Critical Weapon Malfunctions

[breid1970 327]

Ok so after my last thread some folks were worried about critical failures with bullpups. I can not attest to anyone's experiences but my own. I spent 14 years in the Service. Four of those years I served as a marksmanship instructor. I probably observed/taught hundreds if not thousands of recruits shooting. Not once did I ever have the misfortune of having one of my shooters experience a catastrophic weapons failure. If you think think about it, the recruits shooting those old A2's were using rifles shot but thousands of other recruits. Throw in my other 10 years, in which I never saw or experienced one says a lot about the construction of our weapons in general. Now I have heard the horror stories, and seen a few pictures of these malfunctions but never had to endure one. Have any of you actually had one, and I hate to use the term, "blow up in your face." Now Im not talking about double feeds, misfires, or failures to eject or failure to cycle, Im talking about when metal, or plastic, just goes to shit. As I am writing this I realize I did witness a Beretta 92 have a pretty serious failure. It was when the Marines were switching over from .45's to 9mm and they had not yet implemented the half moon slide stop safety, and a slide cycled back and just kept going causing some pretty substantial damage to the shooter. Other then that, what have you all experienced?

[Syndicate 812]

Seen two Taurus revolvers decide to shoot their barrel off on their first visit to the range.

[Voltia 375]

All I had was a Remington 742 start breaking chunks of plastic off and throwing them everywhere. I stopped firing.

[Matthew Hopkins 1,065]

Have any of you actually had one, and I hate to use the term, "blow up in your face." Now Im not talking about double feeds, misfires, or failures to eject or failure to cycle, Im talking about when metal, or plastic, just goes to shit. As I am writing this I realize I did witness a Beretta 92 have a pretty serious failure. It was when the Marines were switching over from .45's to 9mm and they had not yet implemented the half moon slide stop safety, and a slide cycled back and just kept going causing some pretty substantial damage to the shooter.

 

 

that incident would be classified as a design flaw, not due to "metal going to shit"

 

the only incidences of "gun blowing up" I have seen, didn't have anything to do with the gun, but the person shooting the gun, a "pop-no-kick"

Edited May 9, 2013 by Matthew Hopkins

[corbin 621]

The only failure I've experience like this was having an old black powder revolver "chainfire" on me. It wasn't mine and I (foolishly) assumed the owner was still greasing the ends of the chamber, as I had watched him do earlier in the day.

 

It launched the barrel forward about 6 feet, bent the frame downward (breaking my finger in the process), and sent some type of material back into my shoulder, requiring 8 stitches (probably a piece of cylinder). It was just a grazing cut, but could have been much more serious.

Edited May 9, 2013 by Corbin

[breid1970 327]

 

Have any of you actually had one, and I hate to use the term, "blow up in your face." Now Im not talking about double feeds, misfires, or failures to eject or failure to cycle, Im talking about when metal, or plastic, just goes to shit. As I am writing this I realize I did witness a Beretta 92 have a pretty serious failure. It was when the Marines were switching over from .45's to 9mm and they had not yet implemented the half moon slide stop safety, and a slide cycled back and just kept going causing some pretty substantial damage to the shooter.

 

 

that incident would be classified as a design flaw, not due to "metal going to shit"

 

the only incidences of "gun blowing up" I have seen, didn't have anything to do with the gun, but the person shooting the gun, a "pop-no-kick"

 

Design flaw = metal going to shit in my book. But my intention is not to quibble about semantics. I only interested in peoples experiences in critical malfunctions.

[nlacy 692]

At a carbine class I saw a guy's ar barrel fly off about 10'. It was one that he put together himself...

 

No one was hurt and aside from some threads that got damaged no major metal carnage.

[SaigaNoobie 66]

Breid1970,

 

You can call me out by name, it's ok.

 

My concern isn't that it's a likely event.

 

My concern is that in the HIGHLY unlikely event that you get a double-charged round, or pop off a squib during some rapid fire.... etc. etc. I don't want a chamber next to my cheekbone.

 

~SN

[breid1970 327]

Your good to go SN. And you had a valid point bubba. I would not want it to happen to me either.

[EthanM 514]

I had a single shot 10 gauge fly apart when I shot it. Sliced my hand in the process.

[storm6490 2,768]

Are you Airforce? You've never seen an A2, M4, Saw, M2 etc go to shit on the range? Qualifying weapons in the Infantry were swapped out constantly and became training weapons or given to NG units. I've seen plenty of problems, most often it was a used up sear that would cause the weapon to fire out of battery and blow out mags. The best intentional failure was an M2 on a night fire. We melted the barrel on it till it slumped and blew off.

