Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What powder does Weatherby use??

Ken I realize you don`t have any hope of hearing of all the accidents involving firearms but, saying it happens "too frequently" can you give an idea of the amount of handloads that cause gun failure or injury yearly? This is something I have never read about in the press, or heard discussed anywhere, although I`ve alway knew it existed.
What seems to be the cause? Are the magnum boys looking to go faster, or varmint hunters trying for flatter loads? Maybe it`s just pure carelessness?

Once is too often to suit me, of course, but just about everybody I know who's shot a lot knows of occurrences that don't get reported except by word of mouth, shooter to shooter. I'd guess that a very small percentage gets reported in any official way, and even fewer go into litigation. I have yet to see any case that I've worked on reported by any news outlet. So I can not begin to guess how many cases occur in a typical year. Hundreds for sure, possibly thousands.

The major causes, IMO, are two --

� The universal obsession with the highest possible velocities and the concomitant obsession for ignoring (a) the dangers that forever lurk behind high pressures and (b) the fact that only slight differences in down-range performance go along with substantial differences in maximum peak pressures. (Often, only fractions of an inch of drop and only a few ft/sec of velocity separate moderate-pressure and high-pressure loads at a hundred yards and sometimes farther.)

� The mysterious reluctance to admit that you've blown-up a gun or that one of your guns has blown-up in use by another shooter. I suspect that some of the settled cases involve gag orders preventing successful plaintiffs from making the facts known beyond the usual readership of the pertinent court documents. And of course, the companies that have to pay big settlements (in or out of court) aren't real eager to see the news widely known.

The odds favor "the house" -- here, the manufacturers. The overwhelming majority of factory guns don't blow-up, and far the most factory rounds don't blow-up any guns. Of those that do, only a very small percentage (IMO) get as far as a jury or a gavel. Meanwhile, the successful sales of a huge-a-honkin' number of guns and rounds provide quite enough of a comfortable cushion to pay-off any number of settlements and successful defenses without endangering the bottom-line net profits.

So the makers and sellers go on making and selling what I think they shouldn't, and handloaders go on loading and shooting what I know they shouldn't. And guns keep letting go, and makers and shooters keep saying that nothing was faulty with their guns, loads, etc.

One problem is that many shooters foolishly and illogically think that to be dangerous, a rifle must be capable of letting go with one round, or a load has to be hot enough to blow-up any rifle with only one round. Out here in the real world, the effects of weakness and excessive pressures tend to be cumulative rather than inevitable and instantaneous with only one round or even a few rounds.

I tend to be a bit like 1B on this topic in that my BS sniffer has gone off. The horn has also blown on my "pending litigation" warner <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

The Scandanadian one as I remember it was interesting because all the lugs were gone but the bolt handle was still there looking all nice and new <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

My guess would be that if you fired a Wby Mark 5 and used a bolt that had all the lugs machined off it the bolt would still not come out of the receiver.

Mike

Ken, given your reputation and substantial experience in the shooting industry, have you ever discussed this issue directly with "said" manufacturer?

Is it legal to overload commercial rifle ammunition above SAAMI specs?

Both the A-Square and VihtVouri manuals list Weatherby 300 as a CIP cartridge,not a SAAMI.The list maximum for 300 is 440 MPa(63,800).As a comparision the 308Norma,no shrinking violet itself, is listed at 430 MPa.

Ken--We got to discussing this again over on AR..For info.
The cross section area of the 9 Weatherby lugs are less than the cross section of say a 1917 or P-14 Enfield.Or Ruger 77.
As best as I could measure and figure it out.
About 90 % as much.So to be effective compared to Mauser
styled bolts with any decent two lug contact, the Wea would have to have absolutely all 9 in perfect contact.. Especially if
something went wrong.Or continuous use of really high pressure loads.. Ed.

Super Trucker,
When I load my Weatherby's I find the pressure point where little ejector mark is just starting to appear on the brass and then back off so it doesn't,then check velocity.
If I need more speed I change powders,if I can not get the desired velocity but excellent acuracy This is good enough for me..
With the 30-378 for example I would get 3360-3380 FPS with 180 BT's and a case full ADI 2218 Powder.It would shoot nice little groups and no ejector Marks.

We have read the Theory why the Weatherby rifle in question, above,came apart.
I would be interested in the actual scientific results and inspection of this rifle.
To say it came apart thru repeated firing of high pressure factory loads and this is what caused the failure is one thing ,now it's time to prove it.
So if any of you learned people can access the actual test results on this failure that would be great.


Enjoy your day,

Charlie

Have discussed it on a number of occasions, with a number of manufacturers. In each instance, it was soon obvious that I have no persuasive influence with anybody -- especially not with those already well under way on an established course.

