Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Fun day at the range...

I got to the range today for the first time in about 3 months. It was mostly relaxing, right up until the last shot. As I'm getting ready to load my last round there is a boom and the sounds of metal hitting the corrugated steel roofing above the benches.

My first thought is that someone is shooting an AR-10 that's flinging empties up into the roof and they are bouncing around. It has happened before, but this time didn't quite sound the same. I turn around and the range officer behind me says �That was a gun blowup. Someone had a gun blowup.� as he bends down and picks up a large chunk of a revolver cylinder!

I look down the bench and 4 bays over a gentlemen stands up and both of his hands are bleeding. Amazingly it looks like a couple of small cuts and scratches in the webbing of both hands between the thumb and forefinger. No lost limbs or major bleeding. He went into the guard shack and (I assume) had minor first aid. When he came back his hands looked looked pretty unscathed. No one else that I am aware of was hit with pieces of the cylinder.

Looks like he was shooting a Taurus Judge in .45LC using UltraMax ammo. I asked his companion if he had a squib and he said �No.� But I don't honestly know if he knew what I meant by �squib�.

The remains of the Taurus Judge and it's cylinder. Other pieces were later found after this pic was taken.


The ammo that he was shooting.


From the looks of the bench after the blow-up it appears as if pieces of shrapnel hit his (or his companions) Leupold spotting scope. You can see some apparent shrapnel damage near the front of the scope and a piece of shrapnel still resting on it near the back.


I tried to take one final pic as the owner was cleaning everything up, but the hurriedly taken pic turned out blurry. It appears as if there were at least two rounds left in the cylinder when the gun let go. There were two bullets found that were flattened on the sides.


The man and everyone around him was lucky today. It makes for a lively day at the range, that's for sure...

Ultramax 45LC ammo.

Jacketed bullets in your picture. That's a clue that it wasn't factory Ultramax. My son shoots Ultramax in his Vaquero.

Interesting.

The guy claimed it was factory as he said he didn't reload. Don't know where he got it from. Maybe bought it off another individual who claimed it was factory original, but wasn't.