Posted on 11/19/2009 7:48:01 AM PST by Notoriously Conservative
I got the following pictures in an e-mail. How would a revolver explode like this?
(Excerpt) Read more at notoriouslyconservative.com ...
Talk about putting too much powder in your basement reloads!
Several things could have happened. There could have been an obstruction in the barrel, the round could have been flawed and not released from the shell properly or stuck in the barrel. The round may not have been seated in the breach correctly. There may have been a flaw with the bullet casing. Or, there may have been a flaw with the gun itself. (or a combination of some of these.0
Too hot a load,or faulty casing,either from reloading the same brass too many times,or a factory defect,or perhaps a defect in the revolver frame itself (but not very likely)...those would be my guess,although i’m not a ballistics expert.
I suspect Bugs Bunny put his finger in the end of the barrel.
Reloading with Eaker ?
Covering/ sealing the small area between the cylinder and the handle can cause an explosion. You can lose a thumb doing that (saw it on Mythbusters). Not sure it can cause the type of explosion shown here, though.
If there is something lodged in the barrel, it may cause that type of catastrophic failure.
SnakeDoc
bore and slug problem... the force has to exit the barrel. If it cant then it goes up and out!
Looks like a defective cylinder. The rounds on either side appear not to have fired (no residue).
-—bflr—(to see how many outlandishly wrong explanations will be offered)
>> I suspect Bugs Bunny put his finger in the end of the barrel.
There was a Mythbusters show on that, too. Ha! Awesome ballistic-gel-fabricated-hand mutilation ensued. Sealing the barrel with cement gets a good banana-peel-like failure of a shotgun barrel, though.
SnakeDoc
LOL!
I read about this gun - IIRC, the cause was determined to be a flaw with the gun itself. There was something wrong with the mechanism that rotates the cylinder. When the cylinder rotated, the chamber wasn’t properly aligned with the barrel thus causing the explosion...again, IIRC...
I’ve seen a revolver barrel with THREE squibs splitting the barrel.
I also witnessed a double squib at the range. The second round sounded like a cap pistol going off.
And yes, the second incident was with re-loads.
Never saw a cylinder failure like that, though.
Saw a similar incident at a gun range in Memphis years ago, A guy who reloaded his own ammo decided to see how much “Red Dot” powder would fit in a 357 S&W....Fortuantly he fired it at arms lenght and it only scared him to death...LOL....Oh, He stopped reloading at that point and only bought accross the counter at that point.....I know because he sold me his old “Rock Chucker”....
Unaligned cylinder to barrel or someone reloaded way too hot.
It could also have been too LIGHT of a load. With an under load you get a partial ignition which will unseat the bullet and jam it into the barrel. The obstruction will in turn cause a steep rise in pressure which will increase the rate of burn of the remaining powder. The cylinder explodes and shears off and ignites the adjacent rounds.
.357 is my guess.
>> Never saw a cylinder failure like that, though
The particular design of the barrel probably dictates exactly how the barrel will fail (in the event of a failure).
It appears that there was a design flaw that left a weakness at that particular point in the barrel ... so, when it exploded, it did so through the weakest spot. Not sure if it is a flaw in the design of the gun, or the manufacturing of that particular piece. But, that doesn’t look like a standard jammed-barrel explosion.
SnakeDoc
Wonder if the guy shooting was hurt.
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