Final Exploding Taurus Judge Thread With Probable Solution

[35remington]

Let me expand on the last post a little. In my other life I moderate a reloading forum and we get to dissect our fair share of “unexplainable” blowups.

Keep in mind I am NOT suggesting all these behaviors were exhibited here.

But this is how it often goes.

Firstly, the idea that the handloader made a mistake is examined and usually discarded by the person analyzing the blowup. What we do know for sure is that person and no one else made the ammo. That is food for thought. The subsequent blown up gun and the person making the ammo have a direct relationship.

Second, in analyzing the cause of the kaboom, almost invariably multiple factors happening concurrently are blamed for the cause of the burst gun. As I said before, in reality if multiple things have to happen to blow the gun up the less likely they are to happen concurrently. And the less likely they are as a plausible or probable cause.

The simple ideas have to be run to the ground first. Adding layers of complexity adds layers of improbability.

One guy, writing for Handloader’s Digest on the subject of burst guns, entitled the piece, “It Isn’t Always Handloads......But That’s The Way to Bet.”

In all fairness, jon acknowledges he was using handloads and has tried to dissect it from that angle. The way to bet is that something was wrong with the handload and not with the gun.

Kudos to him for approaching it from that angle, as most people in my experience don’t want to accept they had anything to do with any problems, but I think a simpler rather than a more complex explanation as was found in the first post of this thread is much more likely.

[MaryB]

Defective cylinder vented sideways into adjacent cylinder and it also went off from the pressure spike and the bullet hit the frame stopping in the cylinder. You now have double the normal pressure from 2 events and the cylinder exploded... crack in the cylinder wall into an adjacent cylinder. I would look for gas cutting between the exploded cylinders...

[snuffy]

From a post by P. Flados on the first thread;

"The other item not discussed is the cylinder bore. The judge is intended for 45 Colt or 410. I wonder if this chamber can allow a bullet to get a little cocked and try to jam."

It's difficult to see just how the chambers were cut in this either/or revolver. Trying to make a gun do two things as different as a .410 and a 45 colt is hard to do.

I don't have a Taurus judge, but I do have a *** Comanche single shot in .410/45 colt. Capable of firing 3" .410 shells it has a LOT of free bore in front of the 45 colt chamber. The O.D. of a sample .410 factory load is .455 on the plastic body and .470 on the metal head. A long travel in a loose I.D. dimension before entering any forcing cone. I would think that would result in LESS pressure than a standard chamber. Assuming a .452 sized lead boolit, it would allow gas passage around the boolit. Also the possibility of a double bump in pressure curves. A hangfire could result because of the loose chamber not allowing the Unique to get all burning, to be followed by the boolit hitting the forcing cone. NOW the powder all burns with a bore obstruction. Whammo!

Was this Taurus a 3"? I know they made one in 2.5".

Accuracy is non-existent in my Comanche SS when using 45 colt, the bore, chamber, a rifling looks awful. The trigger maxes out my Lyman trigger pull gauge, the trigger actually cocks the hammer further as it's pulled through it's long rough pull. As a 3" .410 it's useful in that it comes with a choke that is to be used when firing .410 to stop the wad from spinning to improve patterns. It would kill a grouse at perhaps 15 yards.

[rking22]

Just some random thoughts here. You are flirting with the top end of design pressures for the firearm in question. The chamber design has very large throats for a 45 Colt so there is some pressure loss , and lack of guidance. The VERY long cylinder allows the bullet to be at notably higher velocity when it engages the forcing cones, with the lack of guidance. This is impact, could be the reason for reports of frame stretching with this design, 45/ 410 and especially 3 in 410. The smooth void in the top strap described is a casting defect ( I spent 10 years engineering in a precision foundry). This defect at a high stress location is a concern. I feel this is a fatigue failure due in part to the excessive velocity at the forcing cone by the 18k psi load in combination with the long acceleration run up of the long cylinder with little guidance of the bullet. When a rupture starts the expanding gas does much more damage than anyone expects.
Question, are all 4 rods of fired brass and the unfired rnd accounted for? Could you post a pic of the 5 and the cylinder remains together? The "undamaged " brass is a big question.
Point I am raising is that the bullet impacting the forcing cone off center becomes in effect a bore obstruction due to the higher than normal velocity at cylinder exit. This caused a rupture at the bullet base. Front of cylinder , split propagated to the rear venting Gass and leaving the case in better than expected condition. In short, a bore obstruction at the forcing cone.

