How to blowup your rifle

[Swamplord]

Luckily you had a Rem 700 that contained the pressure and saved you from serious injury, if that had been a Savage action you would have been the victim of a frag grenade

 

[MudRunner2005]

Luckily you had a Rem 700 that contained the pressure and saved you from serious injury, if that had been a Savage action you would have been the victim of a frag grenade

Man, you're going to make those Savage supporters blow a circuit! HAHAHA!!!

 

[jwall3d11]

In my 264 WM Retumbo has exhibited massive pressure spikes in cold weather with the same load that was safe in warmer( non-freezing) temps.

I've heard this about Retumbo before, it's why I don't use it much now. Used to run 94 grains behind 215s and 89.5 behind the 230s

 

[Barrelnut]

Swamp and Mud, the 12 year olds are calling for you on FB. Better get back before your mom gets mad.

 

[HARPERC]

........This is quite the learning experience. I hate to learn the hard way. A guy takes pride in his work and I try to pay attention to what I am doing. I had six friends harvest game this year on safe loads I worked up. It is a tough pill to swallow when your rifle is damaged with ammo you load. If any good comes of this it may point out points where I made mistakes and hopefully I and other can learn from it.................

We get into adversarial threads at times, that stem from one group having catastrophic results, and another group routinely having no problems, from what seems to be identical behaviors.

I'm happy this thread hasn't gone that way. From here I can see that you're a conscientious person that drew the short straw.

I've never had best results from mixing bullet types, and clean between such changes.

Having cleaned rifle that won't shoot with the old Outers foul out, and pulling what looks like a pennies worth of copper from rifles I was told were cleaned, makes copper a strong suspect on my list. Although I would not have predicted this much of an issue without others sharing experiences.

 

[MudRunner2005]

Swamp and Mud, the 12 year olds are calling for you on FB. Better get back before your mom gets mad.

All I did was laugh at his comment. Don't be a butthurt snowflake, people are allowed to have different opinions than you.

 

[Magnumdude]

I am indebted to the OP for the information he gave us. I don't know if I'll use the Retumbo or not...I've got IMR7828, H50BMG and Vita 20N29, all of which (except the 7828) I can load to 100% capacity even some compressed a little, and my ballistics program graphs the pressure spike and decline as well as the velocity of the bullet until it leaves the muzzle.

 

[Winkfish]

Here are a couple images of the case I was able to remove. The case had really expanded. It took a fair amount of effort to drive it out.

 

[bigngreen]

Luckily you had a Rem 700 that contained the pressure and saved you from serious injury, if that had been a Savage action you would have been the victim of a frag grenade

The only injuries I've seen from a blown case have all been in Rems when the bolt nose blows out and down the race way into your face, usually the bottom metal gets blown off also. A Savage there's just a puff out the holes as pressure drops so fast and the raceway is blocked, drill out the ejector that will be rammed to the bottom, I've never seen any metal come out of them, Winchester usually you get a puff, extract the case, clean the primer punch out out of the bolt. All actions handle it different, the Rem is the only one that unnerves me as I have had parts of one go through my face and I've seen quite a few cracked and broken bolt noses.

 

[FEENIX]

Swamp and Mud, the 12 year olds are calling for you on FB. Better get back before your mom gets mad.

 

[Scooterbum]

Looks like a belted magnum now. A Willis band aid die should be able to fix it.

 

[theodoreh]

So was a solution or the problem found?

How does the barrel look after you got the brass out?

 

[Pdvdh]

Something strange, as of yet unidentified, caused this - IMO.

I am slow to believe that temperature, or copper fouling, alone - or combined - caused the increased pressure that locked up this action.

It doesn't look like gas torched out through the case head, unless directly thru the primer. What became of the primer? Did you ever find a primer? Was the bolt face melted/welded to the barrel or action?

Hard to imagine that one 87gr charge if Retumbo could vary that much from the rest of the canister.

 

[elkaholic]

I have seen this happen with a charge that was WAY TOO LIGHT but it doesn't sound like the op did that? What happens is the powder moves around in the case leaving large air pockets which can cause strange things during ignition. I had this happen with a very light charge of fast burning powder many years ago. I was shooting 75 grain bullets in a 25-06 at a little over 2000 fps with no problems when one of the rounds just made a hisst sound and I felt gas on my face! When I grabbed the bolt, it felt like it was welded. I had to hammer it open with much difficulty! When I finally did get it open the brass was fused into the bolt face so badly that I had to pry it out with a pair of vice grips. You could have put a shotgun primer in the pocket, it had a belt as big as a WM, and had a brass knob that had protruded into the ejector. This round didn't even go bang, just hissed!
Now, even when I use powders like 4198 for greatly reduced loads, I make sure the powder is next to the primer!!
I don't that this has much to do with the it's experience, but merely point this out to show that it isn't always an OVER CHARGE that blows things up!....rich