Wrong Ammo

[Gene Allen]

After reading another post today about the mistake made in calibers after being told it was one caliber and finding out it was a 243 and lucking out and not getting hurt I decided to share one myself. I have been loading for almost 50 years & never had anything go wrong until about five years ago when I was the lucky one, i was out shooting the 1000 yard steel at our range with my 300 win and my 7mm STW and not having a very good shoot and was about ready to call it a day. I decided to take one more shot with the STW and unknowingly chambered a 300 win, when I squeezed off the round I got a little hot gas back in my face and knowing right away something was very wrong. The rifle spit the 30 caliber bullet out but the bolt was welded closed,I took it to a gun smith and we tried to remove the barrel on the Remington 700 and ended up having to cut it off needless to say the rifle was a total loss except for salvaging the the Timney trigger. So the comment someone made about only shooting one rifle at a time is true at least for me, I learned a cheap lesson in only losing a rifle and not being hurt. I now only have one rifle at a time out at the bench or two that are very different calibers

 

[Rich Coyle]

Too much excitement for this old man
Glad you are ok.

 

[Varmint Hunter]

Based on the fact that you did not get injured during a catastrophic shooting event, I'll give testament to our firearm design, engineer, and production teams. Modern firearms can withstand a significant amount of abuse and still protect the shooter.

Kudos to the firearms industry.

 

[QuietTexan]

Pretty impressive it got the 30 cal pill out the barrel with the action in one piece. Better the bolt jammed into the raceway than in your face.

300 BLK doesn't have the horsepower to get out of a 5.56 AR barrel usually, so pretty much guaranteed to have have shrapnel out the mag well. Which is why that's NOT where your off hand goes, get it out on the rail or your pinky might get chopped.

 

[West Calamus]

I did the 7-08 in the 25-06. Scary!!! Did change my safety protocol when I have multiple rifles out. Agree with varmint hunter in "kudos" to the firearm industry. If it wasn't for the exhaust ports in the bolt throwing all the pressure down when the pressure came back though the primer pocket and firing pin hole it would have been a catastrophe. Never did find the magazine spring and follower. As far as the 25-06 goes it was a matter of beating on the bolt with a hammer to open the bolt. Some elmers wood glue with saw dust a small drill and tooth picks plus a cross bolt and the cracked stock was salvaged. Just shot the rifle last week tweaking some loads and found one that cloverleafed. Be careful and always think safety first.

 

[Radman]

After reading another post today about the mistake made in calibers after being told it was one caliber and finding out it was a 243 and lucking out and not getting hurt I decided to share one myself. I have been loading for almost 50 years & never had anything go wrong until about five years ago when I was the lucky one, i was out shooting the 1000 yard steel at our range with my 300 win and my 7mm STW and not having a very good shoot and was about ready to call it a day. I decided to take one more shot with the STW and unknowingly chambered a 300 win, when I squeezed off the round I got a little hot gas back in my face and knowing right away something was very wrong. The rifle spit the 30 caliber bullet out but the bolt was welded closed,I took it to a gun smith and we tried to remove the barrel on the Remington 700 and ended up having to cut it off needless to say the rifle was a total loss except for salvaging the the Timney trigger. So the comment someone made about only shooting one rifle at a time is true at least for me, I learned a cheap lesson in only losing a rifle and not being hurt. I now only have one rifle at a time out at the bench or two that are very different calibers

Great post. This is the sort of thing that we all think will never happen to us.

 

[Rum River]

So, about a thousand years ago I was in junior high school. Dad always had the firearms stored in an older style wall rack where unlocking the ammo drawer allowed you to remove stuff from the rack. As a kid at that age I naturally knew where he stored the key. When the folks weren't around I would unlock everything and do a variety of really stupid stuff that a junior high schooler thinks is okay.

Like purposely trying to chamber the wrong caliber cartridge just to see if it was possible to close the breech.

REALLY? D*** STUPID !@#$ KID!!!!

In spite of my very best efforts, no negligent discharge occurred.

Fast forward a few decades. Married, a number of young children have somehow shown up. Thinking back on what I had done all those years before and how I would react to such moronic behavior on the part of MY children.....I confessed to Dad what I had done all those years before.

Oh Boy.

Didn't go well.....and I still received the chewing out I had so richly earned those many years before.

