One of my best Buddies & his wife & best friend shoot some high dollar custom bolt action rifles..They are very similar to the Rem 700 pattern..I checked my Rem 700 I can't see or figure out where the high pressure gas & brass bits would go " IN The Case Of A Case Head Failure"..I suspect a standard 6mmbr found it's way into a Dasher chamber.."Big Opps there" Long story short, the best friend/his buddy is OK.. He ended up with a bloody face & arm.The action stayed together, just the hot gas & brass bits escaped..Safety Glass's saved his eyes...Can some of you please tell me which bolt action design is the safest to have such a bad event happen in ??? I searched the net & this site...I'm not finding much data....Thanks in Advance, please be extra safe...Mike in Ct
Safest Bolt Action....????
- Thread starter mikeinct
- Start date
KMart
Gold $$ Contributor
Not saying that it didn't happen but a lot of us have fire formed 6 BR to Dasher doing just that.
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Please Read "Suspect"..In any event, the cartridge as assembled was not intended for fire-forming ie: Jammed into the lands.. The shoulder "could" have had been set back too far, whatever...I want to know the why & how of the high pressure gas & brass during case head failure..What protects the shooter in this design ??? thanks...Mike......I found this on truth about guns...
Where many other rifles have sought to strengthen their firing pin stop to mitigate the blow back from a case failure, Remington instead created the three rings of steel. The 700 has a very deep counterbored bold head, nearly encompassing the entirety of a case head. From there the bolt goes into a counterebored lock ring, adding another layer of steel around the case. This lock ring is in turn set in a recess in the barrel, adding a third layer of steel between the shooter and a blown case. While other rifles try to reduce the risk of injury to shooters from a blown case, the 700 eliminates it.
It could be said that the clearances around the lugs allowing greater resistance to binding reduce this effect, however, the bolt head on a 700 is specifically engineered to expand in the event of failure and completely seal off the breech. This eliminates the need for a secondary firing pin stops employed by other actions.
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B Nettesheim
Gold $$ Contributor
The safest bolt action to have a bad event is the one with the most cautious person behind it! I think there only as safe as you allow them to be, its just a simple machine until you operate it.
A Wetherby mark 5? That is what i have been told is one of if not the strongest action there is. This was the older japaness made ones.
I have heard the same thing many times. My bet is he did not try very hard.
It's in his book "Handbook for Shooters & Reloaders". Volume 1 or 2, I don't remember. I do remember it was one helluva an attempt.
ed. Volume II pg.9-22
Arisaka action 6.5mm.Load appears to be 10gr. 2400 & 60gr 3031. @ 140 gr. Barnes bullet.
"Barrel split from breech to a point about 6" from muzzle. Receiver threads ruptured from split barrel. Locking lugs OK. Very little apparent setback in action, exclusive of ruptured threads due to ruptured barrel. Action still serviceable."
(my highlights)
He tried to blow up 3 different Arisaka's unsuccessfully, and if this was a duplex load as I read it, my opinion is he was trying VERY hard.
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BoydAllen
Gold $$ Contributor
An older friend switched to hotter primers for loads that were already up at the ragged edge. This was for two rifles one on a conventional Remington style custom action. The other was built on a Hall, which is a so called "fat bolt" design, with no lug raceways. The diameter of the body of the bolt is as large as the lugs are wide. Both rifles were overloaded to the point where primers were blown out of the cases, but the cases did not fail. In terms of how well the pits were contained the Hall did better, I think because there was no clear path to the rear.
Ackley reported on rifle torture tests in Vol 2 of his Handbooks for Reloaders and Shooters. Frank de Haas knowing Ackley's work did a destruct test on what he described as 'the worst specimen of this rifle [a Type 99 7.7mm Arisaka] which was ever carted home by a returning GI'. It was so crude it was initially believed to be one of the cast-iron receiver training rifles that could never use live ammunition.
De Haas rechambered it to .30-06 deliberately cutting the chamber 10 thou' too deep to induce excess headspace. He and a friend then made up three series of .30-06 test rounds with 180gn jacketed bullets, as per:
a case-full of IMR-3031 powder (44gn would be a normal maximum)
a case-full of IMR-4198 powder (38gn would be maximum)
a case-full of Hercules 2400 powder (never recommended for 30-06 and jacketed bullets, but ~25gn reckoned as a maximum safe load).
The rifle was tied to an old tyre, pointed at an earth bank and fired remotely using a long string.
