There are minimal details, but here are the facts as told in our LGS.

A local gent took his niece to the range and let her try out his BFR .45-70 revolver. The first few shots went OK, so he transferred his attention to some other interest at the range for a time and let the young woman shoot, presumably without direct supervision.

At some point a round (which was described as "a sub-sonic load") failed to clear the muzzle. After that unfortunate development, one sort of presumes things just... accumulated, so to speak. Following that, there must have been some kind of noise that just didn't seem right.

Happily, nobody got hurt, and the stocks look like they are still in good shape.

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As I get older, I've realized that I have to take more precautions to prevent squib loads from making it off the reloading bench...glad nothing irreplaceable was lost.
E

Wow!! That could have been really bad!!!

Total loss? Maybe still usable as a clumsy hammer? I too am happy to know no one was injured. Stuff can be replaced or done without. Fingers, hands, eyes, etc. - not so much.

I doubt it is covered by warranty, but the factory should be able to rebarrel and repair that little scratch for you!

But it's gonna cost more than a $1.95!

Ivan

Actually, it looks like the frame and cylinder might have survived. I'm not saying that if you put a new barrel on it I'd feel comfortable shooting it, but if it passed X-RAY and/ or magniflux testing... then maybe.

It doesn't show well in the photos but the frame is bulged where the barrel is inserted. I did not inspect the cylinder closely, but under the circustances I would have a hard time trusting it for any future use, but at least it did not burst during the incident. Note that the cylinder center pin is out of kilter as well.

I was present at a public range years ago when a man shooting a snubby revolver next to me blew his cylinder up with a fauty reload. His gun went "bang" and something whizzed past my ear. He was sitting looking dazed at his revolver, with the the bottom of the cylinder still in the gun, the top half missing and the frame's top strap peeled back. I found the top half of the cylinder later about 30 feet away. Again, nobody hurt, (especially me).

Maybe the whizzing noise I heard in my ear was the Cosmos muttering, "The end is closer than you think, dummy."

Ouch! I'm glad no one got hurt, that could have turned out much worse.

Hate to say it, BUT can't fix stupid.

My son was shooting some Wolf .45 in his Glock one time and was having FTF and FTE problems. I was shooting my near mint .45 cal. of 1950. I said let me try a few in my gun. The first three or four cartridges went off well, then one sounded weird. I was fortunate that I was looking for trouble as it was a squib. I still think about that and thank the powers there was no damage to my favorite S&W.

Glad no one was hurt. Sometimes experience can make you blind or lazy, be careful friends.

IDK, a little Flitz and some elbow grease…………

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I told you not to use Lifebuoy

Don't forget the JB Weld.

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

Some years back an ex-son in law was shooting my .45 Colt SAA. It was one of my prize guns. I has been shooting light hand loads and warned him
that if a shot didn't sound right to CEASE firing and I would take it from there.

Sure enough I heard a muffled report. I turned to him, and before I could open my mouth, he sent another shot down the plugged barrel.

Bah humbug. I was able to find a Colt SAA smith who was able to replace the bbl.

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Paul
Salome, AZ

Maybe the moral of the story here is to avoid home made reloads.

Trot line weight.

I've been reloading since 1973 and have never had a problem. Still use a single stage and never allow any distractions while reloading. No company, no phone, no music.
45/70 in a revolver to me is not a joy to shoot. Glad the shooter was ok but if that poor girl doesn't have a flinch going by now, she never will.
At least it wasn't an S&W.

Glad no one was hurt. It's a tribute to the strength of the BFR frame that only the barrel was wrecked.
Just one man's opinion, but handing a big boomer like a BFR or X-Frame to an inexperienced shooter is asking for trouble. Youtube is loaded with videos of revolvers smacking girls in the forehead or flying out of their hands upon recoil. I wouldn't do it.

I bet somebody needed fresh pants after that happened!

I am wondering what the point is for having a 45/70 revolver, but if that is what somebody thinks they want, then they don’t have to have my approval to get it.

Gonna take more than a coat of RenWax to fix that.

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Release the Kraken

Hose clamps.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

It is going to take a lot of JB Weld to fix that.

I would think that in a 45/70 revolver that there would have been quite a distinct difference in the recoil and report of a regular shot and a squib!
Larry

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Miss Buddies crsides & fat tom

a long passed friend brought me a single action .22 revolver and said it had a slug stuck in the barrel. knowing i'm a gun guy, can you help a Brother out.

i couldn't do it right then but agreed to give it a "shot". i acquired the appropriate sized punch later in the day and got to it.

not 1 or 2 but 3 slugs all fused together came out with quite a bit more force than expected.

he was impressed with my "skills" as he called it. not really any skill just the right punch and a bigger hammer.

