243 blow up

  • Thread starter Dennis Sorensen
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Dennis Sorensen

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I saw this at a gun show today. A fellow had it displayed on his table showing how stupid some shooters are.

Here are some pictures of a an older Sako .243 rifle that blew up. The hand load is unknown... possibly a shotgun powder was used.

The barrel came right off. The action and bolt destroyed, the scope bent and broken, the stock broken... all the shooter suffered was a numb hand.

I wish to point out how well the "bolt guide" prevented the extractor and gases to escape right down beside the bolt at the shooter. Everything basically was blown out sideways. The shrapnel did not come back at the shooter's head.

If that "bolt guide" which really has nothing to do with guiding the bolt but is designed as a "block" for instances as this, was not in place a more serious injury may have occurred.

243%20BLOW%20UP.jpg


243%20BLOW%20UP%20BARREL.jpg


243%20BLOW%20UP%20ACTION.jpg
 
What a great action! I figure it saved the guy from a lot of hurt at least.

I have seen something similar to this happen at our gun club and I was there.

A friend of mine came to the range to sight in his new custom made 25/06 AI that he just put a new scope on. The rifle had been built by a gunsmith and it had been shot a few times. It had a new FN Mauser action. His first shot was at 50 feet to get on the paper. The report was quite loud and the man at the next bench was hit with stock splinters. My friend was not hurt other than a few splinters and powder burns. The barrel was swollen and the stock split. It wasn't nearly as bad looking as the one shown.

It turned out that the only thing that could be saved was the trigger. So he had another rifle built with that trigger.

It turns out that he let his sons load for him. The load was intended to be about 60 grains of 4831 which would have been a rather hot load but the powder used was 4198 intended for his .222.

Just a note, the bullet did not reach the 50 foot target.

Concho Bill
 
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From the looks of the rust on the bolt and action this must have happened some time ago or the action had some other problems before it went to pieces,
 
I'll bet his shorts took a hit too.

The rust is most likely due to the urine from the shooter or bystander.

Rustystud
 
Could have been exciting if a guy was just to the right of this when it came undone. It must have been some kind of HOT load he was shooting too judging from what's left of the case head.
 
Blow ups

Some people just don't understand reloading and guns and what they are really dealing with. Besides some people can tear-up an anvil with a rubber hammer!
 
In 84 at a gun show I sold a well used SGW AR to a fellow who went right down the isle and bought a coffee can of reloaded .223 and proceeded to shot it up, first round blew out the mag bulging the mag well, blew the side out of the upper and blew the bolt into who knows where. called SGW, now Oly Arms, and explained the situation, they told me to send it to them for evaluation. Sent the gun next day UPS along with some of the ammo, ammo was loaded with red dot, three days latter got a package with a new rifle from SGW. I asked them how much and they told me NO CHARGE, even though it wasn't there fault they didn't want it out there where it could be seen. They gained several life long customers after that.
 
Those dovetails milled into the reciever ring sure create a weak spot.
Even the new Sakos that blew up all ruptured through the front dovetail.
 
Bill Wynne said:
. . . It turns out that he let his sons load for him. The load was intended to be about 60 grains of 4831 which would have been a rather hot load but the powder used was 4198 intended for his .222. . .
Click to expand...
MY friend shoots a .300WinMag (H-1000) for his long range shooting, and has his boy shooting a .308 (Varget). He has the boy perform certain tasks and he had him dropping powder charges for his WinMag. The hopper ran dry and the boy topped it off. When my friend checked on him in a little while, he was *extremely* lucky to notice that the boy was now dropping 74 grains of Varget into his WinMag cases. The only damage done was a bunch of pulled bullets and some scrapped powder where it was mixed. Had he not seen this, I'd bet his rifle would have ended up the same way.:eek:
 
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