[Dude]

I was at the range a few months back and saw a firearm accident for the first time.

He was shooting a handgun. I think it was a Beretta, at least similar in size handgun.

The round misfired somehow and blew the gun apart. It literally blew the slide off.

Anyone have something similar happen? Would love to hear what exactly causes that besides absolute blockage.

[RONSERESURPLUS]

Dude/ALL


RON L here = SERESURPLUS


No, I've never had one go apart on me, but I did see a fellow who was new to Black Powder, (Who ignored offers to help) load a hawken Rifel to the point where he was just pouring powder into the open barrel! After a few times firing it, He had Black Powder fouling all over himself, the rifle, the bench and all, we later saw the Breech Plug was about sheared off and other than an unusuall feel to the rifle when fired, it still shot OK? Fools have god looking out fo them I guess?


I'm sure this sort of thing has happened to Modern firearms as well, just never seen it, and those that talked about seeing it or siad it happed to them, well, lets just say I chuckled, and walked off?




RON L

[Brent L]

I've never seen an actual "blow up", but I have been on hand when a reload froze a bolt in a rifle on the bench next to me. I could hear the sharp boom-crack! I new it was't normal! He could'nt even open the bolt.

He was lucky!

[Splatter]

Back in the early 80's I was shooting a 9mm Major, in a Colt 1911, with a standard barrel (non-ramped).
A couple of times I had case heads blow, which will mess with the mag. If the mag is full it'll blow it out, sometimes firing the top round in the mag too. If the mag is less than 1/2 full, it's usually OK because the gas just shoves the rounds down into the mag.
The first time it happened I had checked wood grips, and thankfully it was just a blow-out; but it took me quite a while to pick all the slivers out of my hand, and of course it wrecked the mag. The next time I was using Pachmayer grips, with the steel inserts. This was just after a mag change and it set-off the top round in the mag. It sure made my hand sting and tingle; but by the time I'd hammered out the ruined mag and 'massaged' the grips back into a useable shape, I was fine to keep shooting.
Then I changed to a P35 (BHP) with its fully supported chamber and never had another blow-out.

So I converted that 1911 to .45 ACP, and I was fairly happy until I stumbled on to a stash of steel .45 cases made in '42 or '43 as I recall. These bad-boys let me do some pretty stupid stuff in that stock Colt barrel. 230 grain FMJs at nearly 1300fps! It'd pierce the odd primer but the cases were just fine.
Those cases were a distinctive 'white' steel colour, very easy to distingush from the brass cases that .45 had.
Until the time I found my first nickel plated .45 case.
I didn't realize it wasn't part of my batch of steel cases, and it wrecked another mag, and completely finished those old Pachmayer grips when it went off.
After I discovered the problem, I used cold-blue to make the steel cases even more distinctive.

I've never done anything like that with a rifle; but when I was searching for a good load for my 788, in .308, using the 190 grain BTSP I did have a few loads that needed to have the bolt opened with a rubber mallet.

[BLS33]

A buddy of mines dad was hunting and had his shotgun muzzle down in the mud, it froze and when he shot the barrel blew up just like in the cartoons. They have it hung up on their wall.