Kaboom Pics

[25Pdr]

A collection of Guns that have been destroyed,probably most by careless reloading procedures.

I'd love to know the history of these blowups, but I imagine using the wrong powder was the usual cause.

Blowup photos here.....

[Doz]

Hell's teeth, some horrors in there! I had to wonder about the pistol with at least five bullets stuck up the barrel though - you'd think he'd have noticed by that point wouldn't you?

[John25]

The most common cause is through under-filling the case rather than double charging. This allows the powder to burn too quickly with a resulting rapid increase in pressure. It is a misconception that the powder explodes. However a gun will if subjected to violent pressure increases for which it was not designed.
Using wrong powder doesn’t help. Many years ago at Millpool in Cornwall I was running the 600x firing point when my attention was drawn to a loud boom amongst the cracks of the various rifles on the point.

I turned to see this chap struggling with the bolt on his number four. Between us we tried everything, including a big wooden mallet from my tool-box. On closer examination I saw that the bolt was bent upwards in the middle by about 1/8th of an inch. :shock:

George (not his real name) told me that he had been using Nobel rifle number 2. I asked how much and he told me the amount. I can’t remember what it was but it was perfectly reasonable. Now you can’t (or couldn’t) get too much of that in a 7.62 case, not enough to cause damage anyway; We discussed all the possibilities and eventually George confessed that he had run out of Rifle Number 2 so had used Pistol number 2. :G

Nobel have changed the names of their powders because of lots of similar errors.
I told George to go home and do two things, first say a prayer of gratitude for the strength of his number four action and second to write to the Home Office to tell them that he had de-activated his rifle.
Moral of this particular story – read the words on the can and don’t download.

Shoot safe - shoot well.

[Christel]

That made me cringe and I only saw a few, including the one with five bullets in it, amazing the person kept shooting after the first one did not see daylight.

I prefer to stay ignorant.

[ovenpaa]

I was shooting next to a club RCO a while ago who announced his last shot had sounded different, it took two of us and a lot of prompting before he got his cleaning rod out and stuffed it up the barrel.

Ooops, good job he checked eh? It was also a good job he checked the following shot as well, at that point he blamed it on his mate who loads for him....

[Robin128]

If you have heard my yarn from another forum...my apols.

We were in The Singleton Pub in Swansea in the 70s at a club meeting upstairs when my mate with his 45ACP national match asked what I thought of the action...it was a little stiff.

Field stripped it to find a bulge in the barrel ... he had sent one up it which stuck half way and another behind it.

:shifty:

[dodgyrog]

I remember a friend firing 6 shots up his S&W - VERY light loads with wadcutters - only to find ALL 6 stuck up the barrel. The gun survived intact, amazingly.
The usual cause of a blow up is two shots, the first with little (or usually no) powder followed by a normal round. Explosions due to very light loads of SLOW rifle powders (pressure excursions) are much less frequent.
Bottom line - if your shot sounds odd then check the barrel before firing again!

[dromia]

I never hear my shots as I always have my eyes shut when I fire. :G

[Dave 101]

I had what I believe was a slam fire on a AR15 , it was a hot summers day and I was shooting on the battle range ETR at Thetford , I had done a lot of firing so I decided to take the shots sitting as the fore end was getting hot I placed a clean hanky in the palm of my hand and was gripping the mag well , not sure what happened next but there was a loud bang and I kind of let go of the rifle rather quickly .
I could feel cuts down my right arm and left leg , and stinging of the left hand at this point I was thinking the worse that maybe I had lost a couple of fingers .
The mag had blown out , luckily it was the last round in the mag , the mouth of the mag had bellowed , bits of brass had showered every where . well luckily for me the left hand was in one peice not a cut , the neat white folded hanky now had a black smoked impression of my hand print on it .
The bolt was jammed but that was the only other part to suffer damage .

Dave

[Sandgroper]

Eeeck! :G

How about shooting "until the plastic catches fire"?