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Handgun blow up? I had the pleasure of it once and hope never to again. Back story.
In 83 there was a guy working at my LGS that reloaded as a side business so I decided to take a couple boxes of 41 Mag in and give him a try. Things went well for the first couple boxes, then took in a couple more.
This was unfortunately a unwise decision. Picked up the reloads on a Friday after work and went shooting the next day.
I was shooting a Ruger Blackhawk NM I purchased at that shop in 73, the first round was a little louder and a lot snappier than the last ones. The 2nd shot doomed me. Sounded like a rifle going off, the gun in recoil cut my hand open in the web between the thumb and first finger and noticed the palm starting to swell and bruise.
Opened the loading gate to unload and the cylinder was froze as were the hammer and trigger. Next day took it to my smith to see what happened, but he couldn’t get the cylinder pin out as it was froze. Took it to the LGS next door where the owner sent it back to Ruger.
Ruger said it maybe was repairable but wouldn't know till they got the cylinder out. The cylinder had split, forcing the cylinder against the top strap and frame. Cylinder take down pin was bent, hand and pawl no longer functional. It came back repaired no warranty due to reloads, it wasn’t cheap for the guy. Still have that pistol today and shoots just fine.
Found out that even Blackhawks couldn’t take 22.5 grains of Win 296 under a 210. I started handloading for myself the next month.

I'd wager the powder wasn't 296 in that one

Nope... But I don't own Glocks either...

I have not. Back in the early 90s I was shooting at the range and a guy showed up to shoot. Said "howdy", went about my business, but kept an eye on him a little. After a couple shots, he stopped, did something or other I couldn't see, acted sort of frustrated, and put away what seemed to be a 1911 and dragged out a revolver. Something about it didn't seem right so I started watching a little closer. He'd fire a couple shots, open the cylinder, turn it, close it, and shoot more. Whaaaa ... ? So after I was done and wrapping up I wandered over to BS and see what his story was. He showed me his 1911 .. clone, 10mm. He had managed to split the barrel inside the slide enough to bulge the top of the slide visibly. And his revolver? It was a S&W 19. He'd somehow bulged one cylinder and was continuing to shoot the gun, thus the fire a couple, stop and turn the cylinder, and keep shooting process. He said he liked REAL magnum loads, not the downloads in the loading manuals. Sheeeee-it. Some people really just are not safe to be around.

Tom

I see what you did there...

I'd have to agree with that. I don't think you could get enough 296 in a 41 magnum under a 210 grain bullet to blow one up. I've shot an awful lot of H110/296 in 41 magnums and never even had a case stick. And with bullets from 210 grains to 295 grains.

So kinda...

Kinda "blew up" a friend's Super Blackhawk while introducing him to reloading.

Beginning with the end...Accurate Arms (as they were called back then) actually had a recall on the lot of powder we bought. It was also traced to perhaps some of the very first KB's in Glocks (this was late '80's).

So he decided to use AA #5 as his do everything powder (they were out of Unique). The first cartridge he wanted to load was .44 mag. I decided since AA#5 wasn't too far off of Unique, that we should try to do an AA#5 version of my favorite Unique load. So I brought some of my cast Lyman 429421's. We turned to the Accurate Arms reloading manual (still have it on my shelf) and found the appropriate load. Can't recall the charge, but it was VERY middle of the road even for the published data, and should have netted around 900fps. Well, the first round froze the cylinder...

As it turns out, it split the chamber at the cylinder bolt notch. I was absolutely mortified, and horribly embarrassed! My buddy Rob was actually apologetic to me because he had shot my handloads for years, which is why he was getting into handloading. I immediately assumed I screwed up, but he was keying in on other factors. I think that was because I heavily emphasized safety during the teaching session; so he actually had more faith in me than I did. And when I thought about it, our procedure was very exaggerated, very correct, and we only loaded 10 rounds; individually weighing each powder charge just to get him used to using a powder scale.

Well, I went through EVERYTHING and couldn't find any problems. Right case, powder, primer, etc. Verified powder scale was accurate. I was just stumped...and still convinced I screwed up. So I told him I would make it right, he said don't sweat it.

Fortunately the minor split of the chamber didn't actually damage the frame. So I picked up a new cylinder, and fit it to his gun and got him back into action.

