tube magazine blow ups

[missionary5155]

Then there are variables to add to the possibility. Small pebble for some reason gets on a bullet nose and centers on a primer. Or a grain of sand on a primer.
What we know is it happens. The hows may always escape us. Follow the long time "Standard Operating Procedures" and maybe the primer gremlin will leave you alone.

[indian joe]

Good video. Thanks for posting. Actually Ian may have it wrong concerning the Henry open tube construction making the effect of the explosion worse. If the tube had been solid and encased by a wood forearm, the gas generated by 2 exploding rounds would have been contained in the tube and not be allowed to bleed out through the follower slot. This could have been much worse, as it was in the case of my explosion. With no where for the gas to go, all the rounds in the mag tube could have gone up. When I reconstructed my rifle after the explosion, I drilled a series of 1/8" gas relief ports the entire length of the forearm, thinking if there was ever another explosion, I'd rather deal with wood splinters than metal fragments.

interesting ......I have had maybe ten original 92's and a couple original 73's .... all of em had magazine tubes made from what I would call old fashioned electrical conduit = steel tube with a split seam ...always thought it was because that was what was available those days (least cost use whats out there) ...maybe there was more to it???

[muskeg13]

interesting ......I have had maybe ten original 92's and a couple original 73's .... all of em had magazine tubes made from what I would call old fashioned electrical conduit = steel tube with a split seam ...always thought it was because that was what was available those days (least cost use whats out there) ...maybe there was more to it???

My Rossi Puma M92, purchased in the mid-1990s, had a solid magazine tube (no seam). The mag tube is just slip fit into the receiver, not screwed in with fine threads on the outer tube circumference and in the receiver, like on my Miroku Model 1886. The Rossi's mag tube is held in place by a screw in the front barrel band. The whole works quickly disassembled itself, assisted by the gas produced by 6 rounds partially and/or fully going off in the enclosed mag tube.

The holes/gas relief ports I drilled in the replacement tube are concealed by the forearm.

The most interesting part of Ian's Henry mishap, was his conclusion that the force (jar) of releasing the follower/follower spring to slam into a column of loaded cartridges caused a primer anvil move internally and crush the priming mixture without the nose of a bullet setting off the primer in the more traditional way primers are detonated.

I believe something similar caused my mishap. That day at the range, I'd been topping off the Rossi's magazine after firing 3 to 4 shots, and I did that probably four or more times, so the six rounds I'd initially loaded in the magazine had been subjected to 16 or so recoil impulses. I think that proved to be too much for already very sensitive Federal 150 pistol primers.

[indian joe]

I had an early Rossi 357 mag that suffered an out of battery accident (the reason I got it cheap)
Bullet exited the glass panel above the entry door to Myra's gunshop in Broken Hill - cleared the buildings across main street and lost in flight someplace.

Turned out the firing pin had broken where the cutout for the lever lugs work - the two pieces had separated enough to cause the actual pin to protrude from the bolt solidly enough to fire a round as the bolt was closing

I have seen guys assembling 92's use a punch to drive the lever pin home and if everything is not aligned properly you can drive that pin into the thin part of the firing pin and likely the cause of it breaking. Get a bigger hammer is NOT the way to go re assembling......dunno ....just a surmise ....long time ago ....lots of things wrong with a loaded round being cycled in the customer section of a gunshop.

A mate bought the offending Rossi really cheap - passed it on to me - we fixed it with a original winchester firing pin from a gun that had been scrapped somewhere along the way.

Am wondering whether something like that could set off a magazine chain fire ????

[RyanJames170]

i have been thinking about this one for a while before posting but i think i they can happen when the primers are not seated deep enough and or the primers are soft enough, i think if a person used hard military primers ment for a semi auto i think the chances of it happening are much lower then if you used pistol primers. as i have seen several times people using wrong soft rifle primers in semi autos and having just the inertial of the firing pin set off the next round when it chambers it during the firing cycle.. the whole magazine detonation is why Russian primers are so dam hard and so deeply seated compared to anyone elses, (look at how deep primers are seated in russian made 7.62x54R) from what i understand when they were doing rifle trieles for what what be the M91 mosin they had a lot of them due to really soft primers in some sort of tube mag gun

[longbow]

While I have no doubt that if one primer detonated it would easily push a bullet hard enough to set of a primer in the next round, the question is why does the first primer detonate? As I said, I was unabvle to get a primer to detonate using an ACWW round nose bullet (Lyman 314299 clone) when holding it on a primed cartridge and hitting it with a hammer... hard!

So, I am wondering if anyone who has experienced a magazine chain fire or knows the details of one can say if it was handloads or factory loaded ammunition?

So far I believe all I have seen are posts about handloaded ammunition being involved in tube magazine chainfires or no info on the source of the ammunition given.

I can believe that a high primer could be responsible or a dirty primer pocket, maybe soft primers if there is really a difference. Could fine powder sift in under a primer not fully seated casing the primer to detonate when seated by recoil impact?

Point here being that if no-one has evidence of this happening with factory ammunition then it is likely a handloading error of some sort.

I still say that if there was the remotest chance of a tube magazine chainfire happening using factory ammunition in unmodified guns that the guns would not be sold as the liability would be too great. I see lots of posts complaining about lawyers and Marlin crossbar safeties, lawyers and powder manufacturer load data and lawyers and reloads in factory guns... and lawyers in general. On that basis, I would have to think that if there was any sort of liability that could be placed on the ammunition or firearm manufacturer that product would not be available.

Again, not saying that chainfires haven't happened or can't happen but I do wonder what the cause is and if it has happened with factory loaded ammunition or not. If anyone knows of an incident where factory ammunition was used let's hear it.

We all learn from these sorts of things when we have all the facts.

Longbow

[Texas by God]

The Remington 14 and 141 had tube magazines that were fluted like a drill bit to keep the cartridges askew.
Some of the Remington Rimless ammunition had pointed bullets - is why.


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