Ammo mishap

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charlesr41

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Anyone ever hear of old ammo that exploded when fired? I have dealt with ammo for 40+ years and never heard of such a thing. A personal friend insists that some 25-06 ammo that had rolled around under the seat of his truck for several years has literally exploded when he was checking his rifle for "zero" this season. I saw the rifle (custom based on 98 Mauser) and it had split the stock, broke the claw extractor, peeled the extractor collar off the bolt, blew the floor plate off, bulged the magazine box out on each side and broke some metal off the front of the bolt near the locking lugs.
My experience with old ammo is it could possibly hang-fire but other than that, it just doesn't fire at all. I suspect a super-hot hand load since this fellow is a handloader but he insists it was factory ammo.
Any thoughts????
 
Thoughts?

Yeah, who chambers and fires ammunition that has been improperly stored for a long time?

Other than that, if the ammo had truly been rolling around for years, ther is a chance the powder grains have decomposed from the constant tumbling, increasing the burn rate if the propellant in an unpredictable manner.

I hope he wasn't injured, and learned a few lessons.

In addition, it sounds like a case head seperation, or perhaps the rifle somehow fired out of battery.

Pics would help, including the remnants of the round in question.
 
Pictures would be nice, if possible. There could be a number of reasons for the failure, from damaged brass to a bore obstruction.
It's extremely hard to guess what really occurred with the cursory description.


NCsmitty
 
The bolt was closed and the round exploded(?) when the trigger was pulled. Apiece of the extractor was driven upward into his hand which was draped over the Barska scope and though it was painful, it wasn't terribly serious. the case head was blown off the case and very mis-shapened. we were able to extract the rest of the case and other than the fact that it had no head, it looked normal.
 
Factory Ammo or Reloads? When the grains of powder are reduced in size or the coatings are worn off, the burning rate is changer.Rolled around under the seat of his truck for several years could do this.
another important characteristic is its morphology. Shape and size have a profound effect on the burning rate and power generation of a
powder (Meyer 1987).
Click to expand...
Link> http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backissu/april2002/mccord.htm#table1
 
I do not have the firearm here to take pics but will supply all the info I have. We could not determine the brand of the ammo since the case head was in such bad condition. He swears that after his brother and he returned from the emergency room, they dropped a cleaning rod down the barrel and it went all the way to the bolt face. The bolt was very difficult to remove and required the use of a brass hammer. Upon questioing, he affirms that he had fired 10 or more rounds in that session before the mis-hap and they were plotting the shots on the paper. His brother confirms the very loud report and the smoke which it generated back through the action.
 
A case failure in a normal pressure load will wreck a 98 Mauser exactly as described.

The over-bore 25-06 is also subject to the "secondary explosion effect" if firing reduced loads of slow burning powder.

It is possible the old primer didn't fully ignite the powder charge, and drove the bullet into the rifling until it stopped.
Then the full charge ignited and pressure increased so fast the stuck bullet couldn't get moving again to get out of the way.

I doubt "rolling around under the seat" changed the powder burn rate enough to blow up the rifle. In fact, I doubt it changed the powder at all

Corrosion weakening the case, or a semi-dud primer causing a SEE though, is very possible.

rc
 
Years ago (30+?) there were stories going around; obviously not on the internet, Al hadn't invented it yet: that some large grained extruded powders when subjected to extreme vibration over a long period would crumble into finer particles. This will change the burning rate drastically and that would explain this disaster. I don't have any facts to reference, but it seems plausible to me.
 
I saw my friend shooting factory Prvi Match ammo, and on the last round a ridiculous amount of smoke started billowing out of his AR. No damage, but something was definitely not quite right.

When we went to collect our brass, we found a Prvi match casing with a blown primer.

We started chatting with the RSO about this during the cease-fire, and he told us that he had seen a guy's M1 explode while shooting factory milsurp ammo. And not an "explosion" in the sense of some parts getting bent, wood cracking, etc, but an explosion in the sense that chunks of wood and metal went flying around in all directions - very violent. He said the guy in the next lane really lucked out as he was crouching to do something when this happened - the M1 shrapnel went over his head. He said it was miraculous that no one was hurt because it was such a violent explosion.
 
As MythBusters would say......It's plausible.

I discard ammo like that for good reasons apparently.
 
We started chatting with the RSO about this during the cease-fire, and he told us that he had seen a guy's M1 explode while shooting factory milsurp ammo. And not an "explosion" in the sense of some parts getting bent, wood cracking, etc, but an explosion in the sense that chunks of wood and metal went flying around in all directions - very violent. He said the guy in the next lane really lucked out as he was crouching to do something when this happened - the M1 shrapnel went over his head. He said it was miraculous that no one was hurt because it was such a violent explosion.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a squib/bore obstruction/kaboom.
 
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