high intensity, high powered rifles (Usually around 12,000 lbs cup as opposed to 40 or 50 or 60 or.... well you get my drift).

Even that one doesn't always blow up a gun. A fellow in the mid-west tried several ways of blowing up a 12 ga. H&R topper (including double charges of Red Dot powder!), and the 20/12 combo. Shot it loose, but never got it to give way. If you do a search on trapshooters.com, you'll be able to dig up the thread. About 6 months ago, IIRC.

I saw this picture before, and the story with it said "no injuries". Someone better be going to church on Sunday.... JMO, Dutch.

Back in 1991 my brother, father, and I went out to the range with the 7mm TC/U 44 mag super black hawk, a H&R in 45/70 gov., and a few 22 LR. after shooting some 22 and getting some lessons from the old man with the 44 mag (I was only 13) we set up some targets and each grabbed a different gun.

I was lining up the cross hairs on the TC/U, when there was a very very loud report. I looked over my left shoulder and saw my father on his knees with his hands pressed against his forehead.
It turns out that about 70 gr of RL #7 will detonate the action, remove the lug from the barrel, cause a piece of the trigger to remove the tip of a finger, and loge part of the firing pin in a forehead. The barrel looks fine by appearance, just missing the lug. cant say the about any other part of the firearm though.