Is it even possible?

[Anonymous]

On the other shooting board I frequent... a young guy has posed the following question about keyholing bullets out of a Savage 24.

Here's the assertion-
1) his brother fired a 6x45 wildcat out of the .223 chamber
2) case had to be tapped out
3) now it keyholes bullets at 50 yards
4) rifle is re-chambered from a .222, 1:14 twist.

What I'm wondering is... is it even possible to fire a 6mm down a 5.56 bore like that? Particularly with a break open, those Savage 24s weren't really that strong to start with.

Something doesn't add up for me. I can see totally wrecking the gun and breaking stuff and I can see that slow twist not stabilizing a heavier bullet. I can't see that bullet exiting the barrel and leaving behind a working rifle with a bad bore.

I just can't see the rifle being in working order at all after being fired with an oversized round in the chamber... Any ideas?

Unfortunately, that's all the information I have to work with....and it's sketchy.

 

[5shot]

I would say NO...how on earth would you even chamber the round in the first place?

 

[Anonymous]

I thought about that....one of the better theories is that a determined guy could close the action with enough force/leverage to actually push the bullet back into the case.

That'd give you even more pressure problems with the charge compressed. Just one of many issues with the problem as presented.

 

[DrMike]

I agree that it is hard to envision this happening. If it happened, I suppose it is possible that as the bullet was swaged (from .243 to .224--0.019 inches is a pretty good swaging job), excess pressure forced the action open enough to bleed off some of the pressure. If this was the case, I hope he was wearing eye protection as there would have been an abundance of hot gases heating the air a few inches in front of his face.

 

[FOTIS]

I have seen a 6.5mm 140 sierra boat tail disguised as a .257 117 Sierra boat tail loaded into a 25-06 and fired in a Sako.

This occurred in Germany while I was a range safety officer. The bottom metal was trashed totally the action was locked up and the shooter's face was lightly bloodied by the gases.


Gun was sent back checked and other than the bottom metal all was ok.

 

[5shot]

The neck of the 6x45 would never make it fully into the chamber. Even if the bullet was pushed into the neck, the whole neck and bullet would have to be swaged down to .224ish in order to get all the way in...by hand. Never gonna happen.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah- the whole idea sounds very implausible the more I think about it. A guy would have to completely crush the case to just get the action shut.

On the subject of overpressure- bolt guns are tremendously strong like FOTIS's example, I wonder how a Savage (or similar) break open would fair? Most of the 24 chambers I've seen were pretty low pressure rounds. Hinge guns and high pressure just doesn't work out so well.

 

[SJB358]

Yeah- the whole idea sounds very implausible the more I think about it. A guy would have to completely crush the case to just get the action shut.

On the subject of overpressure- bolt guns are tremendously strong like FOTIS's example, I wonder how a Savage (or similar) break open would fair? Most of the 24 chambers I've seen were pretty low pressure rounds. Hinge guns and high pressure just doesn't work out so well.

Been reading a bunch of Ackley lately. He did a lot of testing with so called weak rifles (oversized bullets in a smaller bore, excessive loaded rounds, etc) and really had a tough time blowing a rifle up.

However, what seems like a common theme was grenading a rifle through the use of minimally charged slow burning propellants. Those absolutely ate a rifles lunch. Pretty interesting reading for a looney.

 

[nvbroncrider]

Hatcher's Notebook


They tried all that stuff double charges and the works. Only failures were before 100,000 on 1903's all because of heat treatment.

Later models were bomb proof

My grandfather had a gun range in Utah and he Fred Huntington P.O. Ackley and Rocky Gibbs did all kinds of strange things in the bunker where they removed a brick ran a string through to pull the trigger.

 

[JD338]

Are we sure it was the shooters brother?

JD338

 

[35 Whelen]

We used to try to blow up Damascus barreled shotguns, some of them where highly pitted....... It absolutely amazed
Me how much it took to do it! Barbaric method used was put the gun into a auto tire with stock pushed into the inner tube channel, barrels resting up on the sidewalk, stick it around the corner of the garage,wrap a loop around the trigger and pull the string from around the corner! It works
And some of the pressures would blow your mind!
I do have in my gun shop a model 70 barrel that fired a load
Of Pistol powder!!!!! It sweland blew the shooter right out of the bench! When he came to some time later, his face was so covered in blood he was having trouble seeing! He drove
Himself 50 miles to nearest hospital constantly wiping the blood out of his eyes! Took the Dr 3hrs to pick all
Of the metal out of his face!

 

[truck driver]

We used to try to blow up Damascus barreled shotguns, some of them where highly pitted....... It absolutely amazed
Me how much it took to do it! Barbaric method used was put the gun into a auto tire with stock pushed into the inner tube channel, barrels resting up on the sidewalk, stick it around the corner of the garage,wrap a loop around the trigger and pull the string from around the corner! It works

That's how I used to test the muzzle loaders I built and the double barrel muzzle loading shot guns I would restore and it does work well.