i miss my old friend. this story makes me sad. krs/kenny

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Too good

Back about 1979, I was shooting at the range literally down the street from me. I had one of my Dan Wesson 15-2 .357's with me that day, and I was fortunately shooting the weak as they can get wadcutter reloads they made and sold there. It was really busy and both guys on each side of me had S&W 29's and they weren't shooting wadcutters. I put six in and shot them, and never noticed the last one was weaker than the rest. I reloaded and fired. The gun tried to yank itself out of my hands, and I had a bad feeling. No visible damage after a quick look. I grabbed my borelight and it was obvious the barrel tube was trashed, bulged and cracked. I went out to the gunsmith's area and I said, "I think I blew my gun up!" The barrel shroud showed a tiny bulge, barely visible. I took the muzzle nut off, and the barrel was locked to the shroud. We put a bunch of tape around the shroud and broke the roll pin and the barrel unscrewed without any real effort. A couple of whacks with the gunsmith's mallet and the barrel tube came out. The gun itself was undamaged, and $25 later for a 4" barrel tube, I was shooting again. Other than that tiny bulge, the shroud was fine, and I shot many thousands of rounds through that gun until I sold it in 1992. I kept the shroud (It was the best looking blue one I had back then) for about 15 more years until I sold it for a ridiculous price. Any other gun and I would have had to pay $$$ to get it rebarreled, but I was back shooting for $25+tax and 10 cent roll pin, which he put in for free. I've always been careful and paranoid about squibs since that day.

What a shame! Disasters like this are avoidable if the shooter knows what to look/listen for and is paying attention. Unfortunately, it happens more often than you’d think.

The Sergeant At Arms of our antique arms club owns a shop and has been a gunsmith for over 40 years. He occasionally sets up a display of bulged and burst barrels at our shows. The assortment includes rifle, shotgun and pistol barrels and they more than fill an 8” table. Some of the rifle and shotgun barrels are peeled back like a banana. Others are badly bulged and sometimes split. The most impressive is a 6” Python barrel that he cut away. It has about 10 lead slugs stacked tightly in the bore!

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"I also cook."

No, I took some 32 S&W revolvers to the range last Tuesday. I had bought a 20 50 round boxes of factory 32 longs (Prvi Partizan) some time ago. While firing a premodel I frame I got an odd pop psst. Bullet stuck an inch into the 3" barrel. Shot some other 32s using up the rest of the box up and no problems, that evening I went through another whole box of 50 with my 431 shooting with my defensive pistol group and had not problems.

IT HAPPENS. Even with factory ammo

The moral of the story is make sure all shooters understand what a squib is and what NOT to do if a round sounds or feels weird. Also do not get distracted when coaching new shooters.

At a range where I used to shoot, they had a basket of "junk" on the counter next to the register. In that basket was a 2 3/4" barrel from a Ruger "Six" series of revolver. It had been cut in half lengthwise. Inside the bore you could clearly see six jacketed bullets jammed from the muzzle to the forcing cone.

According to the story the shooter never noticed anything wrong.

Glad no one was hurt in the OP's incident.

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John 3:16 .

I bet he reloaded a bunch of "too-light" rounds to make it easy on the niece. If they were full-power I don't think it would have held together. They had to be pretty weak to stack that many up without it completely coming apart.

They appear to be jacketed bullets. Could have had a core-separation too I guess. What a shame. Glad nobody was hurt. He's just out an expensive revolver.

Glad no one was hurt or worse. As for the sub-sonic ammo, it was definitely sub-sonic. There really is a limit as to how low one can safely go when reloading.

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VCDL, GOA, NRA

Squibs happen with handloads ... and factory. About 1983 I was shooting some light loaded .38 Special lead bullet loads in my six inch 28-2. One did not sound/feel right. Bullet was in the barrel. Pushed it out with a pencil. My fault on the reload. Never happened before. Never happened again since that day.

One afternoon one of my church members was out on his property and stepped up on a large rattler. It scared him badly. He was standing in a plowed fire break and the snake was to his right at about mid-thigh level. He shot it w/ his Ruger Security Six which was loaded with Remington 158 gr. LRN ammo. One shot fired and killed the snake. He kept pulling the trigger and the next round was a squib. The next four were full power. The result was a ruined revolver. Remington sent him a check for the cost of replacing the revolver. As Ruger no longer made the Security-Six, my church member order one of the new stainless steel Ruger SA/DA revolvers.

I know that shooting the action type games/matches, one is often firing fast. Got to figure it would be hard to keep ones focus and also attend to a possible squib at the same time. For my part, I try not to get carried away shooting fast to the point that I cannot pay attention to basic things like the gun firing normally, etc. Sincerely. bruce.

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<><

Reload carefully to factory specs.No light loads , or +P , or any of that nonsense.

These photos may be a good teaching tool to show my kids. No one takes it seriously until it’s too late. I can’t believe no one got hurt, glad to hear it though. Makes you thankful for those lane dividers at the indoor range!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A few thoughts on that.

1) There’s a cylinder gap to vent some of the excess pressure and a lot of the barrel damage is caused by both comparison of the gas between the bullets and the water hammer effect of the second bullet impacting the first.

