What are you talking about?! This is a self-contradictory statement. If the "swell" was in front of the breechplug, and the rupture began toward the muzzle and ran backwards toward the the breechplug, how did the breechplug cause the rupture when the breechplug was the last thing the rupture encountered? Looks to me like the breechplug stopped the ruptures progress rather than starting it.

Bridges now blames "powder detonation" (there's a new one for me) as part of the reason...first I've heard of that happening. He claims that the 5744 was TOO easy to ignite with its 20% nitroglycerin content and this caused it to blow the gun up.

In the article mentioned in the link above, Bridges is sure to mention the "detonation" theory, but doesn't mention that he was exceeding the Savage recommended loads by 5 grains. Seems to me that Bridges is trying to place blame everywhere but himself. If some dumba** loaded a 300 Win Mag with 5 grains over max and it blew up their face everyone, including Bridges I'm sure, would be rightfully quick to place the blame squarely on the handloader/shooter. But when the almightly Toby Bridges loads up multiple 4 grain overcharges, followed by a 5 grain overcharge, it's suddenly everyone and everything elses fault but his.

I'm sorry, but I'm calling bulls**t on this whole crock. Bridges' is now doing his best to save face and IMO the only thing he's blowing worse that his rifle is his credibility. Never ONCE does he consider or bother to mention that it was his willful and gross overcharging of the weapon that just might have been the cause or major factor in the failure of this rifle. So far he's placed blame on Savage's design of the breechplug, the design of the three-hole ventliner (which was introduced because the rifle would not reliably light off certain types of smokeless powder because the ignition temp was too low), the formulation of the powder, and the stress and fatigue of 7,500 rounds already fired (many of which were gross overcharges that he's already admitted to but not acknowledged as a possible cause).

This whole thing sounds like sour grapes to me. This happened in March and we're hearing about it in August. Bridges is playing up the "poor victim" role ("It's taken more than four months, but I'm finally starting to sleep a little more normally." -Bridges ...Pardon me while I call a WAA!mbulance for him![:@]), which leads me to believe that during the last four months he's been trying to get Savage to pay for his silence. Now, four months later maybe Savage has told him to take his blackmail and kiss off and he's gotten busy trying to make the 10ML look worse than it is because Savage won't pay up. If he really thought that the 10ML was so unsafe and wanted to put the word out as a matter of principle, why did he wait over four (supposedly sleepless) months to do it? If it shook him up so bad, why wasn't he spending his sleepless nights doing his best to get the word out to ease his troubled mind earlier? All his whining and bellyaching now make him sound more like a plaintiff in a John Edwards courtroom fantasy than an avid shooter who had a little accident at the range.

Mike