Originally Posted by
lemoyne
spaniel
A detonation is a rare phenomenon, not fully understood that happens with cartridge guns mostly. Its when a hang fire acts like a fully obstructed barrel. The old german gunsmith that work for me told me about it.
Never heard of that, so I guess I have no insight. One possible way I could imagine this playing out in real life it would work the same way in either type of rifle. The primer detonates, unseating the bullet and moving it some way up the barrel. In a cartridge rifle this would be up into the throat where the bullet will lodge in the lands, in a ML it would basically be the exact scenario I was already suggesting where the sabot moves up the barrel. Then the powder fires late.
I have had some failures-to-fire with old military 30-06 ammo but never a hangfire in a cartridge gun, so I don't know how the internal ballistics would work with that.