Ever blow up a rifle........

W

William Suter

Well-known member
....well I did. And really don't know why for sure. Several months ago I bought a Charles Daly/Zatava mini mauser in 204 at a small gunshow. It was a custom rifle with a really nice walnut stock, (resembled a Cooper) and a custom barrel (unknown maker). The rifle shot the 32 grain Vmax into small little tiny group. I wanted to try some different bullets so I loaded some 39 grain BlitzKings and it shot them decent but not as good as the Vmax. A local store just got in some Sierra 36 grain Varmint Kings. (Just a BlitzKing with a different name.) Hodgdon doesn't have a load for 36 grain bullets so I went with the 35 grain loads. Powder was 8208, minimum load was 27 grains and max was 28.2. I loaded 5 of each. (Probably jumping the bullet 70 thou) First was the 27 grain load. The four rounds had no pressure signs. No sticky bolt, nice round edges on the primers, and shot a nice dime size group. I loaded the 5th round, squeezed the trigger and all hell broke loose. It split the fore end in half, blew the stock in half at the grip and the floor plate was bent and the spring and follower were mangled. The front screw that held the scope base blew out of the hole as well. I tried to open the bolt but couldn't so when I got home I used a mallet and ended up breaking the bolt handle off. I figured pulling the barrel was the only option to find out what went wrong so a friend of mine and myself went to his gunsmiths shop and he pulled the barrel for me. The case split just above the extractor groove. Primer was gone and the little extractor was mostly gone except a piece that was wedged between the bolt lugs and the action body. The only thing I can think of that happened was case failure. I know it wasn't a double charge, you can't put that much powder in a 204 case. My friend said he was using 8208 and he had blew up a 223 and he won't use the powder any more. I've been using 8208 forever with no issues. He says its unstable. I don't know about that so I can't say one way or another. All I know for sure is after all the years Ive been reloading I've never done this before. I got what I would call a scratch on my trigger finger and a lightly peppered on my cheek. Poor rifle is probably not repairable at least not cost effective. I got the rifle cheap so I can live with the loss and just glad no one was hurt. I can't post pictures here but I did on the Accurate shooter sight. Funny but not so funny..it was my birthday. LOL
 
William Suter said:
Powder was 8208, minimum load was 27 grains and max was 28.2. I loaded 5 of each. (Probably jumping the bullet 70 thou) First was the 27 grain load. The four rounds had no pressure signs. No sticky bolt, nice round edges on the primers, and shot a nice dime size group. I loaded the 5th round, squeezed the trigger and all hell broke loose.
Click to expand...
Am I understanding that you shot four rounds @ 27gr. (start load) then jumped all the way to (max. load) of 28.2 gr where rifle failed, Bill?
ETA: Re-read and looks like the 5th round was thought to have also been 27 gr. If that is the case perhaps you got the rounds mixed up and fired the max load?? Glad you were not seriously injured.
 
Last edited:
No, the 5th round was the last 27grain load. Never got to shoot the others. I pulled all the bullets I had left yesterday and they were all 28.2 ish. one or two were 28.3. The first 4 were perfect. No pressure of any kind, nice round edges on the primers, no sticky bolt lift, and that's what has me so puzzled. The heart breaker is someone spent a lot of time and money building this little rifle. It was probably one of the cheapest rifles I own but it was just a really cool little 204. (I only paid $400 for it.) Now its just scrap. I do have a good barrel and trigger. Maybe I'll run across another one someday and build another one. My shooting buddy said it sounded like a bomb going off. and man it happens fast. No time to even think about it. It was something I thought would never happen to me.


Some have asked how many times the brass had been reloaded? It was factory Hornady that was once fired. I had sold all my 204 dies and brass and was shooting new factory ammo. The 10 rounds I had loaded was the first time they were reloaded.
 
Long shot; not familiar w/8208 but states it is a short cut extruded powder; is there any possibility of powder bridging in your measure????
ETA: (.20 is not a very big hole.)
 
Last edited:
Had it happen with a 17/223 ar once and powder in the face and magazine base plate and spring hit the family jewels bolt carrier was in a few pieces. scared the crap out of me. and it was shooting some really nice groups. and it was a midrange power charge. Pulled the bullets that went out the bottom of the magazine and they were all with in .003 grains of what I had set for charge weight. To this day I still don't know. Glad you are OK William. Sorry for you Gun
 
WOW!

I'm glad you are OK.

Could there have been time between shots for a large bug to crawl into the barrel?


I left primed cases in the open on my reloading bench for about a week one time. While adding powder to a particular case, the powder overflowed. When I dumped the powder into the scale to check the charge weight, a dead bug fell out of the case.

I was loading for the Hornet, so even a small bug takes up a lot of space in there. I have wondered what if it was a larger case?
 
Yes... I am glad that you are okay. I have no idea what may have happened, but as long as you or anyone else were not harmed, that is ultimately the important thing. It sucks about the rifle, but those are replaceable.
 
Were you using small rifle primers, thin cups like Rem 6 1/2 or CCI 400s? Rem brought out the 7 1/2 to handle the higher pressures of the 222 and 221. I assume you blew the back of the case out as you said the barrel was still good.

I had a customer blow up a Model 70 shooting a 7mm Rem Express in a 7mm Rem Mag. It wrecked the stock, blew it to pieces ahead of the trigger, blew the mag box out, the floor plate off and broke the bottom metal at the mag box.. Luckily a new stock, mag box & spring and bottom m metal and it was back to new.

You know you wrecked one of my grail guns, I always wanted a mini mauser in 222.Rem with a mannlicher style stock. Gun budget and availability never seem to align. Ended up with a Full-stock Sako Vixen.
 
If there was a bug in the case, he went for a hell of a ride! The bullet did leave the barrel but it didn't hit the target best I can tell. There were only four holes.
 
Bill's rifle...before and after:

1779143985237.png
1779143931237.png
 
William Suter said:
If there was a bug in the case, he went for a hell of a ride! The bullet did leave the barrel but it didn't hit the target best I can tell. There were only four
Click to expand...
Not sure what happened here either but I was going to say I only use 6 1/2 primers in my Hornet.

Thanks Alf for posting the pictures. I appreciate it!!
 
William Suter said:
Thanks Alf for posting the pictures. I appreciate it!!
Click to expand...
No problem.

FYI, Accurate Shooter, LR Hunting, & Rokslide and here, are all places you can directly paste pics w/o having a host.

To post your pics here from AS, just right click on your pic over there, click "copy image", come over here, hit reply, then right click again, and click on "paste"....presto!
 
I haven't but my ex-BIL blew one up. A brand new remington 700 bdl in 270. Split the barrel on the very first shot down the pipe. He forgot to remove the spud from his laser bore sighter before pulling the trigger.
 
alf said:
FYI, Accurate Shooter, LR Hunting, & Rokslide and here, are all places you can directly paste pics w/o having a host.

To post your pics here from AS, just right click on your pic over there, click "copy image", come over here, hit reply, then right click again, and click on "paste"....presto!
Click to expand...
Actually, you can copy a picture from most any source or your device and paste it here without a host.
 
I posted that pic as you can see, bulged barrel and brass flowed, locking the bolt. Mr Suter's doesn't look like bulged barrel - but brass flow and most pressure relieved through the rear and bottom. Pretty much has to be a case rupture. Stock wood grain is lengthwise for rigidity and split would be normal when the bottom hardware went south. I liked 8208 in my AR10 308, never a problem.
edit: I had case head separation in a Fed 40sw once, blown off at the extractor groove. Known problem with that batch of brass.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top