338 win mag skudt af i en 300 weatherby

[skipper]

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http://forums.accuratereloading.com/eve/.../120104938

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Here on the internet, many are the tales about rifle blowups. Some of them actually are true. Not often seen are accounts of accidents that came very close to being blowup disasters, but didn't quite get there. Here is one such event that came recently to my attention.

This story begins about a year ago when a local gunsmith completed a rifle for his Africa-bound client. The client had provided a Weatherby MkV action of Japanese manufacture. The gunsmith installed a Lilja barrel chambered for 300 Weatherby Magnum, and stocked it in a Hi-Tec synthetic stock.

While in Africa and in company with his professional hunter, client takes a poke at a Greater Kudu with his new 300 Weatherby Mag. Kudu takes off into the bush. Both client and PH believed the Kudu was hit, but poorly. For reasons unknown, PH takes client's 300 Weatherby Mag to follow up the Kudu. Client had fired one shot, leaving two rounds in the rifle. PH finds Kudu and proceeds to fire the two remaining rounds. With Kudu still on its feet, and with an empty rifle, PH digs around in his pockets, finds another cartridge and thumbs it into the rifle. Pulling the trigger of the 300 once again, PH notices nothing much unusual except Kudu was still going. (The Kudu was later found, dead, with *one* hit, far back in the lungs.)

Eventually it was determined that the cartridge the PH had found in his pockets and loaded into the rifle was a 338 Win Mag. The bolt was frozen closed and the extractor missing. Somehow the rifle was returned to the gunsmith in this condition (shipping a rifle with a closed bolt???) who got it open and pried out the cartridge case.

The photos below show what the cartridge looked like. Note the brass flow into the extractor slot and ejector hole, and the crack beginning at the edge of the primer pocket adjacent to the ejector hole. Expansion of the rim was stopped by the inside diameter of the bolt nose. The web and most of the original belt expanded into the small gap between the bolt nose and barrel recess, and a new 'belt' was formed by brass flow. The primer pocket was expanded to .243-.256", and the flashhole to .135" Headspace of the action was set back at least .010". The barrel was ringed inside just forward of the chamber, with a barely noticeable bulge and small cracks on the exterior. Both the barrel and action were scrapped.

What the pressure must have been, swaging the 338 bullet down to 308, is open to anyone's imagination, of course. But it seems remarkable that the rifle held together at all. That it did is probably due to design of the MkV breeching system, a well made action, a good barrel having a substantial contour, a good barrel installation and good brass. Absent any one of these, the world today likely might be less one PH - or at least the PH might now have a reason for his poor marksmanship.

Would anyone here care to guess what the outcome might have been had this rifle been built (as are many of this gunsmith's rifles) on a Pre-64 Winchester Model 70

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Pictured below is one row of lugs on the MkV bolt from the above rifle. Note the metal upset on two of the three lugs. I counted at least four lugs with very obvious upset on the locking faces, and and there was maybe a fifth. And, yes, it appeared all lugs were bearing... for the final shot, at least.

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skipper
378 Weatherby - The MAGNUM'S MAGNUM
http://www.weatherby.dk

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