Kaboom at Manatee today!

Queequeg

Queequeg

Door Man
Full Member
Minuteman
May 16, 2008
1,646
21
65
Florida, Hillsborough county
#1
The fellow 2 benches west of me, right next to Ren, had a very bad day! Damn sure could have killed him and quite likely Ren as well.

Something blew clean through the roof in two locations!


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#15
What was the reason this went the way it did? I see that there is a rod in the barrel in one pic. Was that the reason? Curious on how this went. Glad no one got hurt or killed.
 
#19
Happened this afternoon at the Manatee Gun and Archery Club.

Al, Ren and Myself were there with a couple other folks.

Ren was at bench 12, I was at 13. The fellow at 11 is the guy who had the Kaboom. He was running a Savage .338 Lapua.

After the boom, I heard Ren ask "Are you alright" and then turned to look in time to see the fellow reacting in total shock. Literally stunned.

Ren and I went over to him and could not see any major injuries. Ren was uninjured as well but had a lot of fiberglass splinters on him.

The barrel nut is what I presume punched the two holes in the roof. One was ~ 1" square, the other about half that size.

The shooter is a regular there and is a pretty smart guy. He had been having a problem with sticky cases though he said he was certain the loads were mild. That's why he was content to knock the sticky ones out with the rod.

He simply forgot to remove the rod after knocking out the last stuck case.

You can see what happened next.
 
#31
Used to go there quite often when I was in FL. I am actually surprised this hasn't happened more with the people I used to see passing through there that had absolutely no idea as to what they were doing.

I miss Gene and his after hour antics of loading homebrew wildcat cartridges and then seeing who wanted to be the first to shoot it lol
 
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#33
Look at the fired brass. Looks like I can see punctured primers and some with blow by. Glad he is not hurt bad. Maybe next time he will back the load off a notch and not have to worry about stuck brass.
 
#34
As for cleaning rods left in the barrel, an old buddy of mine, who has now left this world, left the ramrod in his muzzle loader one day when we were getting ready for deer season. Luckily for him nothing like this happened, but when he pulled the trigger it flipped him out of the chair he was sitting in.
 
#36
Queequeg said:
Happened this afternoon at the Manatee Gun and Archery Club.

Al, Ren and Myself were there with a couple other folks.

Ren was at bench 12, I was at 13. The fellow at 11 is the guy who had the Kaboom. He was running a Savage .338 Lapua.

After the boom, I heard Ren ask "Are you alright" and then turned to look in time to see the fellow reacting in total shock. Literally stunned.

Ren and I went over to him and could not see any major injuries. Ren was uninjured as well but had a lot of fiberglass splinters on him.

The barrel nut is what I presume punched the two holes in the roof. One was ~ 1" square, the other about half that size.

The shooter is a regular there and is a pretty smart guy. He had been having a problem with sticky cases though he said he was certain the loads were mild. That's why he was content to knock the sticky ones out with the rod.

He simply forgot to remove the rod after knocking out the last stuck case.

You can see what happened next.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much exactly it. I think there was one free bench between me and him. Luckily Alan was up in the club house, as Him and Michelle would have been right beside him at the time of the rapid field striping of the savage. Yes the action, barrel, scope, stock are all trashed.
 
#38
damoncali said:
Thanks for posting. It seems a common cause of these things is the damn cleaning rod. Makes me want to leave mine at home.
Click to expand...
You do know that the rods normally go from breach to muzzle don't you? :)
Bore sighters at the range worry me most. I saw a Remington M7 with a split barrel due to one being left on at the range.
Just thank one's lucky stars no one was seriously hurt by this one.
 
#40
I shoot pretty often. I take the normal precautions, but I forget on occasion just how dangerous these things sitting under my cheekbone can be. This sort of thing is a great reminder what can happen with just a momentary lapse in attention. Thanks for posting it.
 
#42
One of the many lessons to be learned here, is that you defiantly want to make sure you keep your free/support hand behind the action when touching off a round.
Look at the Rifles only- Fight smart training facility add right above the Quick reply section.
That shooter would be in a world of hurt if that happened when he touched off a round.
I'm happy to hear that everyone is ok.
 
#45
This also shows just how good the bolt action design is. The pressure in that thing was probably 100k psi or more, and the failure directed the bad stuff in just about the safest way possible. Think about how many tons of bolt thrust that was pushing the bolt straight back at the shooters face with no ill effects. Everything fails in the right order. Amazing from an engineering perspective.
 
#50
This happened at around 1:45 pm. The injured shooter was still shooting his other rifles when I left at 3:30.

He fucked up, pure and simple and he never said a word to the contrary.

I offered to put a bandage on his arm wound but he decline several times.

After about an hour he asked me if I wouldn't mind grabbing my first aid kit after all! The band aid he had on that ding was soaked with blood and running down his arm. Of course, I kind of figured it wasn't just a little boo boo when I offered to bandage him 45 minutes earlier!

He's a polite, decent guy who is a regular there and shoots a lot of really nice rifles.

He is also damn fortunate that he caught a break. And so are Ren and myself as the shit that blew through the steel roof was going fast enough to rip through him or us.

I prefer to be both lucky AND good!
 
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