When bad things happen...... (pics)

[doubleA]

I was reading the post about the Weatherby bolt failure and thought that I might share this with y' all.

This is what' s left of a friend' s Winchester M70 action. The rifle was originally his grandfather' s and chambered in 264 Win mag and re-barreled to 7mm Rem mag. His father had worked up a pet load for this particular rifle and everything was fine.
Supposedly his father loaded some of these " pet rounds up on a friday night and sent his son (my friend ) off to the range on Saturday to make sure the set-up was shooting where it should for an upcoming elk hunt.
This happened on the 4th shot, they dont know what happened but as you can see, the pressure was WAY OVER the nominal 60K or so.
John said the last thing he remembered was that it had tremendous recoil. He was knocked out and had to spend a day in the hospital due to having many metal fragments in his neck and face. God blessed him to live another day, he was very fortunate to say the least.

This will make you think about using maximum loads. It' s sad to saybut........sooner or later bad things happen........


doubleA b0oM

[bigbulls]

From the looks of thet receiver I' d say that he was well above 100,000 psi.

My instructor at Colorado School of Trades was telling us about a guy that had a 300 Wea mag and fired one shot at an elk (thankfully that shot was the only one needed) and he couldn' t open his bolt. He took it to the instructors shop and after some prying and such was able to get the bolt to open. The primer came flying out when the case ejected signifying he had passed the 75,000 psi mark. Come to find out Weatherby had let some ammo slip through that was out of SAAMI specs on the large side and created excessively high presures in his rifle. He bought some new ammo and was on his way.

This guy was lucky!
It really can happen to any one, even if you don' t hand load.

[akbound]

I know I' ve posted this before....but probably more than a few of you haven' t seen it yet.

http://www.african-hunter.com/lessons_learned.htm

If you would like to read more about excessive pressure in factory loads....as well as some other common problems with numerous rifles.....check out this information!

Plus there is a considerable amount of other interesting info at this site!

[stubblejumper]

Interesting article on safeties and it probably is accurate for use in africa.However in cold wet climates I have seen tang safeties freeze in place due to their large bearing area.I have never seen that happen with any other safety.

[JimboHunter1]

That' s pretty scary info DoubleA. It reminds me of something that happened to a family friend about 18 years ago. He used to reload shotgun shells and he went to the trap range one day with his newly-reloaded shells. He shot a bunch of rounds and all was well, until when he finally went to reach into his pocket for a few more shells and couldn' t feel his hand and fingers. When he looked down he had blood pouring out of his forearm.
Turned out that it seemed that he forgot to load the wad into the shotshell and it ended up blowing the breech out of the shotgun which, in turn, projected through his arm when it was fired. The months to come involved skin grafts and a handful of painful surgeries.
This happened right after I started hunting as a youngster and from that day forward, I hunt only with factory firearms and factory ammo. It' s my personal preference- I just feel safer that way.

[Briman]

Where is the rest of the barrel? was it cut away from the receiver, or was it blown completely off?[]

Unless a faster burning powder was used than what should have been used, it seems unlikely that a double charge or overcharge would have done this, I usually opt for a powder that nearly fills a case imho.

Were the bullets seated too deep?
was the third shot a squib- leaving the bullet partway down the barrel? - This sounds like the most likely scenario, as it can be easier to accidently unot charge a case with powder than overcharge- especially if the loader is putting uncharged cases in a loading block.


I' M not sure what rifles are proof tested at, but they should hold up to 100,000 psi, I' ve read about how the military tested ' 03 springfields which would start to fail at 125,000 psi and this was 60 years ago probably using inferior metallurgy than what is used today. Either way, that is a heck of alot of pressure- about twice what the typical magnum load produces.

Handloading is serious business. It requires the kind of alertness and awareness of danger as operating heavy equipment- only difference is that a small mistake won' t hurt you or someone else now, but days, months, or years later.

[Vapodog]

I actually know of a major manufacturer of ammo that loaded two bullets in a single case.....yes...really!

[mrfishy34]

wow!!!!! he is real lucky