You cannot be too careful.

G

geetarman

New member
Went to the outdoor range today and the Range Safety Officer was telling me of an incident yesterday.

Guy has a Savage Axis .308. He puts one or two downrange and the gun blows up like a grenade.

I saw the pictures of the rifle and the man who is now in the hospital.

I saw a picture of an ammo box of commercial loads that were Chinese origin.

The says he was not shooting Chinese ammo but that he was using the box and had handloaded the ammo.

The bolt stripped right out of the receiver and hit him in or very near his right eye. It appears he has some severe facial injuries as well as damage to his hands from the magazine follower being ejected from the bottom of the rifle. The jury is out on whether he will lose the eye.

Shrapnel punctured the overhead and the explosion twisted the follower into a pretzel. The receiver is completely destroyed as is the stock.

The question we all have, is how could this have occurred?

I find it really difficult to imagine overcharging a .308 case to the point this catastrophic failure could occur.

I could see this if he used a pistol powder in a rifle case OR if he failed to load or undercharged the previous case he fired and had a squib lodge in the barrel.

I don't have access to the photos although they may become public soon.

No matter how long you have been reloading and no matter how confident you are that you have made no mistakes, your rifle CAN kill you with either end.

Law enforcement was all over the range investigating and I am not sure how it will all turn out.

I did ask if anyone had checked the barrel for a squib and apparently that was not done or has not been done yet.

I am here to tell you, I have NEVER seen a rifle so broken up into little useless pieces as that one.

Be careful when you shoot. If you are not SURE of your load. . .DON'T pull the trigger.

This guy has had a near death and life changing experience that has changed the rest of his life.

For your safety and for the safety of those around you, remember that you just CANNOT be too careful.
 
I agree that the most likely causes would be squib (insufficient powder charge) stuck in barrel and then try to shoot another round behind it, or pistol powder in the reloading of the case.

Powder inspection is so important, as are many other reloading steps. I was reloading some .223 this week and as I was inspecting the charges I started to seem some variation. What the heck? It was Varget which is a stick powder but I've never had problems like this before with either of my powder measures. It seems the powder grains were bridging in the drop tube and some cases were getting a little less and some a little more. So I changed measures and had other issues but not the variance. Over 25 years of reloading and this is the first time I had this specific problem. Had I not been inspecting every single powder charge I could have missed this. Probably would not have been catastrophic but would be terrible on accuracy.

Be vigilant at the reloading bench. I hope this fellow recovers and is able to save his eye. n A terrible price for what may have been one second of distraction.
 
That is really scary. That is another big reason I have not had the guts to start reloading.

What range was that at? I was planning on going out to Rio Salado next Friday, wondering if there will be any restrictions or anything by then...
 
Stories like this only go to fortify my feelings that I will not shoot at a public range unless I know who is shooting next to me. I would rather wait for the range to empty out than to shoot next to someone that could either innocently or accidently cause me bodily harm. I have been thru too much and am very safety conscious to fall victim unintentionally. As it is, when I shoot at an outdoor rifle range, I am with three other shooting buddies and we stay in close formation to each other. We try to get at least one empty lane to either side of the group of us.

I'm not saying that something couldn't happen between the four of us but at least I know their habits, what they shoot and how they shoot. It lowers the odds of something bizarre happening.
 
It would be difficult to believe that a handloader could pack enough of any powder recommended by a loading manual in a .308 case to blow the bolt out.

Likely,with some powders you can get enough pressure to blow a case ,blow the magazine out,etc,but not blow the bolt out.

The squib load,maybe,the barrel would show evidence of it.

Most likely:handgun/shotgun powder.We had a long thread about a Ruger bolt .223 blow up.

Obviously,only one powder on the bench,read the label twice,out loud,etc.Good reloader practices.

Pretty obvious,do not buy "housecleaning" powder.No opened cans,etc.

Not so obvious,the supply chain.Just as there are whackos who contaminate food or drugs,some anti-gun clerk can contaminate powder.

Buy new,sealed containers from a store that does not keep the powder out on the shelves.

Another possibility,maybe,if somehow this rifle went off without the locking lugs engaged.

