Possible Dangerous Cartridges, CAUTION!

[bulletpusher]

Just a note of Caution to shooters of factory cartridges.

My boss told me of a primer detonation in one of his rifles. He was shooting on his private range and he had a pressure release through the relief ports of the receiver of his rifle and hit him in the face. Thankfully he was not injured.

The primer was destroyed and the cartridge case was stuck in the chamber. This is a .308 Winchester cambered rifle. We talked about what could have been the problem that caused the primer to blow.

Now my first surprise was the cartridges that he was shooting were Black Hills Red Box HPBT Moly coated Match (don't know the bullet weight). Black Hills has a solid reputation anywhere in the world, and I have to believe this has to be a very isolated incident.

When this happened, after pulling the trigger and the primer firing, releasing the gasses and other material from the relief holes in the receiver, he tried to open the bolt and found it was hard to open. The extractor on the bolt is now chipped, and the cartridge was stuck in the chamber and he didn't think the bullet had gone downrange like it should have.

We talked about what could have gone wrong, i.e. wrong calibre cartridge for the rifle, wrong powder in a factory cartridge, bad primer, etc. etc. Told him he should try to bump the cartridge out of the chamber and that if he had any trouble with to see a qualified gun smith.

That was yesterday, today he brought me the cartridge that he removed. The cartridge was of the correct caliber and the case was slightly collapsed due to bumping it from chamber. Bullet looked to be the right one but was pushed back down in the case a little which made it hard to check for proper dia. and the case still felt like it was full of unburned powder. The primer was not in the case and looked like it had been flattened with a hammer and the primer pocket was blackened of course. Cause at this point was unknown.

And now for the cause that we found. After thinking about it for a moment I took a paper clip and tried to push it through the carbon covering the flash hole, ended up with a very shiny brass dot in the bottom of the primer pocked where the hole should have been. The primer flash hole did not go all the way thru to the powder. The primer had perform by going off, it just didn't have anywhere to go.

I repeat this is a Black Hills Red Box factory cartridge and not a handload. I've seen other cartridge makers over the years that had some malfunction in a cartridge here and there, but this is the first time I've seen it from Black Hills.

Just thought everyone should know, for future reference, this could have been a lot worse than just a blown primer.

Bulletpusher

 

[jonbearman]

Thank God it was only a scare.Was the head stamp blackhills or was it another head stamp? They use alot of once fired range brass which is fine.Now whoever is making the actual cartridge case is the company who made an error when the flash hole wasnt punched through. I have never seen this in 30 years of reloading,but I would think that black hills would want to know to effect a safety recall. I would email and call them tomorrow without a doubt.They will want the case back and maybe the balance of the ammo for testing.Please do this so no unsuspecting guy gets hurt.

 

[HPMike800]

If the primer went off in a blind pocket, some gas should have been expelled from the action, but nothing else. The round should have extracted easily. No damage done. Sounds like the round was forced in and that damaged the extractor.

 

[bulletpusher]

The Lot No. on the flap of the box is as follows: 1424040607

This is on the end flap of a Black Hills Red Box of new (factory loaded) .308 Win. Match Moly Coated, 168 Gr. Boat Tail Hollow Point (New Cartridges)

It was round no. 15 (14 others had already been fired with no problems) from that box that the primer let go due to it having no place to go. (i.e. lack of a flash hole in the primer pocket).

I looked at the case again (used a magnifying glass both times) and there is defiantly no primer pocket flash hole, the only damage on the primer end of the cartridge case is that the primer is flattened out and it is not in the primer pocket, it came out when it was set off by the firing pin and is in one piece.

I've seen 7mm Rem. cartridges loaded by Winchester (about 10 - 15 years ago) that were factory loaded with no powder just primer and bullet, send the bullet about half way down a 26" barrel from just the primer and nothing else. This leads me to think that a case could be pushed into a chamber if there is no where for the primer detonation to go, it pushes the cartridge forward into the chamber. It may be a minimal amount but that's all it would take to stick a cartridge case in the chamber.

The bullet was not pushed all the way back into the case by bumping it out of the chamber. It was stopped by the unburnt powder in the case. The case was distorted somewhat by the removal and just the nose of the bullet was distorted by the removal. We have no way of knowing how much of the distortion of the case was caused by the sticking.

Hope this clears up any questions.

Let me know what you guys think.

Bulletpusher

 

[bulletpusher]

jonbearman,

The head stamp says BHA on it and that is the Black Hills Ammunition stamp. I double checked that as well. One thing though, if it had been a reloaded (i.e. once fired) cartridge how could they have fired it the first time with no flash hole. Just a thought.

Bulletpusher

 

[itchyTF]

I certainly have not experienced a lot of things, but I really find it hard to believe a primer alone can force a bullet half way down a barrel. I don't know what PSI is required to do that but I imagine it is significant. It just doesn't seem possible that a primer has that much power.

 

[Kenny474]

A hot primer has a lot of force. I had a squib in my 1911 using standard primers, and the bullet (230gr FMJ) was lodged 3.5" into the barrel with zero powder. I would imagine a hotter primer could do much more as well.

Tests have been done (can't remember by whom) by clocking the speed of a primer exiting a primer pocket that has a flash hole by detonating it through the flash hole, and they exceed that of HV .22LR ammo. Primers have a lot more energy than you think!

 

[TonyR]

Kenny is right. There was an article where someone shot himself in the leg with a primer. Not fun. I got myself in hot water as a teenager demonstrating practice ammo for my 357 Mag in my bedroom. This was many years ago when parents were safe from child abuse charges if they allowed children to play with such things. Anyway, I got my hands on some practice ammo using plastic cases that fired plastic bullets using only a pistol primer for propellant. I managed to shoot a hole through my pillow with one of these things while demonstrating their safety to my mother of all people. Obviously safer than a full power mag load but I would not want to have been hit by one of those things.

 

[Kenny474]

The article was from someone decapping live primers with a Lee Loader, the kind used with a mallet. He placed the depriming base on his leg and struck the depriming rod with a mallet, sending the primer in his leg to the bone.

Richard Lee chronographed a primer when fired from a primer pocket at 1412fps, plenty fast from what is basically a 1/8" barrel.

The story is on page 80 of Modern Reloading:Second Edition.

I also have a "converted" case for my .222 which uses Remington 9 1/2 primers to fire a .22 caliber pellet at nearly 700fps, scary when you think it's only propelled by a primer.

Here is a video on the case conversion:
http://www.ammosmith.com/rifle-reloading/make-a-223-remington-pellet-rifle-2-part-series.php

 

[bozo699]

Bulletpusher,
I am glad to here no one was hurt. It is possible to have a case with no flash hole in it, but odd it ever made it into a priming tray with out being detected. I would almost think someone bypassed protocall. The flash holes are checked with fiberoptic sensors as the case is being formed if the sensor doesn't pick up a flash hole the case is diverted to a reject bin, if for some reason it got by that machine it should have been picked up on the next machine for the next process,if it got by that machine
(Which would be highly unlikely) Then it should be picked up by the sensors on the primer seating press??? ??? The ammunitions company I work for has safety interlocks, on top of safety interlocks, on top of yet even more safety interlocks.
I would hate to think someone would stoop so low as to sabatosh ammunition in his/hers place of work ,maybe Blackhills makes there ammunition differently than we do, but it is highly unlikely that would have made it out of our plant undetected!
I am sorry it happened to your boss, it has probably made him real hesitent using factory ammo now.
Wayne.