Trapshooters Forum banner
Status
Not open for further replies.

Blow Ups & Reloads

5K views 30 replies 23 participants last post by  oleolliedawg 
#1 ·
Looking through the stuff today and had a thought--We all know K-80 are doomed to blow ups and now Guerini's with a Browning and SKB thrown in ocassionally. Then I looked at all the "who has the best reloader" entries. It made me wonder if the guns blew up because the ofending shell was loaded on a less than top line loader? Those K-80's may can tell if a shell came of something other than a Spolar. VERY INTERESTING!!!!!
 
#2 ·
That's BS. I've been reloading on a MEC 9000 (POS to many) for years as many others. All I shoot are Brownings and an occasional Remington Trap Guns like 1000's of others. (Cheap guns to many). If a load problem is to exist in a reloader it could happen on any reloader, Lee-load-all......THRU......Spolar. If someone isn't gonna pay attention on a Lee-load-all........or .......Spolar their not gonna pay attention.

Every barrel that blows across the country or world for that matter regardless of being a K-80, Guerini, SKB, Browning or whatever doesn't make this site. In the full schyme(?) of it all this site only has a small number. Poor steel, material quality and obstruction are probably the biggest issue overall of blown barrels. A high percentage of barrel fractures probably happen with factory ammo.

I somewhat see what you are implying, a K-80 owner loading on a Load-All or just not a Spolar.

Please list all less than top of the line loaders.
 
#4 ·
Tony, I don't disagree with that. I think only a small percentage of all barrel failures come from the clay target world. The reloader(machine) or the reloader(man behind the machine), knowing your components, knowing how to read and interprate, all common sense things. Is the high dollar machine fool proof and less chance of human error. I don't know. All I do know is if you have a sequence problem (got out of sequence issue) on MEC 9000 you better be paying attention as to what's going on and put it back into sequence correctly or you may have big problems.

Have you ever been shooting, and the guy next to you calls for a bird and all you hear is a "pink" and basically shot and a wad dribbling from the end of the barrel. My next thought before he calls again is the next shell gonna have a double charge.
 
#5 ·
I think just the opposite when it comes to high quality loaders,I have a pacific 366 and you would have a hard time double charging a shell,after witnessing a double charged shell going off I tried to run a double charged case through it,when you get to the crimp station it will bend the case and destroy the shell,on the other hand a high quality loader like a PW supports the whole case during crimping and you can double charge a case and crimp it without deforming the case,I have seen it happen luckily the gun or shooter suffered no damage,(cheap 870 remington)Upon dismantling the rest of the shells he had loaded 2 more were double charged,the crimps looked just like the ones that had the correct charge in them.The shooter said he was removing cases during the loading process to weigh the powder charge,He was new to reloading and I am guessing that this step led to double charging the cases. Jerry
 
#6 ·
I think we need a lot more information than we have to draw any kind of reasonable conclusions.

I think we hear a lot more of the blow ups with expensive guns than the cheaper guns. If it is an expensive gun, I would think the manufacturer would want to examine the barrel to restore confidence in the shooting community that they were not putting out cheap barrels. Has anybody got names and phone numbers of people who have had blow ups? What did the factory find when they examined the barrel?

Reloads vs. factory loads. Many reloaders who are top shooters are very picky about everything being just right about their shell. Many reloaders are so picky, that I would rather trust their reloaded shell than a factory shell, especially the cheaper ones. I have loaded from a Texan (they were ugly shells), MECs, Hornady, and P/W, and have found that a bad shell can come out of any loader if the person tries hard enough. Some presses do make it more difficult to screw up a shell than others, but it still can be done with most machines. Personally, I have had very few shells screw up and not one blow up of any kind. A police officer who I shoot with, recently blew up a nice Kimber. With all the precautions the Dillon press had, it still managed to happen inspite of all his safety precautions. This is a reloader who has top equipment and loads more pistol rounds per year than I will probably load in my lifetime (he loads pistol for most of his department year after year). He is still trying to figure out how it could happen.