 

[memtb]

Had a sort of similar occurrence a little over 20 years ago.

When doing load development for my wife's .338 WM and my .375 AI....I learned, the hard way, "Do Not" have two different cartridge boxes on the bench at the same time! I ran a .338 WM down the pipe of my AI! No rifle damage, but the collateral damage was....a ruined piece of . 338 WM brass, a relatively new chronograph, and added a few years of "stress induced" wear and tear on my body! memtb

 

[Muddyboots]

After the incident of a fellow shooter next to me, I color code my different rifle ammo boxes. If you look hard enough, you can find red, yellow, blue, clear, smoke, green etc which is a great visual reminder when you reach for a round.

 

[19elkhunter51]

When I take more than one rifle, usually just two, I always take two that are very different in size. 22-250 and 338 Edge. In my feeble mind I think that it will be much harder to get one or the other to chamber incorrectly.
Just my thoughts.

 

[Wrenches]

Been Smithing for 37 years and I have seen many many such mistakes by shooters/hunters. Latest one Ruger precision in 6.5 Creedmoor owner was working up a load with R-17 and the can of powder went empty so he reached up on the shelf and grabbed a new can but didn't check and loaded rounds with R-7. Blew all the aluminum AR looking trim off the rifle, magazine was blown out, but the bolt stayed closed. I had to take the barrel off (no easy task). the bolt had the lug with the extractor blown off. Shooter had safety glasses on, but his face looked someone shot him in the face with a 410 bore shotgun. Doctor spent hours digging out the shrapnel.

A grandfather took his two teenage grandsons pronghorn hunting with each shooting a Remington 700 308 he purchased for them and he was carrying his Model 70 Featherweight in 270 Win. He ended up firing a 308 through his 270 and it locked up the bolt. I worked with it for sometime and finally got the bolt open. Extractor, plunger, and spring were damage but bolt was useable. I replaced the damaged parts. This is a push feed rifle. I checked headspace and everything checked so I test fired it and the rifle worked as designed so the customer was happy.

Elk hunter with a Mark X 300 Win Mag downed his elk, he found the animal alive on approach so to put it out of it's misery he grabbed a round out of his coat pocket chambered it a fired the killing from short distance. He had grabbed a 30-06 and the escaping gas from the split case blinded his right eye.

A few years ago man purchased a new Controlled Round Push Feed Model 70 in 7WSM took it to the range to sight in the scope and he used a lazer bore sighter. Only problem, he the left the bore sighter in the barrel and fired a shot. Barrel split in four places for 14 inches back from the muzzle. His only injury was to stop at Walmart for a new three pack of underwear. DOW hunter safety trainers borrow this barrel from me to show students what not to do.

 

[esshup]

I have different colored boxes for the different calibers. I have a few of the same caliber, but multiple rifles for that caliber. For instance, I use Wby brass for one .257 Wby, Norma headstamped brass for the other. I have two 308's now, I use Lapua brass, I will use fingernail polish or a paint pen to color the headstamp lettering differently for each rifle.

A few years ago I had purchased a side by side shotgun at an auction. OLD shotgun estimated age is 1870's, was sold as a percussion shotgun. Since the maker had the last name as me, I wanted it no matter what. Got it home, found out that it was a cartridge gun, NOT a percussion gun. Exposed hammers, the firing pins protruding looked like nipples for caps. Supposed to have been a 20 ga. Well, 20ga hulls slid down the barrel an inch or so. Turned out to be 16 ga.

Still haven't fired it, need to restore it first. Has Damascus barrels too.

 

[rammac]

I just take things slow and pay attention to what I'm doing, seems to have worked well for the past 55 years.

 

[Rum River]

For fifteen years now my wife and I have hosted an annual deer rifle sight in for the descendants of the original 1930's deer camp, plus some very close friends who are within the 'inner circle'. Lot of fun and we're blessed with shooters that are safety minded.

One family had a close call - two outwardly identical Marlin levers, but one's a .30-30 and the other a .32 Winchester Special. The ammo mixup was caught at the last possible moment, thank goodness. From that point on the bluing on those rifles was at risk from all the handling to check the caliber.

I got their permission to take the end of a .32 Winchester case and inlet/epoxy it into the pistol grip of that rifle. After that it was easier to keep things straight.