[SaigaNoobie 66]

I have never personally seen a Catastrophic Failure with my own eyes. I have seen a Saiga-12 go FA because the guy forgot to put the disconnector spring in when he re-assembled his conversion.

 

He shot it, BANG. Pulled the trigger again. Nothing. The hammer didn't reset. So he hands it to me to figure it out.

 

Bang-bang-bang-click. Full-auto Slam fire mode

 

It was fun test firing it and going "UHHHHH Dude, Something ain't right" and then taking it apart to find the DC was missing its spring.

 

Shit can happen. Seeing photos of Catastrophic firearm events makes me not want to use the Magwell as a forward grip, or put a bullpup up to my ear

[Doug Hartley 526]

At Multigun Nationals a few weeks ago a guy had a case rupture while he was shooting his Glock. I blew out the mag and scared the shit out of him but the gun and his hands weren't damaged. We found the case and it looked like a reload that was reloaded once too often because it was cracked around the base blew out a semi-circle of brass adjacent to the extractor groove.

 

I've had a few squibs over the years but was lucky enough in those cases to not fire the next shot. I did RO a guy once that had a squib in a Glock and refused to stop, even though I was yelling at him to STOP. The next shot cleaned out the barrel and he didn't belive he had a squib. I told him, that of course the squib wasn't there any more, "YOU BLEW IT OUT THE BARREL!" Later that day he had another and we got him stopped and proved that there was a bullet stuck in the barrel.

 

Doug

[breid1970 327]

Are you Airforce? You've never seen an A2, M4, Saw, M2 etc go to shit on the range? Qualifying weapons in the Infantry were swapped out constantly and became training weapons or given to NG uonits. I've seen plenty of problems, most often it was a used up sear that would cause the weapon to fire out of battery and blow out mags. The best intentional failure was an M2 on a night fire. We melted the barrel on it till it slumped and blew off.

I served with the Marines and was a weapons instructor at Paris Island. And no, I never once saw a A2 have a critical weapons failure on my firing block. From what you said, i can only assume that your armorers were just not doing they're jobs. I've seen double feeds, had weapons break due to conditions outside the weapons designed tolerances. In almost 14 years i never had a weapon blow up in my face or any marine that i served with or for. Im going to guess that you were Army then. If I were in a heavy weapons platoon Id have the balls of a team leader who intentionally destroyed his barrel or put his gun team in jeopardy. Thats just piss poor fire discipline. Hell my son who is a 249 gunner stationed out in 29 stumps would never do anything that stupid. So, to wrap it all up, NO, I have not seen a critical oh shit malfunction, but have seen plenty of others. Perhaps our view of what is considered a "critical--catastrophic" vary.

 

I have never personally seen a Catastrophic Failure with my own eyes. I have seen a Saiga-12 go FA because the guy forgot to put the disconnector spring in when he re-assembled his conversion.

 

He shot it, BANG. Pulled the trigger again. Nothing. The hammer didn't reset. So he hands it to me to figure it out.

 

Bang-bang-bang-click. Full-auto Slam fire mode

 

It was fun test firing it and going "UHHHHH Dude, Something ain't right" and then taking it apart to find the DC was missing its spring.

 

Shit can happen. Seeing photos of Catastrophic firearm events makes me not want to use the Magwell as a forward grip, or put a bullpup up to my ear

I can imagine how that would be a little unnerving. I am just thankful I have not had it happen to me.

[storm6490 2,768]

 

Are you Airforce? You've never seen an A2, M4, Saw, M2 etc go to shit on the range? Qualifying weapons in the Infantry were swapped out constantly and became training weapons or given to NG uonits. I've seen plenty of problems, most often it was a used up sear that would cause the weapon to fire out of battery and blow out mags. The best intentional failure was an M2 on a night fire. We melted the barrel on it till it slumped and blew off.

I served with the Marines and was a weapons instructor at Paris Island. And no, I never once saw a A2 have a critical weapons failure on my firing block. From what you said, i can only assume that your armorers were just not doing they're jobs. I've seen double feeds, had weapons break due to conditions outside the weapons designed tolerances. In almost 14 years i never had a weapon blow up in my face or any marine that i served with or for. Im going to guess that you were Army then. If I were in a heavy weapons platoon Id have the balls of a team leader who intentionally destroyed his barrel or put his gun team in jeopardy. Thats just piss poor fire discipline. Hell my son who is a 249 gunner stationed out in 29 stumps would never do anything that stupid. So, to wrap it all up, NO, I have not seen a critical oh shit malfunction, but have seen plenty of others. Perhaps our view of what is considered a "critical--catastrophic" vary.