I think we need a lot more than a casual occurance with some evidence to start pointing fingers at a gun or press manufacturer. Other factors to consider, where the barrel was built, by whom, what steel, length, powder, published recipes by powder companies, barrel PSI, load PSI, Republican or Democratic barrel, 7 1/2s or 8s, and so on. Remember, we have proof that cars kill people everyday and we still let people drive them. Maybe we should just install airbags on certain models of trap guns. Air bags can save lives you know! Sometimes the air bag is SHOOTING the gun, ..... I usually shoot a lot higher scores than this (yeah right). Just because "it happened to me" mentality, doesn't make it a fact. <br>
IMHO Your blown up barrel may fly farther. Omaha
 
#7 ·
I still have not seen any load resulting in CHAMBER pressure exceeding proof pressure. Every field failure I have seen has been due to muzzle obstruction resulting in a banana peel. Mid barrel obstructions all seem to result in bulges or slight cracks. Both instances have pressure and inertia involved. Somewhere on this www, there was a test with a wad pushed from the crimp out in 1/2" increments for a couple of inches. Through this test, all in the same barrel, no measurable barel damage occured. There was someone around here that WAY overloaded some shells and couldn't get more than proof pressures. I am not saying that it can not happen, but of the tests reviewed, none seem to indicate reloads being able to develop the pressures required to cause the catastophic failures discussed. Some of the the labs are estimating 2-3 times proof pressure to achieve these failures. Has anyone replicated a blowup under controlled conditions?
 
#10 ·
I teach reloading to friends and fellow competitors. If there is one thing I preach, insist on, emphasize, obsess over, it is "follow the recipe and pay attention." If you can't go thirty minutes without a cigarette, if you can't put the booze away while you're loading, if you can't spend the money on a quality scale, if you won't match the components to the recipe, then DON'T reload......save those of us around you on the line from the unfortunate experience of having your "specials" detonate.

If you think you're smarter than the component manufacturers, then you're too damn dumb to reload. Period.
 
#12 ·
HMB you post "powder detonation" in each discussion of a barrel blowing up. I'm curious as to why you feel this is the cause. Can you describe the difference between detonation and burn? What measurement of pressure is used and how do the two pressure differences compare? Is the presence of oxygen or absence there of a component in detonation versus burn? Is compaction of the powder the difference?

General question to all: Should barrels be x-rayed in the same manner as welds to determine integrity of the barrel? Do barrel manufactures typically do a laser surface analysis to measure barrel consistency?

It's difficult to believe that reloads or obstructions are always the problem.

Sam
 
#13 ·
I'm still going to stick with the theory of metal fatigue. You shoot so many rounds through a gun, and eventually the metal around the chamber would expand and contract enough that it will fail. The reason we HEAR about so many K-80's blowing up is; 1: people who shoot them, shoot them A LOT, and 2: they have what seem to be really thin mono-blocks. You could maybe even throw in reloader pushing the pressures on their handicap loads (over thousands of rounds). Otherwise, a barrel obstruction wouldn't cause what most blow ups that are posted on here show. In the pictures I've seen posted before, the chamber has been split open, and the split stops where the mono-block stops. Maybe someone has a different explanation for this? It seems to be what makes the most sense to me.

Also, Bruce Bowen did multiple tests concerning this topic. He did the double charge, the 20 gauge shell in the forcing cone, the wad in the barrel, and countless other things that could happen and even NOT happen unless you deliberately did it. But then again, we're just beating a dead horse because nobody can ever agree on a single explanation...We'll never agree...My 2 cents, Josh.
 
#14 ·
Sam,

The difference between powder burn and powder detonation is the creation of a shock wave when there is detonation.

One reason I mention detonation when we talk about gun blowups is because when you are present when a gun blows up it sounds and looks like a bomb going off.

You ask some interesting questions which might contribute to possible powder detonation. One being a light load of a slow burning ball powder contributing to the possibility of a detonation. HMB
 
#18 ·
What about a cocked wad with the over-powder seal cocked and the powder lying loose in a much larger area than normal, not compacted............BUT, the front part of the wad, under the shot, is relatively straight and still sealing the hull, with the weight of the shot on top of it. The primer ignites the loose powder that is still sealed by the under-shot seal, the loose powder detonates rather than burning with a smooth flame front, and there's an ounce or more of dead lead sitting atop a pressure seal trying to contain it. BOOM.
 
#20 ·
samiam03, yes I am following this, as I have the dozen or so others over the years and, in the words of Omar of Naishapur, "evermore Came out by the same Door as in I went."

It's because no one here has even asked, as far as I know, how one would go about solving the problem in an organized manner. Now I assume it has been solved many times but the results haven't "made the papers."

Were I a defendant in a big-buck lawsuit, this it the sort of thing I'd like to know and these are the sort of tests I would sponsor, at least as a first run, to find out.

