What blew up my gun?

[Will Gray]

Went shooting yesterday, shot about 5 shots and on 6th shot this happened.
Reloads from a couple years ago , store in ammo box in a shooting bag.
Rifle is a 22-250 Savage Model 10
Bullets are 55Gn Hornady V-Max
35GN of Varget Powder
Been doing this recipe for approx. 4 years, have never had problem.
No signs of over pressure until this incident, happily no injuries/casualties (except gun,LOL)
Any Ideas out there

View attachment 148591 View attachment 148592

Looks like the action was blown off the barrel. Did the barrel fail? The chamber area appears to be in tact. My guess would be wrong powder: Unique or Bullseye. Looking at the photo of the barrel chamber I was surprised to see a countersink area like the feed ramp in an AR-15 barrel. Could it have been the case was not supported fully by the chamber allowing a complete failure of the case head?

 

[Charley Morgan]

Definitely sounds like some type of over pressure. Not sure the case could handle it but just wondering if this could have been an accidental double shot of powder. That would have made for a very compressed load and not sure that is even possible with the 22-250 but just a thought.

 

[30BR]

xbowbob it's nice to see a company stand behind their product!

Even better, since it wasn't the PRODUCT fault; it's refreshing to see a company stand behind their word of honor. Scorpion just got added to my shopping list when I need new optics.

 

[Andrew Cowling]

I am licenced to manufacture ammunition and giving all that you have stated I would say bullet weld.
How well were the cases cleaned before reloading? Bump them back and free them up.

 

[Chuck32571]

Had a friend that had a similar but not as damaging incident. He was shooting old 308 brass that had been reloaded several times. Checked remaining reloads from that batch and found hairline cracks in the case walls and one that had the familiar pre case head separation ring starting.

 

[Gater]

Went shooting yesterday, shot about 5 shots and on 6th shot this happened.
Reloads from a couple years ago , store in ammo box in a shooting bag.
Rifle is a 22-250 Savage Model 10
Bullets are 55Gn Hornady V-Max
35GN of Varget Powder
Been doing this recipe for approx. 4 years, have never had problem.
No signs of over pressure until this incident, happily no injuries/casualties (except gun,LOL)
Any Ideas out there

View attachment 148591 View attachment 148592

 

[normyt]

What's the fastest burning rifle powder you have?
As JE said, that's over 200,000psi range you saw there and only 2 things can cause that. Something was in the bore, or powder was way too fast/too much.

Varget powder is fastest . other powders I have are Win760, IMR4350, H4350, H4381SC

 

[keithcandler]

JE Custom, I respect your knowledge and comments, always.

After living out West for 30 years, I had never seen "cold welding", then moved back South. I have seen this cold welding twice in the last 10 years with my own ammo.

N133 in 223 and 223AI loaded in IMI cases.

The bullets were welded solid to the brass case. I pulled the bullets, and some of the powder had turned to what looked like some kind of mold attached to the base of the bullet. Obviously, there was a chemical reaction of some kind between the brass, bullet, which caused a degradation of the powder.

I hate to think of what would have happened if I had actually tried to fire any of those rounds.

I can't prove it, but I suspect that living in very high humidity climate has had something to do with the cold welding, but that is a WAG at best.

I also saw cold welding on Rem 7 Mag brass, fired brass, loaded with IMR 4350 with 140g Nosler ballistic tips. I have had a habit of loading 100 cases, leaving all but 20-40 seated very long so all that is needed is to measure the throat length and seat according to new OAL taking in to account the throat growth. I had a round have an audible POP sound when I seated it, and pulled the bullet. Case neck and bullet look as if I had dipped them in battery acid. My cases are not exposed to anything other than Walnut shell with no additives, lubed with Imperial Sizing wax to FL size.

I keep my ammo "fresh" from year to year now.

Many ammo companies use a product called Black Lucas in the case neck to eliminate cold welding.

 

[Will Gray]

Looks like the action was blown off the barrel. Did the barrel fail? The chamber area appears to be in tact. My guess would be wrong powder: Unique or Bullseye. Looking at the photo of the barrel chamber I was surprised to see a countersink area like the feed ramp in an AR-15 barrel. Could it have been the case was not supported fully by the chamber allowing a complete failure of the case head?

 

[srogerson]

Had a 243 go waaaaaay high on pressure many years ago when I was younger and less educated in the ways of reloading and found out the cases were over length and the necks were pinched in the leade -essentially "welding" or just plain old wedged in - I would say measure the cases for overall case length and if over spec you may have solved your problem.
Just a thought since you seem to be ruling out most of the other obvious causes

This makes the most sense to me. I've shot some really old ammo and never had any problems like this.

Did you trim your cases to max length or under?

 

[Ring]

Went shooting yesterday,

question, how do you clean your brass? normal tumble or wet processes?

 

[hogheadv2]

8 MM shot through 30-06, 700 Rem. Once I got the brass out of my cousins rifle, it suffered No damage. [He will not be letting anyone use his guns again] .. I know the pressure had to go off the scale for recommended or allowed use.

 

[normyt]

Of course there is a common theme here. Barrel obstruction and over pressure. Not to beat the dead horse but it is one of those 2 things. Not seeing barrel in pics so can't tell if obstruction exist. I'd pull all your remaining rounds, check for powder consistency and weight. Likely others have an issue. Do you use pistol powder? Do you use them in rifle rounds for recoil reduction or subsonic loads, if not then find out why with some investigation you will know. 35 gr varget with 55 gr bullets in 22-250 wouldn't do this Glad you are safe and able to share

One picture is barrel/chamber with what's left of case still stuck in chamber.
This was a Savage model 10 22-250 Varmint with heavy barrel. Barrel looks perfect no bulges.
That's my plan to pull remainder of unfired shells. Those were all same same reload batch

 

[normyt]

question, how do you clean your brass? normal tumble or wet processes?

Tumble