Almost had a kaboom today, time to break out the chore boy!

[Indiana shooter]

I went out to the range this morning to test some loads with some commercial boolits In my XD 40. These boolits are locally cast by an individual and sold to a small gun shop just down the road from me (Or so I'm told). Anyway I have shot several thousand rounds of these boolits from my 9mm, .45 acp and 44 mag. Before I started casting my own and still shoot them out of my 9mm with great results. Before buying I checked the fit of the boolit to my bore and it was a half thou. Over bore so I thought I'd try 'em out.

After a quick load work up to a mid level load I ran a mag (12 rounds) and checked for leading. All looked well so I ran 2 more mags and checked again, this time without field stripping...... big mistake. I didn't notice any leading so I went on and shot around 50 rounds and checked again, oh look I got a bit of leading Starting to build up near the muzzle. No biggie I thought I'll just finish out mt last few rounds and call it a day. I was 2 rounds into my last partially filled mag when it happened.

I aligned my sights on an unsuspecting soda can, squeezed the trigger and BANG. OH S&#!, powder blew back in my face and all over my arms, shooting glasses shielded my eyes from the blast (thank goodness). I checked myself over other than some sooty powder on me and a few singed arm hairs, oh yea and now in need of a fresh pair of britches I'm okay. I checked the gun over and nothing is wrong with it either.

The best I can figure is the leading in the throat of the gun (it was bad but couldn't notice it without field stripping) held the gun just barely out of battery. The once fired brass ruptured right in front of the web fortunately after the boolit left the barrel and the pressure began dropping off.

[luvtn]

Ouch, glad it wasn't more serious. Thanks for sharing. We all learned.
Luvtn

[gnostic]

Glad to hear both you and your gun are OK. I've never seen a gun fire when not in battery. It's more likely, you had too much powder, limited case size, or maybe a heavily leaded barrel. Also, why would the case fracture, after the bullet left the barrel?

[500MAG]

Good thing your OK. Like mentioned above, that doesn't sound like a leading issue.

[Indiana shooter]

It's more likely, you had too much powder, limited case size, or maybe a heavily leaded barrel. Also, why would the case fracture, after the bullet left the barrel?

Wile I'm not ruling out an improperly loaded round it was loaded with hs-6 so a double charge would be impossible. The case was a WW brass once fired so case volume shouldn't have been an issue There. A deep seated bullet or a caee of bullet set back could have been an issue. The remaining rounds would not pass the plunk test until a bit of cleaning was done due to leading in the throat and chamber. So I suppose the slide could have "rammed" the round into the chamber creating a scenario much like a long case would where the leading prevented the case from expanding to release the bullet? And as to why would the case fail after the bullet left? I have no clue. I have no way of knowing exactly what happened or exactly when it happened. I've always been under the impression that anytime you have a head separation wile firing a round the results are catastrophic.

[243winxb]

The once fired brass ruptured right in front of the web Some are worse then others. http://s338.photobucket.com/user/joe1944usa/slideshow/Firearms%20%20and%20%20Reloading/KABOOM

[OS OK]

Watched the pic's., dang some hairy results there and wasted weapons. They aren't all your accidents...right?
Otherwise we are going to have send the handloading police over there to protect you.

[gds45]

I made the mistake of watching that slideshow sitting in my reloading room. Now I'm real nervous about finishing up those .308's I've been working on.
Those were some truly terrible results!
Reminds me why I need to continue to inspect, weigh and inspect again!! :holysheep

[35remington]

The gun will not fire out of battery with a pull of the trigger. If the gun did this with a pull of the trigger it wasn't out of battery.

This is promulgated by Internet rumor from people who do not understand how pistols work. If this is not understood I will explain if needed.

In a nutshell the gun is toleranced such that when it is unsafe to fire it.....it cannot be fired. This is understandable as a design criteria and does not rely on safety mechanisms to prevent it from happening.

[35remington]

And....the only way a case will fail from high pressure is when high pressure is
present. That means right away, when the bullet is in the barrel and still in or very near the case. Can't hapen any other way.

[dale2242]

I have never had a Kaboom but, I use NRA 50/50 lube and it tends to build up at the front of the chamber.
There may also be a build up of lead but, mostly lube.
Field strip and clean your barrel after each shooting session.
Works for me....dale

[Ballistics in Scotland]

And....the only way a case will fail from high pressure is when high pressure is
present. That means right away, when the bullet is in the barrel and still in or very near the case. Can't hapen any other way.

