.22 Rim Fire KaBoom

G

Gbro

New member
1. Firearm, Ruger 10-22
2. Ammo, Old Federal .22 Long Rife. Cartridges were in the plastic box of 50ct. and the paper sleeve was not to be found.

This happened a couple weeks ago and I just last evening got the cartridges and spoils from this incident. It happened to a friend while out shooting with his two children.
The 11 year old son had retrieved the ammunition from where it was stored, get this, in the bathroom.(This is a 1/2 bath no tub or shower)
This open 50 ct. box of ammo was in a container with new .22 ammo.
The Son was doing the magazine loading. Dad was test-firing the rifle.
One 10 rd magazine of these old cartridges were fired and the son then reloaded the magazine the second time. about half way through the second magazine the rifle in the Dads Words, Back Fired! he said the sound was about 10 times loader than the others and he was splattered in the face with debris. Was he wearing eye protection? NO, and he didn't have anything hit him in the eyes.
He opened the action and can see the separated case head on top of the magazine. By inverting the rifle the case head falls into his hand. He then notices the case body still in the chamber. With his jack knife it is easily removed. Then when he takes the rifle back into the house to look it over better, he runs a cleaning rod through the bore and pushes the bullet out. He did not know it was there until it is rodded out and states there was no, known by him, feel of any obstruction.
The bullet is not marked at either end so its not showing any cleaning rod marks from being solidly stuck. The grease groves on the bullet are gone with light rifling marks present.
The separated case head is ruptured about 1/8" in front of head and about 2/3 of this 1/8" is still attached. It is marked with a firing strike mark.
The case body is cleanly separated and the only way I can tell end for end is the crimp for the bullet is still seen.
There was no noticeable damage to the rifle and it has been fired since.
The Dad is so very happy it happened to him and realizes how important it is to always wear eye protection.

I have a theory, that this rifle fired from a not fully closed bolt(out of battery)
condition.
He also did not know he was shooting old ammo. He asked his son(11) where he got this ammo and he said in the box with all the other and that it was an open box he thought it should be the first ones fired.
The 13 year old daughter that was in my firearms safety class this spring observed this whole thing.
My daughter will take better pictures for me soon:)(That leaves me to try and fit them on the page):o
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I've seen out of battery cases but they never broke off. I would check corrosion .I'd wonder about deterioration of the powder to give much higher pressures.get some good photos.
 
I've had a .22LR case split on me before (lengthwise along the wall... it felt funny, didn't extract, didn't damage the gun), but never seen a case head separation on one.

This is a good reason to ALWAYS wear eye protection, even if it's just plinking with rimfire ammo.
 
If it's .22 LR, that's either:
A seriously corroded case.
Or,
The result of a bore obstruction.


...But it looks like .25 Stevens Short, to me.
With an under-sized bullet... a .25 rimfire might be capable of being rammed in far enough to fire out of battery. And, .25 Stevens Short could easily be confused with .22 LR, especially by an inexperienced shooter.


Can you get some measurements of the case (swollen portion, as well), case head, and bullet?
 
I had something similar happen to me last year with a Sig Mosquito. My whole face was peppered with debris, and the bottom of the case hit me in the forehead, leaving a mark, and landed on my shooting bench. I am absolutely certain I would have lost my eyesight had I not been wearing eye protection. The LGS suggested I send the gun back to Sig. The gun was less than a year old. With 1k plus rounds thru it. Sig replaced it with a brand new gun, which for some reason, I’ve never been very comfortable shooting it, and it’s been months since I’ve shot it.

A couple of the many photos I took. First one, you can see the casing still in the chamber and you can see the burn marks on the slide, and it was as rough as a wood file. The bullet had exited the barrel. You can also see some white power along the feed ramp and slightly into the chamber. I also had this white powder all over my face. Second photo is what remained of the round.

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The ammo was new CCI Mini-mags. Since Sig replaced the gun, I have to think my problem was related to the gun and not the ammo. It does sound like yours might have been ammo related. I’ll bet your friend wears eye protection from now on. He is lucky.
 
Yes. I Stood right next to a shooter who had that happen to him. That time a piece of brass shot straight down and into his forearm.

Take your 10-22 and make sure it's clear. Cycle the action and hold the action open about 1/16". Dry fire it. The hammer can contact the firing pin even though the action is slightly out of battery. Many .22s will do this, by the way.

My suggestion would be to try to buy better ammo. CCI Mini Mags seem to work really well in mine.
 
Gary,

Your Photography skills are light years ahead of mine!
I am very surprised Sig replaced the gun! Have you tested the new gun for out of battery firing?
I have asked the owner of the 10-22 to check his rifle with a toothpic or such to see how far open his bolt can be and still pull the trigger with an unloaded gun.Yes he(My Friend) is very lucky and knows it! His children have seen what can happen also. He has shot his rifle since, but has not allowed his children to fire it, kind of like you in, the comfort level is not there.
 
Ghosts of the past !!!

Gbro
I had almost an identicle experience about two years ago. I was shooting Federal bulk-pack out of a 10/22. The ammo was not old and properly stored. In my case, I did not notice a loud bang and the first indication of what had happened was when I pulled what was left of the case, out of the face of my target. The case has separated from the base and I never found the base. My theory was that the case had seperated and was stuck in the bore as opposed to the breech. The next round chambered fine, shot and carried the broken case to the target. Previously I had noticed that my 10/22 was not cycling well with this ammo and it seemed under powered. I also took a spent case and could pinch the open end of the case. :mad:

I no longer trust any bulk-pack ammo and save that stuff for my other rifles. If you are ever going to have any trouble with ammo, it will come out on the autos. .... :cool:

Be Safe !!!
 
