Pistols exploding

C

Clevinger

New member
I was at the range a few days ago and a guy had his xd explode on him and injure his hand slightly.

I guess he had been using ammo that he had made himself.

A guy at the range said that he has seen this a handful of times, and it involved homemade ammo each time.

Are you safe from this sort of thing happening as long as you are using factory-made ammo? :confused:
 
No. The odds of this happening are better from the factory loads than from any of my own loads. If you are going to handload, be meticulous.
 
I've been reloading many, many years, and I've never double-charged one yet, or used power so hot that it might cause too high a pressure.

That said, I think it's safe to say that in general, factory ammo is all machine done (think along the lines of CNC accuracy) so the "percentage of chance" of having that happen with factory ammo would be significantly lower than with handloaded ammo in which human beings are known to make many more errors.
If anyone would disagree with that assumption on my part, I'd like to see the statistics on both.

I wouldn't worry about it either way.
If you use factory ammo, the odds of a high-pressure failure of a pistol is infitessimal, and if you handload and are meticulously careful where you check and double check your own work and have organized work habits, the odds "should" be about the same.
 
Thanks

Thanks guys.

Do guys ever get seriously injured from this sort of thing?

I heard it usually just blows the clip out of the bottom of the gun, rather than exploding, but if it does, what range of injuries can you expect?
 
The paradox of reloading is that while everybody will tell you that their handloads are safer than factory loads, somehow nearly all of the catastrophic incidents such as the one you describe involve someone's handloads. ;)

Factory ammunition won't completely eliminate the possibility of a catastrophic incident because not even factory ammunition is perfect all the time, however the incidence of such problems with factory ammo tends to be much lower.

"Band-Aid injuries" are not uncommon with this type of incident, but anything more serious is very rare. With only a few exceptions guns tend to be designed to prevent serious injury to the shooter even if there is a catastrophic incident.
 
Depends on the gun and load.

A revolver for example will blow out the chamber inline with the barrel and then may or may not blow apart the top strap of the frame and the adjoining chambers in the cylinder.

Semi-autos may blow out the entire magazine or just the floor plate and ammo in the magazine. The grips may splinter in your hand from the gas venting out the magazine well causing damage to your hand.

Check on youtube for videos of stuff like this. Some is shown in slow motion too.
 
Do guys ever get seriously injured from this sort of thing?
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Injuries vary from blood blisters to some surgery. I've yet to hear of anybody losing use of his hand. All-steel guns are safer from an overcharge standpoint. Those are the ones you hear of blowing out the mags. Polymer guns are trickier and can cut into your hand while they are seperating at weaker points. A DOUBLE charge of, say Bullseye, can and WILL blow up any gun, and in this case the all-steel guns can turn into shrapnel and be more devastating than the polymer.

All of the overcharges I've had have been from factory ammo. All other problems I've had with ammo (also factory) have been undercharged which also bears close scrutiny, due to the possibility of squibs. Revolvers are more susceptible to this problem.
 
There seems to be an army of careless amateurs who have begun to handload ammunition these days. They do not study the science of handloading; they do not take the necessary care with components and powder levels, and they are destroying their pistols, and injuring themselves at a level I have not seen in the past.

Handloading is a science, not an art. It is a wonderful and fulfilling hobby if done well. But it is not for the careless, who are attempting to provide themselves with cheap ammunition.
 
careless

an army of careless amateurs who have begun to handload ammunition these days.
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Ain't that the truth. Like the guy who in a "how to make black powder" video, mixed it by hand in a glass jar. (actually ended up with polverone. not BP, but he didn't know that). Imagine the ammo that that attitude would produce.
I wish that I could say that I've never double charged a round but I have. It was in my early days on a progressive press. Fortunately, it was a double of what was a light target load. The gun was not damaged but my pride surely was. It taught me a good and, I guess, necessary lesson.
Quite a few tens of thousands of rounds have gone through that press and gun since but I remember it every time I sit down to load.
Pete
 
You are never totally safe from it but commercial ammo is usually more consistent because they cannot afford errant loads in their rounds.

Handloaders,depending on the individual handloader can tend to try to hotrod rounds.

And some people that handload rounds should simply not handload rounds.

These are the same people that drive a vehicle and read the paper,shave and make love to their phones at the same time.

Handloading is a science and it requires your attention at all times.

It can be fun,for sure,but it can maim you for life if you don't pay attention to what you are doing.
 
here seems to be an army of careless amateurs who have begun to handload ammunition these days.
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Not surprising. Considering the rising ammo costs and the deals offered through some places like Cabela's on basic handloading setups (usually marketed as a way to save money on ammo) you should expect more people to get involved.

These new users are getting involved for saving money, not for creating great loads, so they're not going to spend the time to really study the topic.
 
Pistols

Any gunshop or range that's been around for a while will have a few blown guns or barrels behind the counter. Where I work now, we have a blown Glock 35 (reloads) a blown Taurus .357 (reloads) a blown Colt Gold Cup (reloads) a blown Rossi .38 (reloads) a bulged Para .45 barrel (reloads) a blown Mossberg 500 barrel (obstructed barrel)and a blown Walther P22 (pot metal failure after cracking). That's just where I work now. I've seen many more.

If you want to shoot reloads, think of the worst case. If you loaded it yourself and the gun blows up, you can only blame yourself. The gun is a loss. If you are shooting commercial reloads (as only an example say Black Hills Remanufactured, nothing aginst them) and your gun blows up, you can take it up with them and perhaps get the gun replaced. If you are shooting some stuff you bought in a plastic bag at a gun show or bought at a bargain bin loose at a gunshop and it blows up. You are out a gun.
 
There seems to be an army of careless amateurs who have begun to handload ammunition these days.
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That is because careless professionals don't stay in business long! :D Of course, that goes back to what JohnKSa was saying.

Why are there so many of these careless folks? No doubt for several reasons. They get into reloading to save money. The read how reloading is easy. They read how folks who reload are able to reload more accurate and more reliable ammo than factory ammo. So they see reloading as a way to get easy, cheaper, more accurate, and more reliable ammo than they can buy.

What could go wrong?

Whilst the majority of reload KBs may be from newer reloaders, I have noticed that there are a few folks that have reloaded for quite some time that get complacent and then have a KB.
 
While bad ammo is usually the culprit

and nearly all of it is reloads, sometimes it is the gun that can be at fault. If the gun fires out of battery (not locked up) then generally it goes KaBoom. This can happen no matter who's ammo is being used.

Most of the time it is bad ammo, but not all the time.
 
Yeah, it happens.

I have seen 3 Beretta M9s blow up at the range using military ball ammo, reloaded god knows how many times, with only one significant injury (wrist lacerations requiring sutures). These were old, well used, over-maintained military weapons and again, the military brass has been used and reused so many times.
Fortunately, when we deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 they issued us all brand new gear and the ammunition we were issued was alot more consistent than the crap we used for qualification.;)
 
I know, I know, gun rags blah blah blah.

One of the guys I enjoy reading is Duke Venturino. He recently detailed several instances of guns blowing up. He stated that ALL of the instances of handguns blowing up (and there were many) were with homemade reloads and that he had never heard of it happening with factory ammo.

What does this imply? Not much as a general trend, it is just one man's observation.
 
That first video that whiteboy67 posted was strange because the guy that blew the rifle up seemed pretty unfazed.:confused: I would probably need some toilet paper if something like that happened to me.
 
I think he was more concerned with w/e they were shooting at and he could care less about his rifle as long as his buddy got the shot.
 
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