SAMMI's standards have no legal force of any kind with anybody -- not even with SAAMI's member companies, the only ones to whom those standards apply.

Old-timers who still have two brain cells operating close enough to communicate with each other have learned never to say anything like "[Winchester, Colt, etc] never made anything like that" or "I don't care what anybody thinks he's seen, nothing like that could ever happen."

Many of us are old enough and have seen enough to have laid eyes on the guns, cartridges, and old company catalogs that refute the suddenly all-knowing who have pronounced those guns and cartridges "never made."

And I'm not the only one who's seen blow-ups that the know-it-alls love to oh!, so solemnly declare impossible or caused by some aberration other than the one identified.

I'm aways impressed (never mind how!) by the super-powerful mind that can read or hear an account of something totally new to him, "think" about it for maybe a fraction of a second, then light into the long-studied, carefully formed conclusions of good minds much closer to the matter and infinitely more aware of its details (especially those details so carefully considered in forming the conclusion but not discussed in the brief public presentation that Super Brain has so briefly considered).

If Super Brain has never seen what we've seen, how can he rationally contend that (a) it didn't happen or (b) it occurred for some reason other than we've identified?

I bought the remains of a shattered custom Mauser from the friend whose first round blew it into large and teensy-weensy pieces. I know exactly what blew it up, because my friend knew -- and said -- exactly what he did wrong. But I'd like to invite Super Brains of the World to tell me -- right here -- without having my account of the problem to declare "wrong" -- what really reduced that rifle to the rubble I now have.

Sorry -- claiming that it never happened won't fly.

Ed, someday, I'll have to dig-up and send you the figures that I wrote about in (I think) an old issue of Varmint Hunter. I also posted them, some time ago, on this or some other board. Even those figures won't sway the Super Brains, but a quick summary is enough for old-timers like us.

� The rearward thrust at maximum pressure is what the locking lugs have to withstand.

� The rearward thrust is a force -- so many tons -- the product of (a) the peak pressure (lb/sq in.) times (b) the web area (sq in.) inside the case.

� The rearward thrust at any given maximum pressure is therefore greater with an H&H Magnum case than it is with an '06-family case.

� The rearward thrust at any given maximum pressure is therefore greater with a larger-head Weatherby Magnum case than it is with the smaller-head H&H Magnum case.

And of course even Super Brain can see that
� the rearward thrust behind any case is greater with whatever greater maximum pressure the loads in that case may produce.

Combine
(a) frighteningly higher maximum pressures,
(b) substantially larger case-web areas operating as piston heads driven rearward by these pressures,
(c) smaller areas of locking-lug engagement with their bearing areas in the receiver,
and what would you expect to get?
Nothing worse than than .30-06 bolt thrust? Not hardly. The bolt thrust with a big Weatherby Magnum case is much heavier than what you'd expect a Mauser, Springfield, Enfield, Winchester, Remington, or Ruger to withstand repeatedly -- and much, much greater still if the load's maximum pressures are higher than SAAMI's 60,000 lb/sq in.

I have the figures somewhere -- not right at hand, but they're easy enough to calculate for yourself. Recognizing that the web area inside is a tad smaller than the full cross-sectional area of the entire web, I methodologically "eliminated" the area of the case walls by using 90% of the cross-sectional area as the net effective piston area. I think that 90% is probably a bit conservative for the larger case heads.

The best inventions, best products in fact just about the best of everything got that way because of having to face objections, doubts and non believers.

Some of us are waiting to learn and our doubts or questioning should not cause you to have to go off the rails. If Edison was like that we still be using candles.

My experience has been that 300 and 378 Wby factory ammo is about 100 f/s lower than top loads.

I have posed the question on AR asking for views of what would happen if an action that uses a one piece bolt, such as the Wby Mark V, was fired with the lugs having been machine off and with a load that was at the level of causing ejector marks on the case head.

My feeling at the moment is the bolt would still be in the receiver.

Mike

... and you think that with the locking lugs gone, the root of the bolt handle would take further firings indefinitely? Any number of "views of what would happen" would be worth absolutely nothing in the face of one instance of what did happen. And we have at least one good report of what did happen at least once.



The legitimate use of theory now lies in explaining what did happen, not in frantic, futile efforts to fabricate theoretical reasons that "it couldn't have happened."



I got a detailed report that the bolt had exited the receiver and had entered the shooter's face. I saw then and see now no reason to doubt that report. But then I have only an ordinary brain, IQ-tested at only a bit over 150, that I try to use carefully -- not one of the Super Brains that we see so loquaciously exposed here to present nanosecond judgements. Many well known general facts support both the veracity of the report and the tentative explanation offered. Only vain, void, distant skepticism and ignorance support the twitching of a Super Brain's "BS sniffer."