[Lloyd Smale]

johnp id have to say that most here agree that although this might have been a few problems working together that one problem was there for sure and that's severe overpressure. I bullet seated to deep or a grain or two to much powder might have done nothing to a strong gun and at most bulged the cylinder of a weak gun. Something REALLY over pressure happened here and happened in a gun unlike a large frame ruger that had not a lot of leeway in loading over book pressures. I'm with 35 rem though. If you have to overthink it and really dig for an answer your probably wrong. 99 times out of a 100 when a gun blows up its an overload or obstructed bore. in my experience through the years watching this kind of thing even an obstructed barrel in a revolver rarely cause a cylinder to blow apart. the cylinder gap usually relieves a lot of the overpressure and you might ring a barrel or bulge a cylinder but not turn it into a grenade.

[jonp]

Thank you everyone for your insightful comments, questions and suggestions. Thanks to all who pm'd me with lengthy, very informative msgs and the ones that emailed me directly. Thanks to HangFireW8 for answering the questions about pressure via Quickload.
As many pointed out, the fly in the ointment was the brass. 35 Rem said "that brass makes no sense" (sic) and he is right. It didn't. I remember looking at the brass in one hand with the revolver in the other and saying almost the exact thing. " What the ??? This is impossible". How do you blow up a cylinder without blowing up the brass?
This point alone had me looking in other directions and availing myself of the combined knowledge of the fine men and women on this site. But, the brass still bothered me. I kept going back to it no matter the explanations I and others came up for it. The events suggested a double charge or pressure spike blowing up the gun and the brass should have been blown outward not creased inward.
Finally, a couple of more comments by Rem35 and dubber123 were more than I could stand on this point so back out to the firing line for another search.

BINGO

Over 30yrds away behind a heatpump at a 90 degree angle from the firing point there was the offending brass blown to smithereens. The top strap is still unaccounted for. All of the brass I picked up in the general vicinity were the correct number but one must have been a case overlooked from previous target practice. I looked in an area, found the right number of brass with a quick look around seeing no more and assumed I had the brass. This explains the mysterious unexploded brass.

So, I'm going to assume the gun, although a marginal design, was not to blame and the entire matter lies on either a double load or a pressure overspike caused by a too deeply seated bullet on top of a near max load. I am going to discard the too deep bullet theory based on a couple of things. All of the remaining rounds were evenly seated. Short because of the malfunctioning caliper but heavily crimped and uniform in length. Could I have seated one too short? Yes but HangfireW8 answers just how deep I would have had to seat one to go far enough overpressure to blow a cylinder. No way I would have missed a bullet seated below the casemouth and with the heavy crimp it was very unlikely the bullet could have moved backwards that amount. It would have had to shave the entire top band off of the bullet to do that. Hard to fathom under the uniform recoil and velocities I tested the rest at not to mention the very uniform length although short. Even at the length they ended up at, they were still safe rounds in that gun pressure wise as Dusty explained in a great and in depth PM.

john.k has an explanation for the creased brass and is one i considered but it's just unlikely to have happened and the missing exploded brass negates that argument for me.

An obstruction in either the barrel, cone or cylinder does not work. The barrel was undamaged, the cone also and an obstruction in the cylinder would have either bound it up and prevented it from turning or just rattled around in it as these were the first loads from a freshly cleaned gun. As lloyd points out, not only is there a large cylinder gap but also all of that space from the extra long cylinder to relieve pressure. The off center primer strike and leading at the cone were clues but red herrings. The rounds were hot for this design and most likely by the third one cause a little looseness in the cylinder and the leading was caused by a slightly off center hit to the cone but as was pointed out, this is the forcing cones job. This was not the cause for the cylinder to fail.