Almost could be defined as "A consumable Cartridge" ;)
As i read your post i am lead to believe you didn't have any cycling issues when that happened?
One of the problems with this junk bulk ammo is after so many FTFire issues we all get complacent on our rules on how to deal with ammo problems. In my CC classes I might have 2-3 FTF and we go through the 30 sec (min) just like it is printed on all ammo packaging.
I get a lot of folks that balk at the eye protection/hearing protection rules also, but its just like a street with me that goes in one direction.;)
 
I've had almost the exact thing happen to me only the rim was held on to the rest of the case with basically a thread. this was in a marlin 60 and man was it scary
 
I found a 10-22 in the back of my safe while looking for a Marlin Glenfield mdl 60 to test for out of battery firing. The Marlin will not fire without the bolt being so very close to fully closed that the toothpick I was using as a gauge would not hold.
My Ruger Mark II will drop the striker in .040 out of battery.
My Hi Stand Sport-King will at .065
The Ruger 10-22 is in excess of .165 I had a hard time stacking 2 toothpicks and closing the bolt and it would drop the striker with that much out of battery.
To add to this, My friend is a lefty and really took the blast full in the face. Being he is also a LEO, he was probably trained to close both his eye's when firing:D
Seriously I can understand him not letting his children fire it now!
 
You think it's scary when this happens with a .22LR, and it is but, let it happen with a center fire high powered rifle and that puts X-10 the scare into you! It happened to me. Remington still has the rifle and is suppose to be fixing it. whether they are or not, I don't know. I do know I want my rifle back and I want it to work as designed.....safely. This December will be a year that they have had my rifle to fix it. I believe they are trying to find someway of putting the blame on me because it was a Remington rifle using Remington ammo and I'm the only non-Remington thing in the whole equation. :confused:
 
Hello, everyone. I have been lucky, never experenced any rimfire case failures. I guess we are fortunate today, that these incedents are rare...Back in the earlier years of the 20th century..these failures were more common. Of course they were using soft copper cases..until the high-speed ammunition came out..then they were forced to switch over to the stronger brass case.
This is the reason for the counterbored chambers in the S&W revolvers..they even advertised it as a safety issue.
Going much further back..the old New Haven Arms Company Henry rifles, and later Winchester 1866 rifles and carbines had the action open around the breech bolt..just for this same reason..to allow pressure from a ruptured case to escape.
Even when the stronger centerfire 1873 & 76' came out..Winchester advised against firing with the dust cover closed..in case of a case failure!
We really have got it good today!
 
Thank you guys for sharing your experiences with us. I'm no newbie, but I've never heard of a 22LR kaboom (though I knew it was possible).
 
Gbro said:
Gary,

Your Photography skills are light years ahead of mine!
I am very surprised Sig replaced the gun! Have you tested the new gun for out of battery firing?
I have asked the owner of the 10-22 to check his rifle with a toothpic or such to see how far open his bolt can be and still pull the trigger with an unloaded gun.Yes he(My Friend) is very lucky and knows it! His children have seen what can happen also. He has shot his rifle since, but has not allowed his children to fire it, kind of like you in, the comfort level is not there.
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Been away from my computer. Thanks. Photography is one of the things I do for fun and money.

.22's, such as my Mosquito, are not supposed to fire out of battery. That mine did is probably why Sig replaced it with a new gun. I just tried the toothpick thing, and was surprised that it would fire with the slide out of battery with the toothpick in there. Whether the firing pin was actually striking is something I can not say, but I could pull the trigger, and the hammer would fall in either SA or DA. Held open any wider than the toothpick, and pulling the trigger would pull the slide towards battery.

I tried it with my 10/22 and it would fire quite a ways out of battery. This is surprising to me. Not something I would expect. Why would gun manufactures not build .22's to the same standards as centerfire guns. By the way, my 10/22 is a 1970 vintage.

Also, I wondered if your friend was a lefty to get a face full from a 10/22.
 
Slopemeno said:
Why wouldn't they build them to the standards of center fire guns? Price.
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That’s a good question. With todays liability concerns, I doubt there is a single gun manufacture out there that would not want to make a gun that would not fire out of battery at all. Part of the reason I’m surprised the toothpick thing still allowed me to pull the trigger on my Mosquito. The gun is a year old, and current production. Would the firing pin actually strike the round in that condition? I would hope not, but I’m certainly not going to try it with a live round. If I had an empty casing laying around, I would try to see if it actually would strike the round.

My 10/22 is a 1970's vintage, so the lawyers probably hadn’t got their hands into that market yet.
 
My thoughts, after seeing the pics, are that the only possible explanation is out of battery firing.

Note that the brass body is sheared off cleanly and exactly in perfect line. The case head is shredded, and the bullet was driven into the rifling.

This means that the cartridge did not explode until the full pressure had been built up, the bullet had been put out, and the case had expanded fully and gripped the chamber. Then, the unsupported part of the case's base blew out, and just ripped completely off of the case because of the combined forces of the brass tearing and the pull and push of the explosion and the extractor.

The 10-22 is striker fired, right? There is a safety mechanism that locks the striker until it is in full battery, of some sort. This mechanism most likely is broken or out of adjustment, and I wonder as well about the return spring. the out of battery lockout mechanism is almost certainly the culprit, but other problems may still exist.
 
I vote for bad "Bulk" ammo

My thoughts, after seeing the pics, are that the only possible explanation is out of battery firing.
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Hard if not impossible to do with a 10/22 that has not been modified. As mentioned the 10/22 is hammer fired. I attribut my incident to faulty ammo. The 10/22 that I was using, was fairly new and did have a trigger job. Once I changed ammo, I had not further problems and have fired this one many times since. I might add that this is the first time, ever that this has happened to me. As I said before, if you are going to have ammo problems, they will show on the autos. .... ;)


Be Safe !!!
 
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