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I would like to think that those of us who reload ammunition understand the potential dangers and the need to be vigilant when at the bench and luckily documented failures related to reloading your own ammunition are few and far between however they do happen and this Winchester 1894 chambered in 30-30 is a perfect example. My guess is a round with very little or no powder (Primer only) was fired through the rifle, the bullet failed to leave the barrel and a second round was shot with the resultant catastrophic failure.

The interesting thing here is this is the second under lever rifle to come in over the last couple of weeks with bulged barrels, the other being a 44 Remington Magnum and the common factor is they are both under lever rifles.

Now I am certainly not saying under lever rifles are more prone to barrel bulging when a second moving round meets a first stationary round because this could happen in any type of rifle and I have no idea statistically if this sort of incident is more prevalent with under levers, however add reloading to under levers and the type of shooting they are used for here in the UK and there might and I do say just might be an increased risk here.

Let me explain. Under lever rifles are often used for competition shooting which in turn can be against the clock. I shoot a .357Mag Marlin in local club competitions and to be vaguely competitive I need to get accurately placed rounds off very quickly, typically two rounds in two seconds on turning targets which means I acquire the target, pull the trigger cycle the lever to load a second round and pull the trigger. During this period I have very little chance of seeing my fall of shot due to the nature of the target and the lack of splash behind and my interest is getting that second round down range. Whilst doing this I need to be aware of anything that seems different, less noise, a reduced recoil or similar and if that happens I need to stop myself from taking that next shot.

It can be done, by that I mean you can be aware of something not being quite right and accordingly stop yourself, equally I suspect in the heat of the moment a mistake can be made.

OK, so that is one scenario.

Probably the more worrisome is when you are shooting simultaneously with other competitors with low loaded rounds and ear defenders and I believe this is going to give a greater potential for missing something which might lead to a failure. Something we have to be aware of and if there is any doubt never under any circumstances take a further shot until the rifle has been inspected.

This leads onto another thought. Driving a soft lead bullet through a barrel is one thing, driving a jacketed bullet is something else and I have a length of barrel I sectioned a few years ago. The shooter had managed to load without powder in a Remington 700 chambered in 6mmBR. He instantly recognised the error, stopped shooting and took the rifle to a shop, there a long rod was placed down the barrel from the muzzle and given a few reasonable clouts with a large hammer, this succeeded in expanding the bullet further and securely jammed it in the barrel. The barrel came to me in such a state that the only realistic way forward was to fit a new barrel.

My view is if a bullet is jammed in a barrel the only direction it should be moved is in its original direction of flight, that is away from the chamber and towards the barrel and this can be done reasonably easily with the addition of some light lubrication and care. Equally I have seen the job done with a screwdriver on a S&W 686 and it also worked!

Please note, I am certainly not suggesting it is only reloaded ammunition in under lever rifles that has the potential for failure because it can equally be factory ammunition in bolt action rifles and in totally different disciplines.

What I am saying is it is incredibly important to be aware of your reloading process and what is happening when you are shooting for your safety and the safety of those around you.

Finally, don’t forget your safety gasses next time you head down the range!

I've seen two of our club members have issues with re-loading and lever actions....thankfully without sending that second one down and getting the result you describe!
And yes, we've had to resort to jabbing with a cleaning rod, the offending stuck bullet out of the end of the barrel - as you say from the chamber end though.

This is one of the reasons I've never considered progressive presses, because it's far easier to miss something, but of course progressive presses are more suited to pistol calibres because I shoot that many more of them.

The amount of "squib" rounds i've seen at my club lately is a bit worrying. Two from the same bloke in two rifles only a couple of weeks ago and we were laying next to him. No powder I guess. Luckily his guests knew the difference as it was guest day!

I use RCBS charge master and always check my cases in batches with a torch before seating.

Grizzly wrote:
I use RCBS charge master and always check my cases in batches with a torch before seating.

Yup, same here

I tend to build as I load, as one powder charge is trickling up with the target master I'm seating the previous case with its bullet
I think it would be very hard to miss a load in this method as ther are not a tray full of cases waiting to be loaded

Duey wrote:I tend to build as I load, as one powder charge is trickling up with the target master I'm seating the previous case with its bullet
I think it would be very hard to miss a load in this method as ther are not a tray full of cases waiting to be loaded

I do the same.. Fill a case, seat the bullet, as a load manually, no chance of a light/double charge.

Had a member shoot an empty case a little while ago, personally I would have pulled the rest rather than risk the next one having a double charge.

Makes sense that this round is higher risk.. I load .357 200 at a session, whereas .308 is 20 or so as the opportunity to shoot is less.

I check each case with a torch before seating the bullets.
My routine for the underlever in 38 special is. Full length size and de cap approx 100 cases using a carbide die. I then expand the neck using an expander die this is done on a wamadet press sat on my computer desk. I then prime the cases using a hand priming tool.
They then go into a storage box I do this a couple times a week so I all ways have cases ready to load.
The next step is to charge the powder I use a lee hand operated powder measure sat on my computer desk. I check every tenth charge on my hornady beam scale. When I have 50 in my tray I check them with a torch then seat the bullets using an arbor press set up on my computer desk. Using a modified lee die out of a set of 38/357 lee loader dies. Some times I just use the set of Lee loader dies for the fun of it.
Hand loading (as opposed to just re loading) this way gives me full control of the whole process
Then its of to the range to empty the cases so I can start the process all over again.
In fact I do most of my hand loading this way. Over the years I have had turret presses progressive presses etc and eventually got rid of them. I now own a Lyman single station cast jobby but to be honest since I got the wamadet the lyman has not been used.
My favorite way of loading for my full bore rifle calibers is with the arbor press using LeWilson neck bushing dies and micrometer seating dies. So relaxing if I really want to speed things up I will use my target master trickler. As I have said before I shoot so I have empty cases to reload.

I shoot cowboy action, which is against the clock, empty 10 rounds fast as you can at various targets in various ways. when I bought my 1873 I bought some loaded rounds with it, these were rife with squibs, wound up having to pull them all and reload them myself. BUT, even as fast as I'm shooting, a pop instead of a bang really stands out and stops you dead. plus the person on the clock if they hear will shout to stop if they hear pop and see no shot.

that said, I've had missfires with 303 and 9mm factory.

The most misfires I have ever had was with 8mm (7.92) Mauser military ammo 4 out of 10 would not go bang. You had to be really care full the fact it was only £6 a hundred and looked like it had spent its life at the bottom of the North Sea sort of alerted you to the fact it was not going to win you any competitions. I bought barrow loads of the stuff and pulled it for the powder and bullets.