Serbu 50 BMG Kaboom

[togor]

Always wear PPE and know your equipment/loads.

[kj47]

That was unbelievable!!! Glad he is recovering. thanks for posting.

[dryheat]

Good atitude.

[Art]

Always wear eye protection on the range and be aware if something seems "funky."

I've told this story before but it bears repeating.

Years ago I was on a public range talking to a young couple who were shooting an M1 Carbine. The young fellow said the rifle was his dad's pride and joy but it didn't seem reliable with some kinds of ammo. He then asked if I'd like to shoot it. Well heck, I'm always ready to expend someone else's ammo in a gun I don't have to clean so I said "Sure." I loaded in a magazine, racked the bolt back and let it go, pulled the trigger and got a click no bang. I tried again, same result. The third time was a charm, sort of, I pulled the trigger and the gun detonated. I saw a huge orange flash, checked to see if I had all of my fingers and did. The bolt was sticking up out of the action at a 45 degree angle, the bottom of the magazine was blown out and .30 Carbine ammo was all over the bench. My shooting glasses may well have saved my eyesight.

It was surely an out of battery discharge, the bolt just didn't lock completely. Carbines are have this happen for one of two reasons, both due to a somewhat defective disconnector, either the the bolt hasn't quite closed completely on a correctly sized cartridge, or the cartridge case is sized incorrectly, an overlength M1 Carbine case can be really bad mojo. I suspect it was a combination of both, especially since I learned after the fact that the cartridges were hand loads.

Sometimes the weapon is talking to you and you need to listen.

Ya never know......

[togor]

Understandable if he flinches when he pulls the trigger, for awhile at least, once he gets back on the horse.

An underappreciated fact about the .30-06 cartridge is that there's a lot of room in that case. If you have old ammo and you can't hear the powder move when you shake the cartridge, that could be a sign. That said I did shoot some HXP from the CMP that had really full cases but otherwise shot normally.

[Art]

Understandable if he flinches when he pulls the trigger, for awhile at least, once he gets back on the horse.

An underappreciated fact about the .30-06 cartridge is that there's a lot of room in that case. If you have old ammo and you can't hear the powder move when you shake the cartridge, that could be a sign. That said I did shoot some HXP from the CMP that had really full cases but otherwise shot normally.

All commercial ammunition (I suspect a lot of military ammo too) uses a variety of powders including powders that might not be technically correct for that cartridge but have been "doctored" by the addition of things like burn retardants. I talked to a fellow at Remington after getting some really full .303 British cases. He told me they chemically modify loads regularly, as long as the pressure is right its good to go. The ammunition shot fine, no signs of overpressure at all.

[lyman]

All commercial ammunition (I suspect a lot of military ammo too) uses a variety of powders including powders that might not be technically correct for that cartridge but have been "doctored" by the addition of things like burn retardants. I talked to a fellow at Remington after getting some really full .303 British cases. He told me they chemically modify loads regularly, as long as the pressure is right its good to go. The ammunition shot fine, no signs of overpressure at all.

that's something that a lot of folks don't understand,

a lot if not all commercial ammo is loaded to pressure or speed,
powder adjusted by lot,
as in not every lot of ammo will have the same weight of powder, since the powder is bought in very large lots,


commercial type powder. the stuff we reloaders buy in 1/2/4/8 lb bottles is manufactured to be much more consistent so the loading data is still valid in the manuals,