Bad day at my range

Ikarus1

Ikarus1

Avtomat Krishna-kov
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Started out great. Shot some 22s with my sons and nephew and brought along the ARs.

Eventually my Mom and stepdad came and joined us. They hadn't been to a range ever so I figure I would start them out on 22s and then let them shoot the EBRs for a while.

About an hour went by and everyone had a good time. Earlier in the day my nephew had had an FTF or 2 with his gun while the brass catcher was attached so we tried those rounds again in my gun. I had inspected them or so I thought and loaded them back up in a mag.

Bad idea.

Somehow a factory 120gr OTM .300blk round had ended up in the mag. I am pretty careful and keep all .300blk ammo in FDE colored marled PMAGs. I havent bought any ammo for that gun since we were down at Billy's in October. Somehow it ended up as the last round in a metal GI mag.
What's worse is that my 15 year old son was behind the trigger. He was also gripping the magwell and mag partially. He is fine but the gas stung his hand pretty well. I am thankful that he's not hurt. The upper is trashed except for the CH. In order to find out what happened I had to cut the bolt and reciever with an angle grinder and ended up having to cut the barrel extension. The .308 caliber round made it about 4 inches into the barrel after the throat and swaged down to .224.
I take 100% of the blame on this one but have newfound respect for the good parts on this build. The Faxon gunner profile barrel didnt even bulge. The bolt cracked after I cut it and tried to use vicegrips to extract it. The bolt carrier split right at the bolt exhaust holes. Stoner's design worked to keep my son and bystanders safe and I thank him immensely for that.
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Butter said:
Dang. Glad your son is ok!
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yeah man it's one of those times you wish you could roll back time in 15 sec increments and swap places. He didn't even drop the rifle just sat it down walked back and started cussing lol.
His hand was black with powder but it didn't even burn him. Said it was like the time he held a firecracker on his open palm ( I didn't know about this btw...) and it lit off. Damn.

Had to tell his Mom over the phone too. He got to go out late with his friends afterward lol.

Anyhow, I will be using a Faxon barrel and the best BCG combo I can buy to rebuild.
 
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Damn. Glad your son is OK and no one else was injured. That could have been very different.
 
Tim said:
yikes!

That makes me want to go home and empty all of my pre-staged mags. I keep my 300BLK mags marked with highly visible tape, perhaps I need to find a more 'tim proof' method.
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I wasn't even aware of any factory .300blk ammo in the house. When I saw the OTM bullet I was like wtf. And my reloads are ballistic tipped and marked with a red sharpie on the cases.
 
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That is a bad day... but also a good day, as it worked out that the only thing that was seriously damaged was a tool.

How did you get the projectile out of the barrel?
 
OutLore said:
That is a bad day... but also a good day, as it worked out that the only thing that was seriously damaged was a tool.

How did you get the projectile out of the barrel?
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cut off the barrel extension because the bolt lugs were pretty much seized into it. Then poked the bullet out thru the chamber easily with a cleaning rod.
 
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Glad you and everyone is ok!

Honestly, when I decided to build a .300 pistol this specifically was one of my fears. I intentionally purchased 4 magazines and wrapped them to be .300 ONLY...but when those mags showed some performance issues with .300 I bought dedicated .300 magpul mags. Now I keep the entire set up separate. But this is still a fear of mine.
 
How did the 300blk round go into battery far enough for the bolt to close on the chamber? Or was it essentially a slam fire on a partially open chamber?
 
dkmatthews said:
How did the 300blk round go into battery far enough for the bolt to close on the chamber? Or was it essentially a slam fire on a partially open chamber?
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.300BLK uses the same brass cut shorter......depending on bullet profile they will chamber in a NATO 5.56 chamber. Especially the shorter skinny 120s.

The bolt was fully locked into the barrel extension and that's what saved the day.
 
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:eek: Thank goodness everyone walked away basically uninjured!
 
After the initial shock of a major Eff-up wore off and I thanked the Lord and Gene Stoner many many times, I am astounded at the strength of that particular upper that contained a WELL OVERPRESSURE 55K++ Psi explosion. I've seen kabooms of a bolt action gun (esp Savage) wreck shrapnel and nearly take people's hands off. I've also seen other ARs explode in videos and similar experiences to ours with no real damage, so I don't think it's a fluke. I do think cheaper parts could have lead to more steel leaving the bottom.
 
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Damn, scary stuff. I ALWYS wear gloves when shooting. Mostly for lead exposure mitigation and thumb/slide contact (I ride high grip).