About two months later, I'm at my favorite reloading shop (man, remember when those existed?) and I told the story to the reloading "Yoda". He handed me a flyer of the recall...Sure enough the lot number matched.

A friend recently loaded some 255 grain jacketed bullets in a 41 mag with 22.1 grains with zero problems

I've had case head separations in .38 Super (old worn-out case), 10mm (I trusted that idiot Dick Metcalf's loading data), and even once in a .45 ACP, (again, a worn-out case). In every case, I had Pachmayr grips on the pistols, and the steel liners they put in them saved me from serious boo-boos. I lost the magazines in each case, they were FUBAR. In no instance did any damage occur to the Colts, just the magazines.

I should have known Dickhead Metcalf wasn't right in the head. A couple of years later, I met him, and all that did was solidify my impression of him being an absolute douchebag.

Hey, always wondered about how they got that cylinder out with 4 live rounds in it.



Yep, always thought about that as Ruger just said 22.5 grains ball powder. Always more to the story.

I got into trouble with AA #7 back in the mid-late 80s. It's a wonder I didn't blow up my gun. GP100s are .. strong. I had a pile of WW 125 grain JHPs. I picked the starting load of AA #7, 10.0 grains if I recall right, and loaded 100 rounds. I was out in the hills with my little sister and her boyfriend. We were puttering along down dirt roads in the backwoods shootin' squirrels, tin cans, whatever we found. A couple times I'd shot and missed .. misses I couldn't explain .. other than I didn't hit anything. Somewhere past halfway through the box of ammo, I fired a shot, "missed", and tried to thumb the hammer back for another shot. The cylinder wouldn't turn. A glance at the barrel-cylinder gap didn't show any gap. After a while I peeked down the business end ... never a good idea ... and I could see a hollowpoint looking back at me. Yep, squib load, stuck a bullet in the forcing cone. I shoved a phillips screwdriver in the end, drove it back into the case enough to clear the cylinder, popped the case, etc. Kept on going. A few shots later, a shot sounded funny, dull thud, and I missed. I was shootin' at something ... bigger, don't recall what. I thumbed the hammer back in a hurry and pulled the trigger. Pretty good boom from that one. Then I saw something .. bad. There were **two** holes in the target where there had been none.

I figured it out real quick from there. About every other shot had been a squib sticking the bullet in the barrel, then the next one would knock both of them out. It's a wonder the powder in between didn't ignite and blow the dang gun up.

I went ahead and shot the last 25 or so but I checked the bore after every shot. I think 4, maybe 5 more stuck and had to be driven out.

I swore off AA#7 for a long time.

I'm not sure what the issue was. The charge should have been fine. Maybe bad powder. Maybe I set the measure up wrong .. could I have done 1.0 instead of 10.0? Maybe not enough crimp. I don't know. I know I don't need to go through that again. And, thank you Mr Ruger for building one STOUT gun.

Tom

I've not blown up a handgun, but saw one blow up, up close and personal.

Years ago when I was shooting IPSC with the old Southwest Pistol League in Los Angeles, we were having a match and I was timing one of the matches. I was standing directly behind a shooter and holding the timer. He fired a couple rounds and then KABOOM!!. The shooter's Colt Govt. .45 ACP was in pieces and the shooter's hand and face were bleeding. Fortunately the shooter was wearing good shooting glasses so his eyes were not damaged. As I was standing behind the shooter, I was not hit with flying shrapnel.

The Colt's slide was cracked, the frame was shattered, both wooden grips were cracked and in pieces, and the barrel was in two pieces. The shooter had just received the pistol back from Clark in Louisiana, and had paid nearly $2,000.00 to have Clark build the ultimate customized Colt. Later it was determined that the shooter, a reloader, had been using Unique powder and had double charged on the high end, the blown case.

That was a very expensive reloading lesson.

L.W.

My brother -inlaw blew up his muzzle loader (Old Style) by accidentally using smokeless instead of regular black, took the entire side off the barrel, he was lucky to live to tell the story..... I told him, first never store your black powder in the house, second NEVER EVER store the two in the same box....Geez. This is back in the days that Dupont powder cans were all the same size only different colors.

Glock 30 boom .

Once saw a guy at the Range do the same with a Uberti Colt SAA Reproduction Model. Double charge of Unique will certainly do it. Split the cylinder in half and blew out the top strap of the frame.
Some folks shouldn’t be allowed to reload ammo. 😬

As would I.