S&W 625-JM Catastrophic Failure/Accident

[mmhoium]

I thought I would share my experience with the community here. I had a almost brand new Smith & Wesson 625 Jerry Miculek 45acp completely blow up at the range.

The gun had almost 400 rounds through it, about half factory, half reloads. Took it to the range Friday morning and started shooting it. I was shooting cans at 25yds and having a great time. The loads I was shooting were 5.5grs. of Universal behind a 230gr Hornady XTP, Winchester brass, CCI primer. I had shot 30-40rds and on the 6th shot of my cylinder I felt a jerk downward and felt something whistle past my head. I looked down at my revolver and, well, if you look at the attached pictures you can see what I saw. Fortunately, no one was injured. I never found the missing piece.

I've reloaded over 5,000rds on my Dillon 550 in the last year-rifle and pistol, and have been reloading for many years - so I'm no stranger to reloads. I'm sort of confused at what could have happened. I'm ruling out a double charge because of the rare chance that it would happen on the Dillon powder measure and there would have been powder run-out that I would have noticed. There was absolutely no barrel damage, so it wasn't a squib load followed by a full strength load. The only thing that I can thing of is a brass failure of some sort.

Maybe someone out there that has seen something like this can weigh in with some ideas. In the meantime, this serves as an excellent reminder as to what dangers there are anytime you are at the range. Eye and ear protection are not a suggestion, they are a necessity.

Also, anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do now with it? I assume that S&W will ask what I was shooting, and when I tell them "reloads" they will say sorry and hang up. Either way, I'm calling them on Monday to chat. I have found that it made an excellent conversation piece at a gun show I was at this last weekend....

 

[mag318]

WOW! We're just glad you weren't injured. It will be interesting to see what S&W has to say and I'll bet they'll want to look at your revolver. The vast majority of kabooms like this are caused by overpressure loads. A friend of mine did the same thing to a beautiful Colt Python. He sent it back to Colt and they concluded that the powder charge in his reload detonated instead of burned, and ofcourse since he was shooting reloads it voided any warranty. Let us know how things turn out.

 

[nicky4968]

So I am sure I understand, the cases to the left and right had already been fired?

 

[stantheman86]

First and foremost I am glad you are still here to post this

It's only a gun, you can get another one, glad you weren't seriously injured.

Maybe you might turn into a Ruger fan

I'm sure you know what you're doing with reloading but once S&W gets wind that you were using non-factory ammo I don't think they will do much as far as replacing the gun.......

 

[rjjj]

Looks like a double charge to me. But wow! I'm really glad no one was hurt!!!!!!


Did this happen two days ago, or a week ago friday?

 

[dmar]

Wow is right. I'm not an expert, but my vote would certainly be the dreaded over-charged round, I cannot see where a brass split would cause that... I'm sorry about the loss of your beautiful gun, and am very happy to see that you were not hurt.

 

[Bill_inBouse]

mm, Glad to hear you're OK and every one else also. Using Universal, max load appears on the Hodgdon web site as 5.6 grs. Were there ever any indications of an over pressure/charge with your reloads? Primers, cases sticking?
I would think S&W would want to look at the gun, could be a case of metal fatigue/failure and not your reloads.
Again glad you are OK

Bill

 

[Joni_Lynn]

I'm glad you're unharmed.

 

[mmhoium]

In order to be a double charge, I would have had to have a round in the mix that didn't get any powder per the way the dillon press works - the remaining rounds loaded all were pulled and taken apart and I found no errors in what I had reloaded and we didnt have one at the range. I pulled bullets on about 75rds when I got home.

The rounds on either side were already fired. And one more thing to note, the bullet from the round that blew up the gun was found at our feet with a cut to the nose about 1/8inch deep.

I really appreciate the kind responses, its hard not to be shook up about it. Serves as a stark reminder of safety.

I've reloaded this recipe at least 700 times with no primer problems, brass splits ect. I've found reloading data range to be 5.1 to 5.9 from published books, so I figured I was within range even if a extra .1grs did get thrown. My Dillon has always been quite good with consistency though.

Thanks....

 

[Postman10mm]

That's weird.

I can't quite understand what happened to the brass in the opposing chambers and why they appear to so clean.

If a rounds had detonated, I can see it blowing off the top third of the cylinder, but it should have left the empty brass alone.

Regardless, I'm very happy you are okay.

 

[Joni_Lynn]

Could it have fired with the cylinder not fully indexed into position?
I wouldn't think so but no clue how the bullet got that damage.

 

[stmry]

Forget about the gun. You won.

 

[mmhoium]

Joni- thats kind of what I was thinking as well. Seems possible.

A double charge would explain a lot, its just hard for me to think of how it would happen. Always possible...

