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Witnessed a 375 H-H go off in a 458 Win mag while doing range duty. No fan fare, a low pfft and a humiliated look on the shooters face. He did have a nice "chamber cast" though. You could clearly see the start of the rifling and the throat on the expanded brass.

Only popped a primer once. Vanguard in 300Bee. Only felt stout recoil.(7828/200 sierra) Pulled the rest and stuffed 110 RN carbine bullets on top and shot them. Wished I had chronoed the load. Would hold less than an inch at a hundred yards, and a grey puff behind the target! Bet it would red mist a squirrel.

This happened to me last year...




It was a 70 year old ex US military case from a batch of ammo I pulled.

It was in a stainless Zastava - ie commercial Mauser pattern rifle.

It was very unpleasant. A full face of gas and powder. No brass thankfully. Wasn't wearing glasses, dodged a bullet there.



The action was full of grit and shidt as well as you'd expect, but I still shot two feral billy goats later that morning.

So the Mauser 98 action too is not infallible. I wonder what the result would have been in another action?

Yep....

Back again with the latest rifle abuse! Here is what I found:

Test vehicle: M700 .308 VTR short action. Rifle purchased new in about 2007???? Ammo COL 2.83 indicated by dial caliper. Protocol was the same, a spent case in the chamber and a loaded round n the magazine. The rifle was at waste level with hand on bolt, and cycled as quickly as possible. 40 cycles made hard and fast. No failures exhibited. All empty cases extracted and ejected. All live rounds chambered. All live rounds extracted and ejected. Just to check, the magazine was topped off with 4 and the action run hard and fast. 3 failures resulted. Failures were all the result of the bolt not picking up the round from the magazine as it was being closed. Total cycles 40, round in chamber 1 in magazine. 20 full 4 round magazines cycled.

Test vehicle New Haven M70 6.5x55 Featherweight. Rifle purchased new in about 2004. CRF model. Cartridge COL 3.100. Empty in chamber, live round in magazine. 40 cycles made extracting spent round and chambering fresh cartridge. No failures. Magazine topped off with 4 and cycled hard and fast. No failures to extract or feed. A total of 5 full magazines cycled.

Test vehicle Marlin Model 336 30/30. Rifle purchased new within the last couple of years but I can't remember what year (old age setting in). This model is the "Remlin" or ""Marlington" version. 6 rounds of factory ammunition were inserted into the magazine. The 1st round was chambered, All 6 were cycled as fast as possible. No failures exhibited. All cycled and ejected. 83 cycles complete I think.

My right arm is tired! Going to try to find a Ruger next.

Interesting Bartman! Keep it up and thanks for posting results.

Seems you are finding they behave differently operated fast and hard in some cases,and with a full magazine?

The nastiest "wrong cartridge" scenario I've seen was a NY hunter who fired a .308 Win round in a .270 Win M77 Ruger Mk II. Gas vented into magazine well, mag box expanded and split the stock in two.
Shooter was not wearing eye protection and got a little gas in his eye. The bolt could not be opened with a big hammer.

Ouch!

bobnob,

That doesn't sound like fun.

Does the Zastava have a c-collar? I thought the Yugos were similar to a Mouser, but not a true 98.

Jason

Jason, no it does not. Unless my memory is faulty.

I haven't run an actual test like Bartman has, but IME cycling troubles have happened more with a full magazine. I learned early in my reloading experience to run the first reloads in any new batch through the rifle as a test to make sure they cycle and chamber, etc. no matter how many times I have proven that recipe.

A friend of mine who was on the Marine shooting team told me that he loaded his 1911 one short of a full magazine because it cycled better that way from the first shot. I do the same: three rounds in a four round capacity magazine when hunting, etc. When the magazine is full that first round is stacked hard and is harder to get out and feed smoothly.


Oops: this posted before I was done so am editing to finish it.

Not trying to be a dick and I believe MD touched on this a bit perhaps somewhere....

The unbroached collar is an advantage over the later 98s if you believe metallurgy hasn't advanced since the 50's...:)

Not a 100% faithful copy that's right Jason and Bob. Not sure if / how that would affect the gas handling.

In my case I learned a few lessons about eye protection and not using WW2 era brass.

I mentioned the C-collar since many believe that it provides better gas containment compared to the H-collar.

understood...

The smaller bolt face Remington 700's do not handle gas as well as the magnums. This is due to the fact that the side wall of the bolt nose is thicker on the smaller bolt faces and does not obuterate as easily in the event of a case failure.

Ted;
It's good to hear from you sir, I trust this finds you and yours well up there - no argument from me on your location's status in Creation either Ted.

Getting a clear story of how the chap managed to chamber the .250 in the .22-250 was always hampered by a couple factors unfortunately.

For starters both the original owner of the firearm and then my shooting mentor who ended up with it after the incident are both long gone now, so further investigation from the principals is out of the question.

The shooter was a local hobby gunsmith who's work was really very good when he was in his prime. If memory serves he stopped shooting not that long after the incident and passed on shortly thereafter too.

According to my late friend, the shooter related that he indeed had to pull quite hard on the lever to close the action - I'm thinking it must have pushed the bullet into the case somehow as he did so.

Other damage to the firearm was considerable by the way - he never did find end of the hammer for instance, the fore stock and butt stock were split and the lever/trigger guard broke off as well. Somehow the shooter only had jangled nerves and some minor cuts and bruises on his shooting hand.

Anyway Ted, I know that's not much information, but it's all I have, so sorry about that.

All the best of our Lord's blessings to you and yours this summer and in the upcoming hunting season too Ted.

Dwayne

Back in 2001 Ross Seyfried wrote of a fellow that did just about the opposite; managed to chamber a S'em Mag in a .270 Weatherby chambered rifle. The unhappy result was barrel, action, bits of stock, scope and mounts being flung about with great enthusiasm. I went back into Rifle Magazine files and managed to find the article. Here is a picture of the result followed by a link to the article. Enjoy.



Link to: How to Blow Up a Rifle

I'll bet that Zastava had a commercial cocking piece housing without the flange around the edge. I had a very similar looking case not once but twice with an FR 8 and all I felt was a little peppering on my forehead. The flange on the cocking piece diverted the gas up and away from my face.

That will be the last time I shoot Cabelas bulk reloads.

If I am going to use a Mauser it's going to have a thumb cut and a C ring. And not all Mauser's had soft steel. One of the experts might chime in, but I believe the VZ-24 had decent steel.

I remember the 1909 Argentine Mausers as being good quality steel and heat treatment. It's been a long time since I played with any though.

Bob

You know being a unrepentant groundhog hunter in my past I have wondered why I consider long range sniping at a groundhog sporting but not so much with big game. I finally rationalized that it had to do with the bullet vs the body weight of the animal. In other words even using a small cartridge like a 222 I was using a 50gr. bullet at 3000 fps on a 12 lb. animal. that's a bullet/body weight ration of about 1:1700 ie. even a marginal gut shot on a ground hog is pretty fatal. So to create the same ratio on a 150lb deer you would have to shoot a 650gr bullet at 3000fps and for a 600 lb elk you would need a 2500gr bullet at 3000 fps. So basically that's the reason I am not sure about the woodchuck analogy. Basically I discourage the ultra long range shooting simply because it inflates the margin of error on first shot bullet placement just like shooting at running game does.