How much pressure is "available" in, say, 18 grains of Red Dot? For this you'd need a plenty-strong "bomb" which would confine the powder to a space about similar in size and shape to a shell, a primer, and a piezo-transducer for high pressure. Light it off and measure what the absolute max average pressure is, and figure that's all you are working with if everything is going according to plan.

Do the same in an ultra short chamber so you can have a powder chamber and a wad whose open end is totally blocked by a big steel rod. It's the same sort of high-pressure vessel otherwise, and this tells you the max absolute pressure when a shell is assembled but the shot can't go anywhere.

I'd do this with at least a couple of powders, one like Red Dot, one like Long Shot, just to see what the differences are, if any.

I've no idea what the results would be, but they would put an upper limit on what a correctly-loaded shells could do. At least we'd have a place to start and can see whether we can put half the theories to bed before we begin.

Then I'd pull a book called "Firearms Pressure Factors" off the shelf and study the three or so chapters on EPE's, extreme pressure excursions. This is the "half loaded" rifle-shell stuff and while I thought on first reading the book pretty-much dismissed it, a second glance made me think I'd gotten it wrong. So I'd study that, as well as the tests done to reproduce it in the lab which, as I recall, has never happened. I'd go though Hatcher's Notebook too, since though I remember his accident analysis concentrated an poor heat-treatment (too brittle) of Springfield '03's there's always something in that book to pay attention to.

Last, I'd re-read the Scientific American article on detonation, the one I promised to Pat many years ago and which is on my floor to the right-rear and which may yet make it into the mail, having surfaced once again like a stone in an over-winter field.

When I get back from the Great Lakes Grand I'll do all of those things and have more to say.

Neil
 
#21 ·
How many people that you know are shooting with a K80 they bought new? Seems almost everyone that I know bought the expensive trap gun they shoot used. Some of these guns have been through several owners who were serious about their shooting. How many rounds? no one knows. Is this part of the equation? maybe I think.



Letts
 
#23 ·
Josh and I agree about the long term effects of metal fatigue. A blown gun could be the result of a problem that happened many months ago and as the metal is worked with subsequent shots, things keep getting worse. Finally, something bad happens.

Neil- I still have a problem, probably due to my limited resources, understanding detonation. I can understand thing like slow burning, fast burning, and very fast burning, but not detonation (instantaneous burning?). I just can't get away from visualizing these as different rates of a chemical reaction. I need to study the article on your floor.

Pat Ireland
 
#24 ·
Neil what do you think about this, a friend of mine has an Ithaca Grade 4 Single Bbl, he bought it almost new, has shot hundreds of thousands NEW shells through it and the Chamber is oversized, so bad that if I pick up one his shells my Mec 9000H Grabber will not resize the shells well enough to go into my Caesar Guerini chamber, he says he needs to have his chamber repaired RE: have the chamber sleeved, now these guns have a thick walled chamber.

I relate this as to a small hammer hitting a piece of steel hundreds of thousands of times, to a sledge hammer hitting this piece of steel a thousand times, the steel is going to get damaged, and needs to be replaced.

I think the steel that chambers are made of today in other countries are of less quality steel and is harder or more brittle during their manfacturing process.

I would like to know the metalurgical test results of the steel in the blown up K-80s chambers. These test results would tend to explain the problem in that particular Bbl.

The reason I state this is my expierence with the German Krupp Steel that Timken Roller Bearing Company in Columbus, Ohio Railroad Division used in the manufacture of wheel bearings the the Diesel Locomotive Bearings that were called Double Gs, during the centerless grinding operation cracks would develop
caused by the heat treating hardening process, when Timken changed to American Steel Foundries Steel the problem went away.

I don't claim to be a scientist, but I observed the above in my job at Timkens in the 1970s as a centerless grinding operator.

Gary Bryant
Dr.longshot
 
#26 ·
Gary, the brittleness explanation is why I mentioned Hatcher's notebook above since I remember he discusses it at length. When I get home I'll try to match your ideas with his.

I have several guns with tons and tons of shells through them and I'm thinking of having a couple x-rayed and magnefluxed to see if there any hint of the effect of the so many hard blows you cite. I don't know if there's a non-destructive test for "brittleness" and I"m not going to wreck one just to find out if it was still OK, though.

Neil
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
You have insufficient privileges to reply here.
Top