The 3031 load just flattened primers (as De Haas expected - describes it as a good proof load)
The 4198 load was expected to do damage, but didn't. The tyre and rifle bucked and kicked, primer pocket expanded, case web split, and case-heads (De Haas uses plural but doesn't say how many were loaded and fired) spread over the bolt-face and became a snug fit. A small spurt of flame was seen come out of the action vent hole .... but no damage to the action or barrel.
The first 2400 load cartridge blew the ejector, magazine floorplate and follower off, and flames were seen all around the action. (it was dusk when this firing took place.) The Bolt stop was sprung and the barrel had moved forward in the tenon by a thread or two. There was a slight bulge in the right receiver wall over the extractor cut and the bolt was locked solid - but everything was still in one piece. Trying to hammer the bolt open broke its handle off so the barrel was unscrewed and that allowed bolt and case removal. The back end of the case had melted over the bolt-face and was 'practically welded in place' and had to be knocked off. De Haas says that after doing this and refitting the barrel, the rifle could actually have been fired again safely. The chamber wasn't bulged and the barrel was later fitted to another receiver in good condition and reused. De Haas's personal view was that a large-ring Mauser 98 might have stood up as well or better, but precious few other actions would have.
De Haas rechambered it to .30-06 deliberately cutting the chamber 10 thou' too deep to induce excess headspace. He and a friend then made up three series of .30-06 test rounds with 180gn jacketed bullets, as per:
a case-full of IMR-3031 powder (44gn would be a normal maximum)
a case-full of IMR-4198 powder (38gn would be maximum)
a case-full of Hercules 2400 powder (never recommended for 30-06 and jacketed bullets, but ~25gn reckoned as a maximum safe load).
The rifle was tied to an old tyre, pointed at an earth bank and fired remotely using a long string.
The 3031 load just flattened primers (as De Haas expected - describes it as a good proof load)
The 4198 load was expected to do damage, but didn't. The tyre and rifle bucked and kicked, primer pocket expanded, case web split, and case-heads (De Haas uses plural but doesn't say how many were loaded and fired) spread over the bolt-face and became a snug fit. A small spurt of flame was seen come out of the action vent hole .... but no damage to the action or barrel.
The first 2400 load cartridge blew the ejector, magazine floorplate and follower off, and flames were seen all around the action. (it was dusk when this firing took place.) The Bolt stop was sprung and the barrel had moved forward in the tenon by a thread or two. There was a slight bulge in the right receiver wall over the extractor cut and the bolt was locked solid - but everything was still in one piece. Trying to hammer the bolt open broke its handle off so the barrel was unscrewed and that allowed bolt and case removal. The back end of the case had melted over the bolt-face and was 'practically welded in place' and had to be knocked off. De Haas says that after doing this and refitting the barrel, the rifle could actually have been fired again safely. The chamber wasn't bulged and the barrel was later fitted to another receiver in good condition and reused. De Haas's personal view was that a large-ring Mauser 98 might have stood up as well or better, but precious few other actions would have.
I should say that the above description was from the Arisaka section of Frank De Haas' book Bolt Action Rifles revised edition (originally published 1971, revised and expanded 1984, still in print today AFAIK in later and further expanded editions under new author/editor ship after FdH's death.)
American Rifle Company has done quite a bit of destructive testing on their action.
Quick question here; did the rifle in question have an M16 or SAKO extractor installed rather than the original Remington style extractor? I had an interesting afternoon talking with Dave Hall (Hall Actions) about this, and he mentioned that converting the M700 over to use these extractors was the fastest way to defeat one of Remington's more important safety features, the "three rings of steel" that others have already mentioned. Majorly overpressure loads that an actually swell the action will "engage" this safety feature as each successive ring expands into the others, sealing the action tightly. The addition of that extractor provides an easy escape once you've reached those levels of pressure, and you're venting it into an area that wasn't designed to serve that purpose. As Dave said, it takes shockingly little pressure to destroy an action when it's directed into areas that weren't designed to contain gasses such as this. Just a thought, but since that conversation, I've never used such and extractor on any of my M700s ever again.
Very interesting. If the threads are ruptured the action is not serviceable.
He did do more work than I would have done. I would have just filled it with the fastest powder and the heaviest bullet and let fly from a rest.
Kevin, I'm waiting to hear more about the action in question...I know two of those big dollar units are standard unaltered bolt faces....I want to use one of my standard rem 700 actions to build my wife a Bench Rest type single shot rifle..But now I'm wondering how safe it is...if a case blows.. I want to know she is safe behind that rig...mike
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