 

I have never personally seen a Catastrophic Failure with my own eyes. I have seen a Saiga-12 go FA because the guy forgot to put the disconnector spring in when he re-assembled his conversion.

 

He shot it, BANG. Pulled the trigger again. Nothing. The hammer didn't reset. So he hands it to me to figure it out.

 

Bang-bang-bang-click. Full-auto Slam fire mode

 

It was fun test firing it and going "UHHHHH Dude, Something ain't right" and then taking it apart to find the DC was missing its spring.

 

Shit can happen. Seeing photos of Catastrophic firearm events makes me not want to use the Magwell as a forward grip, or put a bullpup up to my ear

I can imagine how that would be a little unnerving. I am just thankful I have not had it happen to me.

 

Yeah, The armorers must have been piss poor. I suppose that's why the were selected to bite the bullet. The M2 was fucking awesome to destroy. It was fillmed at night on the right side of the range while others were popping off. We did several simulated runaway exercizes for the new grunts and then showed what could happen to the barrel if you don't follow the rules. A few of us got promoted for the video. The M2 was destroyed.

 

Jar heads don't get to have much fun I guess.

[breid1970 327]

Destroying a perfectly good weapon is not what i would consider fun. But, if it served a purpose I suppose it was worth it.

[TonyRumore 1,332]

On an AMT Hardballer Longslide 1911, I had a barrel split in two places, along each side of the barrel lug. The case ruptured and blew brass frags back in my face.

[jrance@iacwds.com 716]

I had a Springfield XDm 9mm either fire out of battery of had a double charge. Springfield replaced the frame and destroyed the evidence. Reloader claims it fired out of battery. Who knows?

 

1911

[breid1970 327]

On an AMT Hardballer Longslide 1911, I had a barrel split in two places, along each side of the barrel lug. The case ruptured and blew brass frags back in my face.

Oh damn. when my buddy had the slide come back off his 92F it messed him up pretty good. How did you fare?

[Capt Nemo 882]

At a local range, I had one fool think that he didn't have to headspace his AR, as it says to in the book. I had a bigass arguement with him, but arguing with a fool is pointless! Headspace was too short and bolt didn't lock. Upper reciever had a chunk missing from the left side. Lower reciever was missing the magwell. No intact bullets were found among the debris. Bullet stuck in barrel. It appears that the entire mag chain reacted when the first round kicked back and exploded. The fool didn't even catch a fragment of that to remind him!

 

Lesson: Check your headspace after a barrel/bolt job.

[YOT 3,743]

I had a Springfield XDm 9mm either fire out of battery of had a double charge. Springfield replaced the frame and destroyed the evidence. Reloader claims it fired out of battery. Who knows?

 

1911

With typical powder used to load 9mm it's improbable that it was a double charge, because the case gets pretty well filled up with a single charge, and with max loads is actually compressed. Now, if the wrong powder was used.... That would be an entirely different story. There is also a chance a squib lodged in the barrel, then another round was fired. That'll ruin shit, too.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Yeoldetool

[storm6490 2,768]

Destroying a perfectly good weapon is not what i would consider fun. But, if it served a purpose I suppose it was worth it.

It was a glorious night. The cold rolled steel went cherry red hot. You should have seen what was done to the saws before they were issued. It would have made you sick.

 

Fix Bayonets! Hooah!

[Big John! 2,062]

At a local range, I had one fool think that he didn't have to headspace his AR, as it says to in the book. I had a bigass arguement with him, but arguing with a fool is pointless! Headspace was too short and bolt didn't lock. Upper reciever had a chunk missing from the left side. Lower reciever was missing the magwell. No intact bullets were found among the debris. Bullet stuck in barrel. It appears that the entire mag chain reacted when the first round kicked back and exploded. The fool didn't even catch a fragment of that to remind him!

 

Lesson: Check your headspace after a barrel/bolt job.

I know I have tons of ummm headspace. What were we talking bout? Nevermind me... Carry on...

[Arik 565]

Not me but about 2 years ago when I was at a LGS/range. As I was browsing the employees started running around, something was going on. Cops and ambulance showed up. Apparently someone had a catastrophic failure with an FS2000. Messed up his face pretty good but later I found out that while he was hurt and in shock there were no life threatening injuries, nor anything that needed serious surgery ...ie,,skin graphs, facial reconstruction.

[Big John! 2,062]

Don't know the story behind this aside from a customer brought this to my LGS and it seems he put 300 blackout in it. I know this isn't what you're talking bout, but ugly none the less.

 

[breid1970 327]

that looks pretty damn nasty. Wonder what caused it?

Maybe over pressurization?