Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire shooting 308 out of 30-06 in emergency

Notice this guy is using one of the strongest actions he could find to do this. This is an example of a really bad Idea that shouldn't even be a thought. I guess if you were starving to death and needed to kill a deer, or you were in a life and death situation, it might bail you out, but just don't do it in the real world.

I was going to comment on how I bet that it would work but the accuracy would suffer, and how straight that .308 case would look after firing in a .30-06 chamber. But then I watched the video that persiandog posted. Hey! I was right! Thanks, persiandog.

There is none, both headspace on the rim.

Unless I am mistaken, the 1917 is a controlled round feed action so headspace is at least to some degree controlled by the extractor similar to 40 S&W in 10mm. Might be very different in a Remington 700.

Still not a good idea.

Yeah, your mistaken. All bottleneck rimless headspace on the datum line.

Telephone rings!
Gunsmith: "Mike's gun shop."
Caller: "Can I shoot a .30-40 Krag round in a .303 British rifle?"
Pause.
Gunsmith: "Is your life insurance paid up?"

About 10 years ago we had a women hunter fire a 308 in a 270 Ruger, killed the Deer at about 75 yards and locked the Ruger up tight as a safe we had a hell of a time clearing the action, I took the rifle to a good gun smith to be checked out no damage ?? I was surprised it didn't blow up. Rio7

It's not easy to find any pictures of a Ruger bolt action blown up. I'm sure they exist but they are one hell for stout action. I've seen stocks let go around the action but not action in pieces.

Have you ever heard of case/head separation caused by excessive headspace?

Your still talking a .308 pill all the way through a .277 bore, and landing on target 75 yds away. Dubious at best.

I'm not RECOMMENDING it, I'm just saying that of all the "blown up action" pictures I've seen floated around the net since - forever (I got started on Prodigy, when it was a vector graphic based BBS), Rugers are damned rare to show up in pieces. Regardless of reason they had issue.

Didn't say you recommended it.

Didn't say you didn't hear the story.

Suggested with reason, that the story is BS.

persiandog;
Good afternoon and Happy Boxing Day if that's a thing down your way as it is up on this side of the medicine line.

While this has been mentioned by a couple posters already, I'm going to belabor the point just a tad.

The rifle in the video was for sure one of the stronger actions ever made, has an excellent gas venting system and has a claw extractor which in this instance and in that rifle, held the case sufficiently to get the primer to ignite the cartridge.

Depending upon tolerances, one might also end up with the .308 case jumping ahead of the extractor and then it could - I believe - be possible to jam that .308 case in the chamber.

I'm quite averse to jamming live ammo in a chamber myself as there's all sorts of scenarios where that ends badly for all participants in the repair.

While I have no experience doing it, my guess is that using anything other than a controlled round, large claw extractor action could and perhaps even likely end up with a live round jammed in the chamber.

Lastly, I'll just use the explanation I give the hunter safety course I teach every spring as to why we should be careful about our experimentation with firearms.

The chamber pressure of most big game rifles, for sure the .308, is 62,000 pounds per square inch. More or less for illustration, that's 10 diesel pickups stacked up on a Canadian Loony, being set loose 3" from your nose.

I like to have the pickups fall in a safe direction, but that's me.

All the best to you and Happy New Year.

Dwayne

You're talking "swaging" a .308" inch projectile into a .277" inch projectile in nano seconds.

Ok, I won't say it can't happen, but like RAM, I find the likelihood dubious. (?)

Do you know why a manhole cover is round?
That's so the cover won't fall through the opening!

To you NAY sayers, I have no reason to lye about something that happened here, like I said I was amazed the rifle didn't blow up. if you can't handle it you can KMA. Rio7

Google, images

Interesting his statement that the US Military when designing the .308 made the chamber taper just a little bit shallower because they knew this was going to happen. Makes sense.

Closest I’ve come was loading a .303 British in a 30-30 Marlin, both rifles and open boxes of ammo next to each other at the range. Loaded easily, unloading - not so much 🤨

There was a thread on here awhile back about exactly that. A 308 Win cartridge being fired in a rifle chambered for 270 Win. I don’t remember the outcome. It’s not unbelievable to me that it could happen without blowing up the rifle or maiming the shooter. It obviously could but it might not.

The shorter 308 Win case should at least allow for pressure to drop below standard at least slightly before that .308 cal bullet got swaged in the bore and caused a hell of a pressure spike! Which might help mitigate the damage.

308 Win ammo being fired in a 270 Win rifle has happened a lot more than once. I wouldn’t doubt that there’s been a huge range of results from maiming the shooter to the shooter chiting there pants but minimal or no damage. All sorts of variables from jacket thickness to how deep the bullet was seated, max load/not max load, throat length, rifle, bullet weight, ogive location, powder burn rate ect.

I’d pass, that’s not an emergency

You just dropped hammer and blew up your gun. How the hell are you gonna have a LIVE round stuck in (what's left) of the chamber? And how is the type of extraction germane?