gun blew up

[Larry Gibson]

Well, its official. I'm an idiot and screwed up. Goodsteel confirmed it.

Don't take it too hard, others of us have blown up rifles too. That was a very nice 280 Rem I blew up. Fortunately for me it was a Mauser 3000 action which, though destroyed, did not come apart. Hope your recovery goes well. I appreciate your honesty in sharing this with us.

Larry Gibson

[Hannibal]

I, as many before me, wish to thank you for posting this. Complacency will get any and all of us if given the opportunity. You, my friend, are much braver than many among us simply because you put this out for peer review. Thank you for that! And thank you again for posting the eventual results. I hope you suffer no lasting effects from this ordeal.

[MBTcustom]

Any catastrophe.
Any time.
Any where in history, There's always plenty of time to lay blame on somebody after the fact.

In my professional opinion, this was not a big mistake. It was a very small mistake that was easily made with disastrous consequences. If any one here thinks they, or their process is above it, you better not tempt fate, or Mr.Murphy, and knock on wood before you ever say "that could never happen to me". The truth is, we are each just one tired, distracted decision away from ending up just like this. Ignore my words at your own peril.

After disusing the reloading operation with the OP at length, and inspecting the barrel, brass, and receiver, and also seeking advice from Larry Gibson above, I am very convinced that this was a double charge of medium-fast double based powder (which looks at a little thing like shredding a Marlin 1895 and says, "yes please, and may I have seconds?").
I also think that reloader28 would have fared much better had his left hand not been wrapped around the receiver of the gun exactly where it blew (the fore end was on sandbags).
The Marlin is a wonderful design, and even in a catastrophic event like this, the engineering wisdom of the designers is astounding. If something like this happens, much like the Glock pistols, the firearm is designed to blow open away from a right handed shooter, which this one did. despite having enough energy in the chamber to literally rip the rifle in half in the shooters hands, had Reloader28 had his hand on the fore end, it's very possible he would have needed nothing more than a couple band-aids!
My respect and adoration of these rifles is redoubled with this experience, and my hat is off to Remington for coming through like champs. The rifle has it where it counts, and even when the chips were down, it performed true to the original design perfectly.
There were several concerns brought up about the new Marlin (and Marlin in general) that I think would benefit from a thorough explanation with pictures, and the OP has granted me total transparency with the forum in this matter.
I would like to remove the barrel from one of my 1895's (late JM guns) and demonstrate a side by side comparison showing the design strengths of the 1895 and how making it weak in certain areas is actually a safety feature. This should be extremely educational to all.

If there is any way for a man to walk away from a situation like this with respect, I think Reloader28 is doing so (at least my opinion of the man is very high). We owe him a huge thank you, and a slap on the back for coming forward with this.
Thank you.

[starmac]

The safety features you are talking about has always made me nervous to a point. I shoot left handed and some of my bolts are leftys, I am primarily a lever guy, and the safety features are designed for shooting right handed, as are right handed bolts.

[Char-Gar]

Well, its official. I'm an idiot and screwed up. Goodsteel confirmed it.

Well you did make a mistake, but that does not make you an idiot and a screw up. It just makes you a human being who took his eye off the ball for a few seconds. 99% of what I have learned in life comes from my mistakes. Success teaches us very little, if anything.

[jcwit]

Well, its official. I'm an idiot and screwed up. Goodsteel confirmed it.

No, you're not an idiot, but you also confirmed something.

You are a human and you made a mistake.

May you recover fast, and be wiser, as you continue with your life.

[kens]

What is the SEE event, or, pressure trace mentioned above??

[Remiel]

No, you're not an idiot, but you also confirmed something.

You are a human and you made a mistake.

May you recover fast, and be wiser, as you continue with your life.

What he said, A simple mistake that anyone could have made. Your injury will heal and you will be wiser for it, and by sharing this with the rest of us, you have made us wiser as well.

[M-Tecs]

What is the SEE event, or, pressure trace mentioned above??

Secondary Explosion Effect

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...crificial-lamb

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-load-question

http://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthr...69/type/thread

http://reloadammo.com/liteload.htm

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/i.../t-399439.html

[MtGun44]

NOT an idiot. But you did screw up, which is guaranteed to happen from time
to time to us humans. Now, just think through a good way that works with
your personality and loading system (with changes) that will make it much
more difficult to fail to catch a screwup.


This is the key - a way to catch the screwup before it causes damage, because
we will screw up, regardless of efforts - there has to be a way to catch it built into
the system.

Best wishes, sir.

Bill

[HangFireW8]

There's some confused terminology here. What is S.E.E.? A certain set of conditions that cause gunpowder to transition from deflagration to detonation. Yes, detonation, a rate of chemical combination that progresses an order of magnitude faster than deflagration.

[Geraldo]

Thanks to Reloader28 for posting this and for sending the rifle to Goodsteel. I look forward to Goodsteel's comparison as well.

[BrentD]

This is the key - a way to catch the screwup before it causes damage, because
we will screw up, regardless of efforts - there has to be a way to catch it built into
the system.

Best wishes, sir.

Bill

One could weigh loaded cartridges. I have done this once where I was concerned there was a case w/o powder. A double charged or an uncharged cartridge would show up easily and with modern electronic scales, this is a really fast step to add to your reloading process.

[Larry Gibson]

There's some confused terminology here. What is S.E.E.? A certain set of conditions that cause gunpowder to transition from deflagration to detonation. Yes, detonation, a rate of chemical combination that progresses an order of magnitude faster than deflagration.

That is what was thought to happen. It is not what happens at all. What happens to cause and SEE event is the
bullet becomes stuck in the throat under certain conditions very early during ignition of the powder. The bullet essentially acts as a bore obstruction. The powder then burns reaching catastrophic pressures before the bullet starts moving. The powder does not detonate but still burns progrssively. With out the bullet moving the pressure rise to catastrphic level very quickly. The result can be as bad as we've seen here.

We can observe this very easily with modern pressure measuring methods. It is very common with slower burning powders for the pressure to rise during engraving into the lands and swaging down. The pressure can drop quite a bit after that before it begins burning efficiently. I can show you lots of pressure traces showing that with both jacketed bullets and cast bullets.

Larry Gibson

[Prospector Howard]

Never Mind.

[kens]

I think I had one of those SEE things.
A reduced charge of Re7 under a boolit, in .375H&H.
I called it a hang-fire, but reading this I think it was a SEE.
Nothing really bad happened, but it was sure interesting.

[reloader28]

OK, now I understand an SEE. Thanks for that explanation, Larry.
I wasnt understanding the differences before.

[HangFireW8]

It wasn't for small arms, but I set up the gauges, fired the guns, reduced the data, discussed with the physicists and retired the barrels at APG. Detonation does happen, under several different circumstances including obturation occlusion.

[mold maker]

You may have a loaded round left with a light powder charge. I'd weigh the remainder to look for the other half of the mistake.
Heal well, and good luck.

[NavyVet1959]

I officiated at the funeral service of a fellow who thought smokeless and black powder could both be used in his new muzzle loader. They removed the breech plug from his brain during the autopsy.

He probably just chose the wrong muzzle loader, wrong charge, or wrong smokeless powder. There are some combinations that *could* work, but it's not a direct one to one substitution. The people who make these mistakes just think that "powder is powder" and that gets them in trouble fairly quickly.