Possible Dangerous Cartridges, CAUTION!

[bulletpusher]

Just a note of Caution to shooters of factory cartridges.

My boss told me of a primer detonation in one of his rifles. He was shooting on his private range and he had a pressure release through the relief ports of the receiver of his rifle and hit him in the face. Thankfully he was not injured.

The primer was destroyed and the cartridge case was stuck in the chamber. This is a .308 Winchester cambered rifle. We talked about what could have been the problem that caused the primer to blow.

Now my first surprise was the cartridges that he was shooting were Black Hills Red Box HPBT Moly coated Match (don't know the bullet weight). Black Hills has a solid reputation anywhere in the world, and I have to believe this has to be a very isolated incident.

When this happened, after pulling the trigger and the primer firing, releasing the gasses and other material from the relief holes in the receiver, he tried to open the bolt and found it was hard to open. The extractor on the bolt is now chipped, and the cartridge was stuck in the chamber and he didn't think the bullet had gone downrange like it should have.

We talked about what could have gone wrong, i.e. wrong calibre cartridge for the rifle, wrong powder in a factory cartridge, bad primer, etc. etc. Told him he should try to bump the cartridge out of the chamber and that if he had any trouble with to see a qualified gun smith.

That was yesterday, today he brought me the cartridge that he removed. The cartridge was of the correct caliber and the case was slightly collapsed due to bumping it from chamber. Bullet looked to be the right one but was pushed back down in the case a little which made it hard to check for proper dia. and the case still felt like it was full of unburned powder. The primer was not in the case and looked like it had been flattened with a hammer and the primer pocket was blackened of course. Cause at this point was unknown.

And now for the cause that we found. After thinking about it for a moment I took a paper clip and tried to push it through the carbon covering the flash hole, ended up with a very shiny brass dot in the bottom of the primer pocked where the hole should have been. The primer flash hole did not go all the way thru to the powder. The primer had perform by going off, it just didn't have anywhere to go.

I repeat this is a Black Hills Red Box factory cartridge and not a handload. I've seen other cartridge makers over the years that had some malfunction in a cartridge here and there, but this is the first time I've seen it from Black Hills.

Just thought everyone should know, for future reference, this could have been a lot worse than just a blown primer.

Bulletpusher