Realizing now though that it also adds some burn protection in the event of a kaboom.

always risk involved with co trolled explosions. You are already implementing a caliber swap mitigation system with the colored mags. Be hard enough on yourself to discourage complacency, but not so hard on yourself that you accuse yourself of events that never actually transpired. It was a close call, that’s it.

With a 15 year old son, you can probably go ahead and implement a QC step for this and other calibers (if you own 40sw and 9mm) where you select all the mags and lay out the bullets, and then your son does redundant check as he physically loads the mags.
 
What was the cause of the savage bolt action kaboom you saw? I have an axis bolt (308) and want to make sure im cognizant of any particular risk related issues.
 
Sigequinox220 said:
What was the cause of the savage bolt action kaboom you saw? I have an axis bolt (308) and want to make sure im cognizant of any particular risk related issues.
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Not sure I think it was the Smokeless ML that they used to make and someone used pistol powder. I have seen several instances of that kaboom out on the interwebs. Also seen the Taurii Millenium kabooms a few times.
 
Wow. Can't say I would agree that it was a bad day. Maybe for the weapon but at least your son was not hurt. The weapon can be replace. I would trade any weapon I own to keep my daughter from getting hurt and I am sure you would to. So glad that he is ok.
 
Ikarus1 said:
Not sure I think it was the Smokeless ML that they used to make and someone used pistol powder. I have seen several instances of that kaboom out on the interwebs. Also seen the Taurii Millenium kabooms a few times.
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Oh, yeahhhh. Reloading scares poop out of me. Only do pistol reloading (and barely any of that with current prices). Even with pistol, with my gold fish attention span I use powders that would be very obvious or even overflow if double charged. My brother started me out with Bullseye and I was loading .45 amp. Hellll no lol. You can't even see a full charge if viewed from typical seat height. Could probably quadruple charge with that powder density in 45 before overflow.

No doubt when I eventually start loading rifle, I will be posting a thread on here soliciting workflow advise from experienced folks.
 
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Glad your son is safe, everything else can be repaired/replaced.
Thanks for sharing- we all can use a reminder.
 
Good to know he is ok. Thanks for sharing this so we can learn.
Be sure to share this with Faxon, they may send you a replacement.
 
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This is one of the main reasons I have not considered getting a firearm chambered in 300Blk. I would have thought that the designer of that round would have made it so that it would not chamber in a 223 chamber to avoid such situations. Would it not be possible to have done something like reducing the taper just a bit so it would not fit. It seems like a design flaw to me.

I have accidently shot a 308 in a 30/06 chamber, a 20 gauge in a 16 gauge chamber, a 44 Magnum in a 45 Colt chamber, and a 9mm Luger in a 40 S&W chamber. None were catastrophic. I have heard that an 8mm Mauser round can be fired in a 30/06 chamber without too much excitement. Shooting a 30 caliber bullet through a 22 caliber barrel, however, is vastly different.

I know there are several other rounds that can be made to work in a 223-size AR. Can those rounds also be chambered in a 223 chamber? If not, what keeps them from chambering in a 223 chamber? I have never tried but am pretty sure that ammo for my 450 Bushmaster will not chamber in a 223 chamber.

I am certainly glad that nobody was injured.
 
As has been stated, glad no injuries, and thanks for posting this excellent reminder.
 
go buy a handful of lottery tickets, damn lucky day nobody got hurt.
 
Glad you are all ok. Had a guy at the range I shoot at have a similar thing happen. He was also ok but the rifle was tore up. Magazine split apart, bolt done for. We picked up a lot of pieces off the ground.
 
WOW, what a lucky day!!! Had a similar thing happen with a bunch of us sighting in deer rifles one season. I somehow picked up a 308 round and put in my Remington 7400 .270 Win. Pulled the trigger and it sounded all wrong. The bolt never opened on the rifle again. Even a gunsmith couldn't open it so I stupidly junked it. The stocks were beautiful, could've sold them. Ever since the rule is ONE GUN and the matching ammo only at the bench.
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
Certainly glad this ended like it did BUT..now we ALL know what that looks like
. Mike and I have done goofy stuff to See what would happen. Now we don't have
to do this!
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After thinking long and hard what I could've done to prevent this type of scenario one thing keeps popping into my head. I tell you right now...this has strengthened my opinion of the AR platform as one of the greatest American made products of all time. That aluminum and steel poodle shooter held together better than I ever would have thought. And it was designed to vent straight into the magwell down and away from the shooter.
 
How about marking the primers in the tray with a Sharpie, Red for 300 BO before reloading?
Would be easy to see when loading magazines.

Metal magazine or plastic on your rifle?
 
I'm about to build a 300BO pistol and now think I need some totally different mags for it, since I was going to use the 20rd aluminum mags and the 30s for my 5.56.... But not now.
 
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