If one relies on facts and well known relationships, BS is obvious from far beyond the reach of its stoutest aroma. IOW, I can see BS from farther away than anybody can smell it. Only imagined BS has only an imagined aroma and no visible image.



I'm not the one who's off the rails here. And the imagined aroma that twitches sniffers is evidence of BS much closer to the sniffers than anything that I've posted.

No, but for one shot, which is all that is required in the example used in the thread.

Now the example I have used is one where the lugs are machined off the bolt before firing. I think for one shot the bolt will remain in the receiver.

As a side note I think a Weatherby bolt weighs about 20 ounces. If we had a 300 Wby and say 180s at 3200 and 85 grains of powder and we had no bolt handle and no lugs then the bolt would reach about 120 f/s. Actually it would be less than that because the head of the case would have blown.

I am not if this is correct but I arrived at about 120 f/s by assuming the bolt is now "the gun" and applied the recoil formula to a gun weighing 20 ounces.

Mike

"skepticism' is vital because it allows the problem to be approached from the other side or from another view.

At the moment I am inclined to think that if the bolt finished up stuck in the shooters face then the reason or reasons are different to those which you have proposed.

I might also had that after having been in the insurance business for 30 years I have seen a few events that turn out to be quite strange in terms of the cause.

Mike

You assume much more than I'd dare assume. On what do you base the premise that the round that put the bolt into the shooter's face and neck was the only round that was fired after the failure of the last failed locking lug? That little idea comes from inside your ol' gourd, not from anything that I've posted. Nor from any logic that I can imagine.

Yes, one shot drove the bolt out of the receiver. But nothing inherent in that fact supports the premise that that one round -- all by itself -- (a) wiped the last lug off, (b) broke the heretofore pristine bolt handle off, and (c) expelled the bolt. I'd assume that an unknown number of preceding rounds had (progressively and without being detected) ruined and removed all resistance to the bolt's rearward travel before that one last round finally made the entire succession of failures obvious.

My clear impression is that you have first doubted the report or the conjectured tentative explanation, then tried to figure-out why it's "BS."

You proposed that the locking lugs were hammering up and setting back etc and then let go.

I don't think that process will have hurt the integral bolt handle.

Again, the question I posed was if all the lugs were machined off the action and a load with pressure that was in the area of causing an ejector mark on the case head was fired......then would the bolt blow back and shear off the bolt handle or tear out the metal behind the bolt.

At this stage I am inclined to think that under those circumstances the bolt would remain in the receiver.

Mike

"If?" Why "if?" Why doubt that it did?

The tentative explanation that I and others have conjectured fits what else we know about (a) bolt-action design and construction, (b) the forces produced by cartridge firings and variously resisted by breech mechanisms, and (c) the maximum pressures produced by widely separated samples of the factory ammo in question. To refute this explanation with even a minimum of rationality or credibility, skepticism must be based on something a good bit more substantial than a suspicious mind or stubborn refusal to accept someone else's explanation as at least logical.

What other, better tentative explanation can you offer without assuming basic premises that you have to provide to make your explanation logical?

Simply because I believe the integral bolt handle will hold for the one shot.



What has been proposed by you is that the lugs (for the reasons you gave) all let go.



Now I believe even with the lugs machined off the action the bolt would hold for one shot.



So far no one is saying that if I fire the rifle with the lugs machined off then the bolt will shear off the integral handle.



Note that I am not raising any argument against all the lugs letting go at once.



In other words "for the sake of the argument" I have said lets machine off the lugs and fire the rifle. I guess that sort of gives us a one lug rear locker.



Mike

Indefinitely? Ad infinitum?

I doubt that you can assume eternal strength for the root of the bolt handle, especially after the locking lugs designed to withstand the rearward thrust have failed and have thus left the bolt handle "holding the bag." Seems more logical to me that the same kind of repeated excessive hammering that peened and cracked the lugs would be even more certain to peen and crack the root of the bolt handle -- probably more easily than it ruined the lugs.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease come-up with something more logical than mere skepticism and stubborn refusal to regard the logic of the explanation offered. If there's a better explanation, I'm far more eager to know and embrace it than I am to persist with the one explanation that now seems logical to me.

You don't appear to have a view on what would happen if the lugs were machined off and the rifle was fired and I assume that is one reason you have moved to the bolt handle being peened.

However, a couple of points to consider.

How far would the lugs need to be set back before the bolt handle starting acting like a lug because if the bolt handle does not act like a lug for each shot then it won't be peened.

Now if the handle was acting as a lug (due to the set back of the bolt lugs) and this peening of the bolt handle started to occur we must surely enter the area of difficulty with bolt opening and especially since the metal behind the behind the bolt handle slants very slightly forward.

Mike