Handgun blow up - What happens when you don't pay attention.

[Bigeasy]

The attached photo's show the results of a high pressure incident with a S&W 59 auto pistol.  I am a firearms instructor with a large agency.  Besides front line weapons, we keep quite a collection of other armorment.  We are required to test fire all weapons once a year.  I was spending a couple days doing so, when I opened a case of S&W 59, 9mm pistols.  Take a gun out, fire a clip, return to case, repeat with the next gun, and so on.  Well, our Special Operations Team at the time trained with "Simunition" barrels on the 59's.  These guns were stocked with red plastic stocks to identify them, plus the Simunition barrel can not chamber a real round, with the barrel diameter about 32 cal.

The case of weapons I was test firing were regular duty weapons.  Imagine my suprise when I fired one and it felt like a firecracker going off in my hand.  The magazine flew from the gun, the slide was jammed open, and the frame was cracked in the grip area, as well as on one of the slide rails.  Someone had installed a Simunition barrel on a duty weapon, and it chambered and fired a live round.

Now, I have no idea what kind of pressure we are talking here, driving a 124 grn. .9mm bullet at 1250fps  down a .32 cal barrel, but it must have been quite impressive.  If you look at the attached pics, you can see the fired casing blew out in the webb, dumping a lot of pressire on the next round in the magazine, tearing the jacket from the bullet.  If you look at the fired case, you will see the bullet jacket welded to the inside of the case.  The pressure must have been so great that it pushed the lead core of the bullet out the barrel, while the jacket was driven back into the casing where it fused with the case.  Now, a lot of people say they can spot high pressure by looking at the primer, so look at the one from the fired case in question.  Looks pretty normal.....

Accidents are usually a combination of things that combine to cause an incident.  Pat attention to what you are doing, and don't depend on a safety, or gun designe that is subject to failure.  After this incident, the Simunition system was withdrawn from service when it was found several other barrels were also able to chamber live rounds.

Larry

[williamlayton]

Man---are you fortunate.
Lordy.
Find the person and make him/her fire it.
Well that is not a good thought--but--I am sure glad it turned out no worse than it did.
Blessings

[Mikey]

Larry - glad it was just the pistol that got busted and not you but that is a terrible way to treat a M59.  And btw - that primer does look hot. 

[Lloyd Smale]

buddy once got a new marlin rifle that the barrel hadnt even been bored on. Anymore the first thing i do with a new gun is run a rod with a tight patch down the bore to check for obstructions. Glad you didnt get hurt!

[spruce]

Sure glad you didn't get hurt.

Great lesson for all of us - you can never be too careful when handling firearms!  Thanks for reminding me!

[Brett]

Pretty scary stuff there.  Glad you were not hurt. 

[Siskiyou]

I lot of lessons out of this one   

[Skunk]

Glad you're OK Bigeasy. Thanks for sharing that. Makes a guy want to take paying attention to a new level.

[Lone Star]

buddy once got a new marlin rifle that the barrel hadnt even been bored on...

How in the heck did it get proof fired?  All US firearms are required to be proof fired before sale......




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[Graybeard]

Those blow ups are a real sobering experience. In my case it was a TC Contender in .44 Magnum that came from together to apart in my hands. It's why I harp so much on reloading safety on these forums. In my case it was a S&W headstamp case that for some reason just had a much smaller capacity than all the rest I loaded.

I saw it didn't look the same, dumped the powder and loaded it again. Still didn't look right so dumped the charge yet again and examined case and found nothing inside it so loaded it a third time and this time put in the bullet. WOW was that a bad mistake.

[Savage]

Sounds like a policy/procedure breakdown. SOP with most agencies requires weapons to be cleaned and checked for damage when they are returned to inventory. Then there's the little matter of someone installing a SIM barrel other than an armorer and the weapon not being properly identified. Thankfully you were not injured! Imagine what could have happened if the weapon had been issued and needed to defend an officer's life. Makes me want to go check the bore of my weapons. Might be a dirt dobber nest in the bore of some of them!     That just goes to prove, we can't be too careful!! Hang in there Easy!!
Savage

[rockbilly]

Like GB mine was also a .44 Mag.  I was stationed at Warner Robbins, Ga and had purchased the gun for hunting hogs.  A friend who was a Capitan in the Security Police was a reloader and gave me a couple of boxes of his “special hog medicine.”  Another friend and I were in a rural area doing some target practice when the blow up occurred.  I had fired six rounds, reloaded and fired two more before the cylinder split and jammed against the top strap.  When she blew bits of brass from the case and perhaps even some bits of steel blew back into my face, luckily I was wearing sunglasses or I might have lost an eye. I was shooting with a two hand hold and also got a nasty gash on the palm of my left hand.  I took the gun to a smith who removed the remaining rounds and sent the gun along with the amm9o back to Ruger.  About two months later I received notice they would not warranty the gun since the reloads were grossly overloaded.

This was a good lesson for me and also got me in to reloading, I laugh today when I hear a remark like this is a “hot load.”  My friend use to say” there is just a small difference between a hot load and an over load.”  I guess he didn’t really know the difference.

[Mohawk]

  Had one in 2003 during a requalification I attended. An officer was using approved remanufactured ammo. He was shooting a Beretta 96, .40. Somehow a 9mm ended up in the bag. The round did get loaded into the mag, did chamber, and did fire. Safety lever became a projectile, and the remainder of the gun seized. Nobody was injured but the gun was beyond repair. The internals were all badly damaged.

[nseries]

That happened to a buddy of mine recently.  His department changed over from 9mm to .40S&W.  He ended up firing 2 rounds of 9mm in his department issued Sig 229 (pretty sure that's the model he carries) and didn't realize it until the range officer came up.  Blew the 9mm cases, but did no damage to the gun. 

Apparently some of their old 9mm ammo ended up in the bucket of .40 they were loading their mags from.

[His lordship.]

At my old range in Minnetrista, MN we allowed the local police departments to use the place from time to time.  After one of their visits I found a 9 X19 case that had been fired in a pistol chambered for a .40 S/W, it was swelled up badly and split, had that sit on my TV for quite awhile as a decorator.  Never did learn if anyone got hurt or had their gun damaged.