Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Exploded Rifle

I was at the local range on 3/9 getting ready to do some shooting. While getting ready, I was watching an elderly gentleman readying to fire a Savage rifle. As he fired, I watched at the barrel dropped onto the concrete floor. When I got over to him, the laminated stock was split in two, the action was peeled back like a banana, and the front of the bolt face was missing about a third of its face. The barrel had the case still stuck in it with an enlarged flash hole and missing the case head where the extractor would have gripped it. The shooter was not injured and neither was the guy beside him who was struck with debris. He claims he weighs all his loads, but was throwing 25 grains of 2400 powder. The rifle was a Savage model 25 in .223. He stated that he had just swabbed the barrel with a patch before shooting but when I looked at the cleaning rod, it still had a patch in the jag. There was no barrel bulges or splitting due to an obstruction. I think the load was overloaded or improper type of powder.
I had no camera!

I think 2400 is a pistol powder but I don't know if a 223 would take a double charge of it.

Dink

A little googling turned up loads in the 14-14.9gr range.Judging from that,25 gr. sound more like a grenade recipe.

TWENTY FIVE GRAINS? Of @$)) 2400 POWDER?
Let me clean the coffee off my screen here. Wow. Lucky. He needs some new reading glasses. 25 grains might work for a RIFLE powder in the H335 range, but that's at least ten grains off the chart.
Holy smokes.
Thank God it was "just" a 223 and not some magnum with an equivalent ridiculous load.

As stupid as that guy sounds, he is damn lucky to be alive.

And, he is lucky his own stupidity did not kill anyone else.

It's the one main reason I don't like to go to a shooting range unless I'm there alone or a long way away from shooter #2..

Everyone at the Fire knows HS-6 is a better rifle powder than 2400, ESPECIALLY in a Savage......

Something about following loads in a manual cannot even keep Darwin in check.

Can you imagine a double charge of that?

Maybe not, it probably wouldn't fit. 25gr is enough.

YEP! But I would vote more like 3 or 4 grenades, and think might belong in the shoulder fired bomb category.

Got no idea where Savage design belongs on the strong action list, but think that gentleman owes his life to Savage engineering.

I do a lot of downloading of 223. anyone who does knows that 25 grains of 2400 in a 223, is a grenade waiting to go off. Him not being hurt more, is an attestation to how tight he must be with Jesus, and also kudos to Savage for building a strong firearm.

Goes to show, if you don't know what you are doing, stick to factory loads.

it is incidents like this, that the naythsayers of downloading, will use as an example and act like it is a daily common occurrence.

and Hawk, I wouldn't make a post like you have above, mentioning a powder like HS-6 being a good rifle powder... many of us follow your tongue in cheek humor...but then we know better..

but there is always a moron or two in the wood pile, that will read it, and after collecting all the facts in the thread, will come up with the idea, that 25 grains of 2400 in a 223 is NOT Safe, but 25 grains of HS 6 in a 223, IS A SAFE load...at least in his Savage...

to reiterate, if one doesn't know what he is doing, for God's sake, buy factory ammo, or at least use nothing but real slow powder, regardless of case size..

if this guy continues to reload, he shouldn't use any powder any faster than AA 3100 or 8700...

"Yep, I've been reloading near 'bout fifty years," he said as he wiped his one good eye with the stubs of fingers on his one good hand. "Ain't had but one problem, and it was bad powder."