Guns, Bows, Shooting Sports, and Hunting If It Can Go Wrong, It WILL Go Wrong

[Mike Ellis]

Check out this thread for a "freak accident" that is not so uncommon as one might think, judging from several other posters on the thread reporting the same experience. Moral of the story: Mikey for one will be much more careful about covering up the ammo in the range bag from now on.



Interestingly enough, several of the posters on the forum are skeptical that the cartridge case could impact the primer with enough force to detonate it. They are missing two important factors:

(1) Impact energy / PSI is much higher than might be expected from a narrow edge impact, don't need to crush the whole primer to achieve detonation



(2) Ejected brass is often spinning, at a fairly high RPM. A spinning case catching the primer perfectly with its edge could put a hefty wallop on it.



Check it out:



Explosion - 1911Forum

 

[icman95]

That would make me seriously reconsider where and how I keep my ammo. I'd also have to wait for the color to come back into my face before I was steady enough to shoot again.

 

[Mike Ellis]

Did you catch the one about the guy who tossed a baggie full of cartridges onto a table top, only to have a primer ignite? I have done that many times with no problem, never thought about an impact. Time to buy more plastic boxes for my reloads!

 

[duckcarvr]

i remember hearing of guys shooting the pointed rifle rounds in tube feeds like a 30-30 win. of the recoil setting off the round. seems plauseable with full metal jacketed military rounds. i also wonder if heat was a facter, if you have ever had an ejected round go down your shirt you know what i mean.

 

[Mike Ellis]

We were talking about the range mishap at work this morning, and one of my co-workers told us he had suffered a similar mishap. He has one of those 1860's Henry rifle replicas, the type where you lift the spring and drop the rounds in the tube. He was letting a friend shoot it, with some round nose (uh oh) reloads. The guy let a few drop in the magazine, then the next one hit on the primer just hard enough. . BLAM! Blew the magazine tube outward and ruptured it like a banana.



He's pretty careful loading that rifle up nowadays :-laf