2) the cylinder is steel. Steel has four separate pressure limits that are reached in this order:

- an elastic limit where it will expand and return to its original shape;
- a fatigue limit where it again returns to its original limit, but experiences fatigue and reduces its fatigue life to some degree with each cycle that exceeds the fatigue limit;
- a plastic limit past which it will expand and not return to its original shape; and
- a failure point at which it comes apart.

Consequently, if the cylinder and frame still retain all their original dimensions, both external and in all they cylinder’s chambers, with no detectable cracks, they are good to go.

3) I strongly suspect the cylinder pin was bent by the expanding gasses exiting the barrel and doesn’t indicate damage to th cylinder or frame.

That doesn’t necessarily prevent a squib. There are a number of failures that can create a squib such as a faulty primer, damp powder, a piece of tumbling media in a flash hole, etc that can prevent ignition or complete burning of the powder charge.

You can also have powder hang up in a powder measure, or have an empty hopper than only partially charges a case. Unless you catch that lower powder level visually in the loading process a squib can happen.

Preventing squibs requires thorough QA processes, diligent attention and proper storage of the ammo after it is made.

I have a Ruger Super Blackhawk Hunter with a Nikon 2x scope on it that I use for deer hunting. At the time I was using Double Tap ammo, their 300gr load at 1300 fps. Very accurate and hits like a freight train.

I was at the 100 yd range, just sighted in a couple of rifles and figured I would shoot a group off sand bags with my Ruger just for fun.

First shot was fine.

Second shot was fine.

Third shot, nothing. Huh. Bad primer maybe? Cock the hammer, just about to squeeze and something told me to cancel that.

Pulled the cylinder and a bunch of powder that looked just like beach sand poured out. The primer had fired but the powder didn't go and the bullet was in the forcing cone.

Yikes!

Had I pulled the trigger, pieces would still be raining down.

Took the unfired ammo home and pulled the bullets. About half had that beach sand powder.

Needless to say, I now shoot a different brand of ammo in that gun.

I give my full attention to anyone shooting one of my guns. I've only had to intervene once, when a college student put his eye right up to the scope on my .50BMG.

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The triple smoker

I had a few boxes of "big green" 9mm that would not cycle the slide on my Beretta 92. After I switched out of that ammo, I gave the ammo to a friend, and he pulled the bullets and all of them had varying loads of powder

I don’t think anything to do with brand, more the reload .45 Colt ammo.
Buddies judge went kaboom while shooting across hood of pickup. Needless to say, both gun and windshield need replaced but no injuries.

BIB ... Bullet In Bore
Them sub-sonics can get you in all manner of hot water .
Rule number 1 ... BLB ... make sure the Bullet Leaves the Barrel .
Rule number 2 ... BRR ...Bring Range Rod and mallet for driving out those stuck bullets .
Fooling around with "sub-sonic" loads can get you in trouble !
Gary

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Certified Cajun
NRA Member

Your description is just like what I experienced at an indoor range a few years ago. My brother and I are shooting double or single action semi autos at our benches. Guy next to me is shooting a magnum. Look over and he is dumping his brass on the ground. Ask him if he is keeping it and he says, no take all you want, I only shoot factory loads. See that he is shooting a Taurus Ragin Magnum. Turns out its in 454 Casull. Told him I had one just like it in 45 colt with 6 rd, not 5 rd capacity. He asks do I want to shoot to compare recoil. Why not?

I tell you why not, He hands me the gun with 5 cartridges. Bullets are plated with no cannelure. Seems strange for factory ammo. Load up and ear back hammer. Pull trigger and no report, no nothing. Been shooting semi's all day and all you have to do now is pull back the hammer to hit the primer again-EXCEPT, I had moved to someone else's revolver. So when the 2nd shot went off, the bullet from original shot was just in forcing cone and 2nd bullet must have been almost touching it and God was smiling down on his ignorant son.

After the loudest concussion I have ever experienced(I have shot my 4 inch
S&W 500 with 650 gr bullets) Voila, the target now has 2 holes. Thought what the heck? looked at gun, no visible damage, looked at the guy who owns the gun and he shrugs his shoulders like its always that loud. So now think someone has shot my target, besides me for the second hole.

So cock hammer again, let go and nothing. Even I know something is off here, so I open cylinder and the beach sand 375hh1973 mention above pours out of gun and I can see the bullet in the forcing cone. Hand the gun back to owner, thinking "Oh no I messed up his gun", He takes the gun from me with a very sheepish look like "Oh no I almost messed up this guy"

Turns out they were reloads that he had bought at gun show. Factory ammo only huh? He gave me the rest of the reloads and brass, took the gun to range gunsmith who drove out the bullet and he shot it with .45 colts for another 10 minutes.

BTW, the Taurus Ragin Bull is a pretty strong gun. I'm sure it was just luck, but no perceptible damage on gun to us or to gunsmith.

Took rest of reloads home pulled them for brass and bullets. All primers fired in my 454 Casull Ruger, all power burned when poured in a pile and hit with a match.