Don’t be that guy
 

My neighbour blew up a rifle today - a Tikka T3X 6.5 CM. His idea of reloading was to start at book max loads and work up from there to the very high velocities he thinks he should be able to get. His gun is ruined, stock is split , action is welded shut, magazine and trigger guard are in many small pieces. His face and eye are bruised and bloodied. I drove him to the ophthalmologist, fortunately his vision wasn’t permanently damaged. He wasn’t wearing safety glasses.

Don’t be that guy.

Yikes. I think he needs some lessons. He just found out the hard way what not to do.

Creedmoor guys...

He sounds like a special kind of stupid, pressure signs would have appeared long before the rifle let go, yet he must have ignored them, and kept going. And no safety glasses while working up loads, is just as clueless.

Wow, that is scary. I have heard of all sorts of pressure signs but this is the first time I hearing of a rifle actually blowing up while following a SAAMI approved load. Most modern reloading books even have max pressure tuned down a bit. I hope your friend makes a solid recovery and that people learn from this. Follow safety guides and work your way up.

He won't following an approved load however since he STARTED at the max and went from there right into Noah's land!:thinking-006:
No telling just how far past the maximum load he got!

Cat

I'm suspecting a person has to hit north of 90K or so to blow one up these days, seeing as Tikka has to pass EU CIP rules and proof tests in Europe to sell over there. Some people's kids just have to learn some stuff the hard way.

Dam eh,some lessens are hard learnt.
Hope he has a speedy recovery and shares his mistake with others too.


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Wow!
 

I'm not much of a gun guy I guess. Let me see if I understand this correctly. The fellow uses reloaded shells that are altered to discharge a bullet with more force? In this case, more force than the rifle is designed for? This caused the gun to react in a bad way? Fill me in please.

If there are pictures of the rifle post blow-up and prior to things being fiddled with, it’d be great if you could post them. I have a curiosity about seeing what a Tikka looks like after a catastrophic over-pressure event… not to many pictures of that floating around the internet.

Rule #1 for reloading = start low and go slow

He is lucky, very lucky

Most Tikkas I own or have shot seem to be very slow. For this guy to blow one up I think he must have been way over max load by at least 10 gr I suspect.

I suspect something else at play here. I couldn’t stuff enough appropriate powder in a CM case to blow up a rifle.

It is people like that who are clueless and when all said and done, want to sell those abused firearms.....BUYER BEWARE.....

Many years ago a young fellow bought a Ruger M-77 7 rem mag from my dads store. He and his buddies decided to start into reloading. He showed up all bloodied and a busted nose and a Ruger with a split stick , the floor plate blown off , barrel split and the action locked,scope bell bent . He figured there was something wrong with the gun . After a little checking instead of using a max load of imr -4831 , they used the max load for imr 4831 but used imr -4895 powder

BIG BOOM!

Key word being "appropriate". There are people out there that think the numbers on a can are just different flavors of the same powder.

Know a guy that used a fast burning powder for a reduced load, shot real good but was slow velocity like it was supposed to be, he figured should be no problem using a lot more of it to bring it up to standard velocity. Found his broken stock, bits and pieces and twisted up floorplate from a mauser of some sort in the dumpster next time I was at the range.

I used R-17 myself, and it isn't likely, but if he used Varget, the case fill is much less, and a person could likely create dangerous pressures, especially using a drop tube.

Sadly I have spoke with a few ppl whom think starting at book max is a good idea.

Because some people still believe that all loads in all manuals are safe loads, in all firearms, and that they are actually conservative to protect the manual publishers from legal liability. I have found a few loads in manuals from the manufacturers, that I couldn't reach without seeing pressure signs, so that obviously isn't the case.

OP. What powder was he using?

For some people, matches should be a prohibited item. :confused: some amazing stupidity out there.

Grizz

First ...maybe not the sharpest stick at the wienie roast but i hope he fully recovers and good to hear no eye damage.
Obviously not knowing a whole bunch about reloading maybe he had a squib load , then touched another round off ?

I have seen the results of more than a few catastrophic failures and : near misses" over the years , and the ones that involved a firearm with handloads, danged near every one was the result of using the wrong powder , sometimes mistakenly, but not always.
The last one had to do with a 270 Winchester owner who couldn't get the "proper" velocity out of his 140's so went to a faster powder.
The result was a completely locked up rifle that resulted in a cracked receiver.
The very worst was a Nesika bolt action that was completely destroyed , with part of the barrel the barrel ending up down range , and the top of the receiver breaking off and ending up several feet away!:free-scared-smileys
Miraculously, the bolt stayed intact!
This was a 338 Lapua IMP. case that mistakenly got loaded with fire forming pistol powder instead of the slower rifle powder .
Cat

We probably will never hear what really happened.

Chasing that extra 100 fps in a cartridge has destroyed many rifles why not just go to 26 Nosler? Then again they'd just blow that up

That makes more sense. I clearly misread it. Thanks.

100 fps has destroyed many rifles? Now we are getting a bit silly.

TRUTH^^^

Yet many "Seasoned- re-loaders" on this forum (and others) have no problem suggesting to new reloaders to start in the middle and go up from there or worse yet to accept their recipes as gospel. Lesson to take from this is, quite being so cheap and go buy 3-4 GOOD reloading manuals (and read them). BEFORE you wander off in to the high pressure world of rifles and explosives.

Many of the cartridges I recommend loading for by starting midway up with the powder, also are very easy to load for on a wide range of pressure curves , but much also depends on the particular rifle one is loading for .
Cat

A guy missing one eye told me that he still had room for powder in the case so why not