Final Theory: Despite my multiple layers of safety in loading these near max rounds I double charged one. It is the most likely and easiest explanation. The proof is that all other explanations have been explored, researched by me and others and explained away in a manor satisfactory to me. The only other one that may be possible in my view is a failure of the cylinder itself due to faulty metallurgy. I am not going to incur the expense of sending it off for testing that would cost several times the value of the revolver so that is just going to have to remain up in the air.

Thank you to everyone for your insightful and helpful comments. I hope this exercise is useful to others in the future as a means to explain what happened should such an event unfortunately occur to them and how to approach figuring it out. For me, I'm going to hang the revolver and exploded brass case in front of my reloading bench as a reminder to be extra careful when reloading and double so when approaching a max load using any other pistol than a Ruger Blackhawk.

[ShooterAZ]

Well if it's any consolation, I double charged a case in a Kimber 1911. The gun survived, but the grips were splinted into my hands, the magazine floorplate blew out, and I got peppered in the face with hot fragments. ALWAYS wear glasses! (I was) The only lasting damage was to my pride. This was done right after I bought my Dillon 550 decades ago. I learned a serious lesson, and now have a light over my press and inspect every single case before seating a boolit.

[FISH4BUGS]

I have double charged two guns in my life. One was totaled. That was a S&W 3914 9mm. I sent it to S&W with what remained of the gun thinking it was a gun failure, and they concluded it was a double charge. I guess they felt sorry for me, and sold me direct a new 3914 for something like $200.
The other time was a S&W 76 9mm submachine gun. It blew out the magazine and broke the face off the bolt. Lucky for me they are built like tanks and no other damage was done.
When I retraced my steps on the Dillon 550, I realized I had sized and decapped a military brass, and when I tried to seat the primer it would not seat because of the primer pocket crimp. Rather than clear the entire press, and rotate everything out, I simply absentmindedly replaced the brass with another and pulled the handle again. Instant double charge.
I would have sworn I did not make a mistake. I had been casting and reloading for 40 years! It can happen to the best of us.
Now if anything happens in the loading process, I clear the press before doing anything. I have slowed down and become very methodical.

[JBinMN]

jonp,

Glad to hear that you have come to a final conclusion, even though the circumstances were not so good.

One thing I got out of your last post with the folks helping you in the background thru PM & email, is sad to me...

When folks know about how to do something, or solve a problem, etc., & then keeping that info to themselves, or in some small group, rather than sharing with the rest of us here at Cast Boolits. Gunloads forum, so we can all learn from what others know, goes against the intent of the forum itself. The intent to share knowledge.
Why have the forum at all, if the answers or solutions are not shared with others,but only privy to those who keep the info to themselves?

I also think it is a bit selfish, since if everyone just passed on pertinent info just thru PMs, email, or both, & not out in the forum where folks could learn from it, there is no reason to post anything to share here.

Don't think I'll say much more about it here, but it sure is a disappointment, IMO. Might have learned more but for the "insider" info not shared... Kind of "sticks in my craw" about that...

Thanks! for sharing YOUR situation here though, so we all might learn from it, &Thanks! to the others who posted Here, out in the forum, to try to help out.
I learned some things from it anyway.

[Smoke4320]

Jonp i salute you for first admitting you had a gun blowup and then honestly working thru the cause. Keeping us all informed along the way.
We need these constant reminders that what we do is dangerous.

[rl69]

Thank you for your posts. I admire the way you went about all this again thank you.

One thing that doesn't make sense to me how brass imprinted on steal ?

[35remington]

Yes, thanks for sharing freely and taking a reasoned analytical approach.

I am not perfect myself. Far from it.

I am pretty sure jon has shared all the relevant angles and insight he has received. His exhaustive analysis through three threads here kept everyone up to date, and I don’t think anything was left on the table in terms of unshared information that was relevant to solving the problem.

[BNE]

Jonp i salute you for first admitting you had a gun blowup and then honestly working thru the cause. Keeping us all informed along the way.
We need these constant reminders that what we do is dangerous.

I agree. Thank you for not letting your ego get in the way of helping the rest of us.

