Undercharge blows up a Model 64 -- need explanation

I too remember reading about this phenomenon in connection with handguns. I remember the NRA article; in fact I have a copy somewhere.
In all of the cases as mentioned above, while trying to make it happen, nothing. I believe that the powder was always Bullseye, and careful attempts were made to get it out of position, even to the point of shooting it straight down, reduce the charge further, etc. result: no kaboom.
Given the usual load of 2.7grs, they had to as I recall, triple it to cause a kaboom, but at the 3x point it went. I think the lack of energy argument is a good one. I have seen ringed barrels cause by a bullet in the bore followed by a second which did not blow the gun. S&W Revolvers are pretty strong gadgets.
 
Paul5388 said:
Finnish firearms expert P. T. Kekkonen wrote this concerning SEE:

He also alluded to the formation of combustible gases that ignite suddenly as a probable cause for very low density loads detonating. In that case, he was referring to a 3.0 gr load in .308 Win, which is going to be hard to duplicate in a handgun and is certainly not comparable to the cited 2.7 gr of Bullseye in a .38 Special.

So, I would vote for a 5.4 gr or 8.1 gr load blowing the OP example gun up.
Click to expand...
Paul, I'm glad you posted this. Here's what has always troubled me about Kekkonen's report: Why has no one in this country, or anywhere else, to my knowledge, ever been able to replicate his purported results? I did science for too many years before going to law school, I guess, but test results that can't be replicated are always highly suspect to me. He could be dead-nuts on, but if so, somebody should have been able to replicate his results, and as I understand it, many have tried, and failed.
 
On that part, low density loads in .308, I only have his report on it. I think PT pretty well insisted on a minimum of powder to be used and even then it had to be done with a well lubricated cast bullet. It's when the minimum isn't used, especially with a jacketed bullet, that the problems occur.

It's my thinking that he was presenting a scenario similar to a fuel/air bomb, where the fuel in its liquid form isn't explosive, but the vaporized form is explosive.

At one point in time, there were plans for a lignite gasification project near here. The method would have been to ignite lignite underground and produce "natural" gas from the resulting product.
 
I don’t have any problem with the theory that is; like a fuel-air bomb, you achieve a detonation which releases all of the energy in the fuel during a very short time frame as opposed to the rather long time frame in normal ignition.
You can burn gasoline on the surface of a container and it will burn for a relatively long time, or achieve a more ideal mix of vaporized fuel which if it could be achieved and detonated would release most of the available energy in a brief period.
But you cannot get more energy out of the system than is present.
The problem for the ka-boom theory is that 2.7 grs (or possibly less) of Bullseye doesn’t have enough energy to blow the gun up, especially if the bullet is semi movable, as noted some guns survive a stuck bullet in the forcing come quite nicely.
 
OK,,, so *** is the problem here???? In simple terms the load was to hot or the chamber was weak or both? The bottom line is something very basic went wrong! A dork stroking loads or a Yankee that didn't catch a bad load of the red hot metal stuff.

**** happens... Now don't over think KISS!!!!!!
 
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