I have not owned a Savage,don't they have a pinned on bolt head?

I could maybe understand a Krag with a brittle bolt losing its one locking lug,but I do not recall seeing pics of a case where a modern bolt gun allowed a bolt to blow out .I'd like more info.
 
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Another member of a club where I used to shoot at, was in the reloading business.
He sold quite a lot of his ammo to other members.
Since I did my own reloading, we often had long winded conversations on the subject.
One day, as we were shooting revolvers, his blew up.
The top strap, and some other formally essential revolver parts, went clear through the overhead ceiling.
Fortunately, everything went straight up or out, and neither he or I got hit with anything.
We Got All Shook Up, though.
He sure got something all wrong.
His reloading and business reputation probably suffered some, too.
 
Anything mechanical, from an ax to a Space Shuttle can fail for some reason. I've seen guys cut their toes off with a lawn mower, shoot themselves, run over their own kid.....it goes on and on. Be careful, double check things and say a prayer, it's just part of life.
 
When I loaded cartridges I would QC the powder loads before the bullet would go on. check the powder level in the case plus weigh so may cases out of a tray. Loading should be done with your full concentration on it.
 
make sure of your powder. One of my cardinal safety rules is to restrict one powder to the top of my bench when I am reloading. All others are in the powder storage box.

The gentleman who got me started in reloading told me of reloading Bulls eye in lieu of 4350. Fortunately, he caught the error before he fired any.

This type error loading a pistol powder in a rifle could cause this type event.
 
Eghad said:
When I loaded cartridges I would QC the powder loads before the bullet would go on. check the powder level in the case plus weigh so may cases out of a tray. Loading should be done with your full concentration on it.
Click to expand...

Good advice.

After I started having issues with my measures I then started weighing finished cartridges besides visual look at powder before bullet seating. I found that finished cartridges only carried by at most 3 grains whereas a short fill of powder made it more like 7-10 gr.

My cheap little digital scale was plenty accurate enough and made it fast to check going from press to cartridge box.
 
After I had two squib cases:o where the next round would not chamber scared me.
I then decided to check every case twice with a flashlight before seating the bullets, and not only is there powder in each case, but the height of the top grains must look identical.
My only reloads are .303 and .308.

Even glances at a tv can be trouble, or thinking about which targets. Quiet music instead of tv is better.

Weighing the powder with a scale (etc) precedes this step, even though it is a slow process after measuring case length and trimming/deburring when needed.
 
Munufacturer's have been known to put the wrong powder in containers too. If you're using a powder that's new to you it's a good idea to weigh a specific volume of the powder to see if it closely matches its published density. The Lee dippers that are graduated in cc's are good for this.

Old thread on powder recalls.
 
Munufacturer's have been known to put the wrong powder in containers too.
Click to expand...

Some of you may remember my Ruger Hawkeye that blew up, I cannot commend Ruger on their design enough, it saved me from more serious injuries.

As for the powder in the wrong container I whole heartedly agree, but I don't think it is only at the factory where things can get screwed up. In my case I think it happened at the store I got the powder from. Its a long story but I can elaborate if necessary.
 
Thanks for the post geetarman.

Been reloading a long time and sometimes get on a roll. Mind wonders off with the repetition. Bad move on my part.

Again, Thanks for the reminder.
 
Very interesting...many moons ago (early 60's) I did not have enough money to properly feed my Rem 700BLD .264 win mag. The gun store I purchased the rifle from (one of the very few pure gun stores back then) had a reloading room...if you purchased your supplies from the store, you could use his reloading equipment for free...I did so...much less expensive than purchasing new Rem or Win ammo, and you could cook your own custom load by reloading. Only rifle and pistol, no shotgun equipment.

Well, this guys rules (if you wanted to use his equipment, you had to play by his rules...was...you weigh the empty cartrige, you weigh the primed cartridge, you weigh the charged cartridge, and then you weighed the loaded cartridge....(you recorded all these weights and turned the sheet in before you left)

Lots of extra work, but a improper load never left that reloading room, and a poor boy like me had an opportunity to use the best (at the time) equipment money could buy.
 
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