 

[Texas1941]

The only failure I've seen that was as dramatic was a post-war K-38 which was destroyed by a double charge of Bullseye behind a 148 gr BBWC. We did find all the missing parts, except the rear sight. The cylinder failed in two pieces. We found the last piece as we were leaving. It was on the hood of my '63 Impala. It hit the windshield with enough force to punch a tiny pinhole all the way through the safety glass.

That was the first round fired that day of those reloads, and the last. When examined, all the remaining rounds were double charged. They had been reloaded on the club Star "Automatic" press. Someone had reconfigured the machine to load 158 gr SWCs with 5 grs Unique and neglected to change the rather complicated powder charger back to the usual setting for 2.5 Bullseye.

My two cents: I think this had to be an overpressure situation. In the late '60 through the '70s I stopped using Auto Rim brass. For one thing it was hard to find and when you could the cases were prone to failure. On a couple of occasions, cases split form the web to the case mouth and around 180 deg of the base. They had to be punched out with a section of cleaning rod, but there was no damage to the revolver.

Glad you are alright. Guns can be replaced. Fingers and eyes, not so easy.

 

[stevieboy]

I'm glad you're unhurt! That's what matters most.

It's too bad you were unable to find the piece(s) of metal that blew out of the cylinder. My guess is that Smith would want to look at all of them in order to determine whether there was some structural failure in the cylinder rather than overpressure. I'm thinking that, possibly, some weakness in the cylinder wall, perhaps a microscopic crack, might have accounted for the blowout rather than an overloaded round. On the other hand, those blown out shells are suspicious.

 

[mmhoium]

As I'm looking at the help that I am getting here and factoring in the bullet that I found on the ground, I think that chamber number 6 was unfired and it was the 5th round that was indexed. The brass looks fairly clean on chamber 6 and thinking of the way the cylinder indexs, it makes sense because that would have been the next chamber up for the firing pin. And on top of that, the cut in the bullet on the ground matches up nicely with the frame if the bullet was propelled forward while still in the "on deck" cylinder hole. There is also an odd cut in the cylinder wall between the round that was indexed and the brass from the previous fired round. Who knows...

 

[Harrison]

I had a wierd happening several months ago with my Dillon 550. One case got a half load and the next case got a load and a half. Turned out a small piece of stryafoam was in the powder, (I think from the seal on the powder container), jammed up temporarily in the drop tube and only dropped a half load then came loose and dropped the other half, plus a full load. I noticed power was almost to the top of the case and stopped before I put a bullet in. Found the piece of stryafoam in the over full case. Pulled the bullet in the prior case and found it had only received a partial charge. One could have caused detonation, or at least a squb. the other could have also a caused a kaboom. All because of a piece of scrap stryafoam. Not the fault of the Dillon powder measure. It has always been accurate to +- .1 gr.

 

[Joni_Lynn]

If you had a high primer then it may have gone off which might have caused this failure. When the round being fired went off the round next to it also went off due to a high primer already being in contact with the frame.

I'm thankful that you're uninjured and here to tell us about it.

 

[sgms]

Glad you are not hurt. You might want to see if smith will do anything for you. If it was not a high pressure load it might have been a metal problem with the pistol. I had my 442 blow up couple of months ago. I was shooting with standard winchester .38 spl.(I have several non +p guns so I never shoot or buy +p ammo) when on the 15th round of the session I felt a strange recoil checked the pistol and the barrel was missing. The frame had cracked under the barrel and it was laying in front of the bench on the ground. Sent it to smith and they said they couldn't fix it and sent me a 642 to replace it. Not real happy, they wouldn't say what happened and I lost my 442 no dash nickel finished. But at least I didn't have to eat the loss and buy my own replacement. And yes I am an idiot, I didn't think to take any pictures until the day after I sent it off.

 

[bountyhunter]

I thought I would share my experience with the community here. I had a almost brand new Smith & Wesson 625 Jerry Miculek 45acp completely blow up at the range.

The gun had almost 400 rounds through it, about half factory, half reloads. Took it to the range Friday morning and started shooting it. I was shooting cans at 25yds and having a great time. The loads I was shooting were 5.5grs. of Universal behind a 230gr Hornady XTP, Winchester brass, CCI primer. I had shot 30-40rds and on the 6th shot of my cylinder I felt a jerk downward and felt something whistle past my head. I looked down at my revolver and, well, if you look at the attached pictures you can see what I saw. Fortunately, no one was injured. I never found the missing piece.

I've reloaded over 5,000rds on my Dillon 550 in the last year-rifle and pistol, and have been reloading for many years - so I'm no stranger to reloads. I'm sort of confused at what could have happened. I'm ruling out a double charge because of the rare chance that it would happen .

It ain't that rare. I have seen quite a few 1911 .45 barrels blown to pieces by a double charge. I have no idea about yours, but they do happen.