.22 Rim Fire KaBoom

[Scott-Rose]

Hi B.N, I totally agree with you. I got my new parts, and here are some not so good pics. I am no gunsmith, but I am a progressive die designer by trade. Prog dies are all about timing. What happens where, when, and how. After studying how the timing on this gun works, here is my take on what happened. The difference in length from the blown round, to a new round was .125, minus the rim. There is no way that the firing pin could have hit it that far back, as that all happens in the last .005 of the stroke. I am positive the extractor set it off. Something stopped the round from chambering .125 back, ether dirt, or out of spec ammo. I am uncertain on that. Getting the case out took a little more than a tap, but could not measure, or see any evidence as to what held it up. If it was dirt, what is a good cleaning increment?

 

[spaniel]

You always need to be aware. This fall a buddy brought over an old .22 bolt action he had inherited from his recently-deceased father. The rifle looked fine externally and we had no reason to doubt it, so we took it out to sight in. It was putting bullets through the target sideways. I figured it was leaded up so went in the house to get a different gun for his kiddos to have fun with as it's not fun shooting a gun that won't hit anything.

While I was gone he let the kids fire a couple shots. One of them sounded "funny" (his adjective, I wasn't there), so he told them to set it aside.

As they were leaving I told them I'd give it a thorough cleaning and try it again for him. Fortunately I used an old cleaning rod, because it got stuck 6 inches from the muzzle. Long story short a bullet was jammed in the barrel at that point...I think perhaps more than one stacked up as nothing I did was able to push out the obstruction.

We hit the firing pin with a welder to permanently disable the gun so his kids could keep it as a sentimental wallhanger.