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Author Topic: Rifle detonation by reloading mistake  (Read 1034 times)

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Offline Ray Gunter

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Rifle detonation by reloading mistake
« on: March 28, 2005, 03:59:49 AM »
A few years back a friend of mine detonated a 03. Rifle in 30/06 came completely apart in a most violent detonation. A very experienced reloader whose been at the craft since early 50’s set down to load some 06 in his favorite H414 powder. Stepped out the door and touched one off for testing. He said a bright light was all he ever saw. In his hand was held a piece of wood or whats left of the stock. The bolt was on the ground lying between his feet. Barrel was about 30 feet out in front and completely unharmed. That barrel is now in another rifle. The scope bent into a curve and 20 feet behind. Floorplate and mag box along with various pieces of the action were scattered here and there. Gathering them all up we took this pic.



 

Here is a pic zoomed in a little closer on what we found of the action. There's the rear bridge some feed rail and mag box. Trigger guard and floor plate is there. All we found of the front ring was just a couple small pieces. basicly the front of the action came completely apart.

 


A closeup of the case reveals that everthing from the web back is gone.

 

What happened to cause this? Well we took apart a couple rounds and discovered that instead of reaching for what he thought was H414 he pulled down a can of H110. And an 06 case full of H110 is NOT a good idea. Result…. Complete Detonation.

He received numerous splinters and small cuts all up and down his left arm and face. Nothing that required a doc. His hearing came back the next day but he said "Huh" alot for weeks.

Lessons learned. Oh you bet. His age and with less than perfect eyesight combined with a heaping dose of “I’ve done this a million times I know what I’m doing” attitude is what caused this.

So we all can benefit from his most unfortunate accident by always double/triple checking everthing.

I have this picture framed and hanging in my loading area with the caption in bold letters “ARE YOU SURE ABSOLUTELY SURE”

I posted this in another fourm and it was suggested that I post this in other reloading rooms to spread the information. Good idea. If anyone wants to may copy this post and repost in other reloading rooms as well.
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Offline Questor

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Rifle detonation by reloading mistake
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2005, 04:49:23 AM »
What happened to your friend? This looks terrible.

You can't get enough H414 into a '06 case to make that happen. I think it was a powder substitution.  

On the other hand I recall reading in Julian Hatcher's Notebook that a long run of 1903 Springfields used a heat treating process that made the receivers brittle. They had relatively few blown up guns, but there were actually some guys killed when they did blow up. I'm just guessing now, but it seems that the bad ones had serial numbers of about 350,000 and lower. You can find this informaiton on-line at ricciardelli's StevesPages. He has Hatcher's Notebook scanned. There's a chapter on this topic.  After they changed the heat treating process, the problem was solved. Hatcher said that the broken metal looked "crystalized".

I also recall a posting that showed a blown up AR type rifle that had shot some foreign military ammo as practice ammo.  The shooter fortunately was not hurt but the gun was wrecked like your friend's.  The gun was totally destroyed. It was unknown what caused the problem.
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Offline MickinColo

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Rifle detonation by reloading mistake
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2005, 03:15:45 PM »
Questor,
 Read the post before your’s.

Ray,
Your friend was very lucky, we can all make mistakes. The pictures serve to remind us all,,,, double check things.
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Offline Redhawk1

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Rifle detonation by reloading mistake
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2005, 06:44:05 PM »
Questor, he mistakenly used H110 instead of H414.  :eek:
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Offline TennesseeNuc

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Rifle detonation by reloading mistake
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2005, 10:01:30 PM »
Ray,
Thanks for posting those pictures along with an explanation of the cause.  I think that any of us, on occasion, can get into a careless state of mind with anything that we do.  Only reloading can, sometimes, be not too forgiving.
I'm glad that mostly what he got was a busted gun with no serious injuries.
Seeing these kind of things periodically serves to give us a wake-up call. :shock:
Thanks Again,
TnNuc
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Offline lisa1lacy2

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Rifle detonation by reloading mistake
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2005, 02:38:31 PM »
I had this happen one time I grabbed the wrong powder one time but caught it before I started loading I moved all my powder to another shelf I have to get up and walk acrose the room to get at my powder now seems to work.
very lucky shooter :shock:
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