[dubber123]

Thanks Jon, I appreciate your honesty. The blown up piece of brass makes a lot more sense than the one with the crease!!

It is contrary to how many seasoned loaders do it, but I always charge a case and immediately seat a boolit. I'm not saying this is the best way, but I do it that way because the few times I did the loading block method, I could just see myself making a mistake and doubling one. I just had an uneasy feeling, and never trusted myself to use that method. 30+ years later, I still don't

I'm glad you got it figured out, and you never got hurt in the process. Now go buy another gun and get back to shooting.

[P Flados]

As noted, JonP did us all a great service with the open and honest approach at "getting a reasonable answer" for the event.

I will also point out that those that prompted him to go back and look for the failed brass deserve recognition. This was the prompt that led to finding the "bad input" to the "it does not add up" that we all missed at first.

For all of us, using methods to avoid a double charge (or any kind of significant overcharge / wrong powder) is something to take seriously.

JonP went to extra efforts to measure out precise charges, but with using this extra efforts it may have been harder to focus on the "simple" process of getting one charge per case.

I gave up measuring each charge a long time ago. Instead I decided to adopted practices that focus more on increased confidence that each and every round with no exception was loaded "ok".

For me, this starts with only having the correct powder "at the bench" and getting the measure set right (first based on a stem index number, and then double check with a reliable old fashion balance scale). For the "correct powder" part, I have also kept my powder selection such that with one exception (Promo & Unique) all of my "normal use" powders are adequately different in appearance. For the Promo vs Unique I have some extra "double check" measures in place to ensure no substitution problems.

The above is followed by a systematic and focused dump into the cases in a loading tray and then a visual inspection of the individual powder depth in each case.

As long as I am diligent with each item above, I expect zero surprises. Posting and reading here probably helps me quite a bit with regular reminders on the need to stay diligent. I hope everyone keeping up with this thread takes a moment to reflect on "is there anything I need to do different".

[MT Gianni]

Glad this is solved. I used to keep a bulged Kimber bbl around my reloading bench as a reminder that Unique can bridge and lack of vigilance on a Lee turret is harmful.

[Smoke4320]

the giveaway to me was the headstamp imprint on the gun.. Seen this before and it was a factory overload on a 6.5 Grendel
you could read the "Hornady 6.5 Grendel " imprint on the AR bolthead ..

Just glad you are Ok and we have come to a good conclusion of the issue

[square butte]

Jon - Should you decide to modify your reloading procedures ( other than the just being extra careful stated above ) - I and others may benefit benefit from what you come up with. I have had that same uneasy feeling when using a loading block that dubber123 describes.

[bosterr]

Since this thread may have run it's course, I'll ask this question. My wife inherited from her Dad a stainless Judge. I don't know if he ever fired it and we haven't either. In his gun cabinet there was also a box of 25 cartridges. The box reads "Winchester Bonded PDXI" 225 gr. JHP Bonded Personal Defense Protection. But only 15 are the JHP and the 10 others are lead round nose and look like factory loaded as well. I got a rough chamber wall thickness measurement with a dial caliper. The breech end measured around .055 and the front end measured around .070. After jonp's problem, I'm now leary of shooting these rounds through it. Perhaps the JHP could be on the hot side? Perhaps I should try to persuade her to trade it off?

[dverna]

Jon - Should you decide to modify your reloading procedures ( other than the just being extra careful stated above ) - I and others may benefit benefit from what you come up with. I have had that same uneasy feeling when using a loading block that dubber123 describes.

Easy...

Charge case with powder using a good powder measure and seat bullet before putting the case down. Check the powder measure every 50-100 rounds when you start a new box of pistol ammo. Never load to maximum....if your measure throws .2 gr over max, you are still safe. But even being .2 gr over max is not going to be catastrophic.

When loading critical rifle ammunitioin and I weigh every charge on a Charge Master that has been verified using a check weight. If you are using a scale, check that the settings have not been bumped on a regular basis.

Inspecting every case sitting in a loading block is not going to do it. Eventually you will miss one...I know...I have been there.