As far as accidents go, I wouldn' t be concerned, they are very rare, and most modern guns are made with safety in mind if something catastrophic should occur. Not saying that if you load a 30-06 round full of bullseye you are going to come out fine and dandy after firing it, but in most casehead failures, I wouldn' t worry too much if you are 20 feet away

I would worry more about shooting next to someone shooting a semiauto without a brass deflector or with a muzzle brake. Nothing wakes you quicker than getting a piece of hot brass down the back of your shirt, or being anywhere near a rifle with a compensator without hearing protection when its fired. I think the worst offenders are slug guns with ported barrels- these tend to throw alot of crap out to the side of the barrel. I' ve even seen a guy who was hit in the cheek by a hot sliver of lead that came out of a ported slug gun on the next bench over- steer clear of these guns[>:]

If the guy next to you is shooting a mauser 98, stay to the right of him, if he' s shooting a flintlock, stay to the left of him.

Interesting comments.....regarding the .270 winchester in a .270 weatherby chamber........my brother once fired a .223 in a .22-250 chamber with disastrous results.....the failure isn' t to the receiver....it' s to the case that ruptures and releases gas to the rear. It could cause the receiver to blow up. In this case the Model 70 winchester allowed the error and the fact that my brother was using safety glasses saved his eyes and there was no damage done except he needed a new extractor for the Model 70. He' s never fired that rifle since!!!

I' ve been reloading for over 30 years and I' ve had a couple incidents but have never " blown up" a receiver or barrel. I' d be far more concerned about my own reloads than those of the guy next to me at the range.

Regarding the Weatherby rifle:......just because you paid more for it don' t mean it' s a stronger or better gun.

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Plus the fact that a .270 case is not a stright walled case but has a bit of taper to it. A shorter case could wedge into the chamber and still leave enough case head sticking out for the firing pin to get a good punch on even in a push feed rifle.

bigbulls, I agree this guy should have enough smarts to check his ammunition.I guess he assumed the store gave him the correct ammo since they just sold him the rifle.That was his first mistake. Never assume anything.I was shooting several benches down when this gun came apart.I don' t know if he kept trying to fire it or it went off the first time.Needless to say there was allot of commotion over this.The guy was more shaken then hurt.I' m sure he learned a lesson, he might not be as lucky the next time.When I' m going to shoot different rifles I only put that one rifle on the bench and one ammuntion.When I' m finished shooting that rifle I put everything away and then bring the other stuff out.
There was another incident when I worked at a gun shop. A regular customer brought in a S&W model 29.He had loaded up some 44 mags.Somehow he misread the loading data.I think the somehow was being under the influence of something.Many times he' d come in the store doped up.He said the first shot surprised him how hot it was.It actually hurt his hand. The dummy took another shot and from the cylinder forward it came apart.I saw this gun. We sent it back to S&W for him.I can' t remember what it costed him,but Smith replaced his gun with a new one with the same S/N.I would never have believed a Smith would come part like it did if I hadn' t seen it.You can never be to careful. One little mistake can change your life or others in a matter of a split second.If you handload give it your fullest attention.
Ruger Redhawk

winchester saw the probability of loading the wrong ammo in the wrong gun because of store clerks giving the wrong ammo by mistake when they had the 7mm mag. and the 7mm express , that' s why they renamed it the .280 rem.

i also remember an article in shooting times ( i think ) about gun blow ups , and they had a picture of a gun blow up caused by the wrong ammo loaded into it , a guy had tried to fire a .250 savage out of a .243 winchester , and that rifle literally blew apart right in his hands , completely in half and splintered , the reciever broke apart by the barrel and the barrel had split , the bolt was naturally knocked open by the lack of lock up , and the stock by the reciever was basically splintered beyond recognition , the shooter miraculously only had minor injuries but , it could have been much much worse. that was a near worse case scenario except for the minor injureies to the shooter.

I saw the remanants of a 12 ga winchester at my local gunsmith. Not sure of the circumstances, but according to him it was a double charged reload. In any case the breech end of the barrel was peeled forward in about 3 strips, looked just like a banana, and the reciever has peices cracked out of it.
The shooter wasn' t hurt but was very shaken up.

Theres some good reading in PO Ackley' s handbook for shooters and reloaders concerning bolt action rifles failing due to excessive pressure. He took a bunch of military rifles and proceeded to bust them by overloads. If I remember right, the M38 Arisaka withstood more abuse than the mausers and springfields. Ive seen a colt saur 25-06 which had a 308 fired in it and all it did was bow the receiver popping off the scope, split the stock, and seized the action. The barrel and receiver were not split. Pretty impressive that it didnt bust.

Larry,
That is impressive. It' s somewhat comforting to know that modern firearms are engineered to withstand such a mistake.

I think it was the Arisaka Type 99 that got the results from Ackley' s test.

Couldnt remember which jap it was recoiljunkie, slight case of crs here. Didnt he say he split the barrel and blew it completely out of a receiver without damaging the receiver beyond repair? Yes, it is somewhat comforting to know rifles can take that kind of abuse without going off like a grenade. Every shooter believes he has better sense right up to the moment he blows his face off. $hit can happen though.