That's right. Pressure when the bullet is some way down the bore isn't enough to rupture a case. It must have happened around the time the bullet was entering the rifling. But although ewe occasionally see blow-ups with the bullet remaining in the bore, this would be unusual unless the bore is obstructed quite a bit more than by leading. Besides, the rupture of a case still leaves the gas a long way from free to escape to the rear. If it has started moving at an appreciable speed, the chances are that it will keep on going.

I agree, very few semiautomatics will fire while unlocked, and although I don't know the internals of this one, I doubt if any likely damage or omission of parts could do it. I suppose if a person uses bought bullets when he casts for himself, it suggests high-volume reloading? Is it really impossible that a double charge couldn't fit the space, even if compressed? It may have been less than double, and still a lot more than enough. It is also possible that some solid object was in the case, giving you the right charge, but a lot less than the intended burning space.

Or could a .38 bullet have been loaded instead? Those few thousandths should make very little difference once properly released from the case, but perhaps a lot if the case was tightly clamped onto the bullet. I always think of Col. Townsend Whelen's experiments with tinned .30-06 bullets in the 20s. They increased the measured bullet pull so much that they broke the testing machine, and yet didn't cause accidents. That happened when the bullets were dipped in grease. Presumably that stopped the neck being expanded off the bullet.

Finally could a rifle primer have been used by mistake? I know that isn't invariably disastrous, but I am sure it varies from powder to powder.

[Artful]

The gun will not fire out of battery with a pull of the trigger. If the gun did this with a pull of the trigger it wasn't out of battery.

This is promulgated by Internet rumor from people who do not understand how pistols work. If this is not understood I will explain if needed.

In a nutshell the gun is toleranced such that when it is unsafe to fire it.....it cannot be fired. This is understandable as a design criteria and does not rely on safety mechanisms to prevent it from happening.

Depends upon the design - and the flaw that was exploited in the design - dirty firing pin channel firing pin sticks forward - gun cycles and before it's fully in battery the primer is set off - as just one such example.

[35remington]

He said this happened with a pull of the trigger. As I said, out of battery firing with a pull of the trigger is impossible and invalidates your suggestion.

As I said....if you understand how pistols work you also understand that unsafe out of battery firing with a pull of the trigger is impossible. If this is not understood I can explain in detail. Can.....not.....happen. Period.

[higgins]

A 742 Remington belonging to an acquaintance would fire out of battery with factory ammo. He ended up with the wrecked gun to prove it. At least Remington replaced it. This was a long time ago.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Yes, but that would be due to the failure of a camming arrangement quite different from any pistol I know, unless it was this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remington_XP-100

It is amazing how many firearms failures don't result in serious injury, when they certainly have the potential to do so. He was lucky not to lose anything Remington couldn't replace.

[35remington]

We're talking about a locked breech, striker fired pistol here that burst a case after the trigger was pulled, not a gas operated auto loading rifle that had a burst case at some unknown point in the firing cycle.

The thing known for certain is that "being out of battery" did not burst said case in this pistol.

[ROCKET]

Those nasty 40s... Betcha it was a glocked case which just ruptured.

[Forrest r]

If I was a gambling man I'd put my $$$ on bullet setback. Small high pressure cases and a bbl throat full of fouling ='s bad things happening.

HS-6 is a pretty stable powder that isn't known to have a high short start pressure like powders like titegroup. A simple unique/9mm load and the pressure differences from something a simple as changing the bullets oal (bullet setback).

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/9mmCOLvMVvP_zpsfgancxi9.png (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/9mmCOLvMVvP_zpsfgancxi9.png.html)

Straight from the ramshot reloading manual.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/RamshotOALampPressure_zpswmfovnsg.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/RamshotOALampPressure_zpswmfovnsg.jpg.html)

Oal's and pressure spikes are nothing new, decades ago alliant used to put this out to keep people from grenading their 38spl's.

http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t242/forrestr-photo/Bullseye%20Article%201_zpsy5ilncf8.jpg (http://s162.photobucket.com/user/forrestr-photo/media/Bullseye%20Article%201_zpsy5ilncf8.jpg.html)

I look at this post as an experienced reloader/shooter saw a problem and didn't think about the actual affects of what he was looking at.

Just glad you're ok, could of been worse.