Garand Blow up

[browningautorifle]

Hard to say exactly what was in that cartridge, and the one common thread in an accident like that is the loader didn't do anything wrong. He'll swear to it.

[Gil Boyd]

As I had two PM's asking what the tie meant, I am assuming some are scratching their heads.
It was on a thread a few months ago, it signifies the involuntary movement of ones rear end when things go seriously wrong. The tie actually signifies the Police Explosives Search Team, but PEST on a tie would have been probably more accurate

[old tanker]

Hard to say exactly what was in that cartridge, and the one common thread in an accident like that is the loader didn't do anything wrong. He'll swear to it.

I agree with your assessment, but there are a couple of other questions I have. If the event occurred during slow fire is it possible the round was loaded in the chamber then bolt was allowed to drop on the chambered round? The floating firing pin has been known to hit with enough force to cause the cartridge to go off in an out of battery condition. This occurs more frequently with handloads, most notoriously with Federal match primers. A SLED to load single rounds is a way to avoid that occurrence.

A good discussion here: http://www.fulton-armory.com/faqs/AR-FAQs/SlamFire2.htm

[browningautorifle]

out of battery condition

Possible. I was hoping we wouldn't turn this into another thread about why it happened. We had one about two years back that ran for pages. And of course, like a said before...the loader did everything correctly... Something that will never be sorted here...

[Mark in Rochester]

The failure was a case head separation - failure occurred at the pulling of the trigger not on loading - why some head separations are routine and others are catastrophic is a mystery to me - I have examples of LC brass from the DCM That have burned through the case vertically on the first firing. If case head separations impart some permanent structural change to a receiver then we are all on borrowed time- we will never know how many a receiver has seen in the past.

[CINDERS]

Seems to me that the CHS's are more of a disaster for SA's that bolt guns as the ones I have suffered in my 303's have not damaged the rifle at all which I may say have only been 3 instances for me.
Also that there may possibly still the residual energies contained in the event upon the bolt unlocking altering or allowing these energies a different escape route that causes the rifle to fly to bits I guess on the scheme of things if it is a well used Garand who know's what past life it had or what was done to it to cause such a thing.

I have managed 2 flash overs in the one shot string in my Savage Mod 12 6.5 x 284 that saw 2 out of 6 rounds have the primers fall out of the case which in my case saw the bolt fail some months later thank goodness it manifested it self slowly cracking otherwise I may have had a very messy end to things considering what pressure a full blown load can generate.

[Roadkingtrax]

Hard to say exactly what was in that cartridge, and the one common thread in an accident like that is the loader didn't do anything wrong. He'll swear to it.

Sadly, the reloader is at fault ultimately. He induced the variable into the system and the rifle responded in the mechanical language of tolerances.

[cipherk98]

One thing is for sure, keep stuff like this in mind in 20-30 years when the Garands have run dry and people are dreaming up ways to repurpose drill rifles into usable guns.

That isn't a knock on all the reactivated 03s, I trust those guns Rock Ridge is turning out. But there are some from mystery outfits or DIYers, those I would pass on. And it'll be the same with Garands.

Sorry to hear this one went kaboom.

[Mark in Rochester]

I received the salvaged parts of the rifle for another build ( rear sight, front sight clip latch etc)

Appears to be pistol powder on the op-rod catch.

Owner reported some pistol powder on shooting mat.

[CINDERS]

Well that will do it, one shooter at our range forgot to empty the powder tube of his DPM 5 with a fast powder ended up blowing a sizable piece of stock away from the gas port side and jammed the action shut and that was with a Barnard action actually he bent the bolt handle trying to get it open anyway he only got peppered lightly by the brass so no damage if it had been a say Rem-700 action I would say it may could been terminal.
Reloading is like a procedure for doing a job it has a set process that has to be followed so the risk to the end user is kept to a minimum as everything we do has a risk and if we put controls in place that eliminated all the risks nothing would get done as there is a risk in everything we do.