Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

[Boz330]

Went to a Silhouette match yesterday and the match director shows up with his left hand bandaged. First a little info on this guy. He is a retired Marine Major who went on to get a law degree afterwards. He is also a first generation German close to 80 or maybe in his early 80s. But he never got the Gene that makes Germans good machinist or mechanics. In fact he is as far from mechanically incline as anyone I've ever run across.

He never makes notes on sight settings or ammunition particulars and WILL NOT take advice from anyone. The guy has ruined more beautiful BPCRs than the law allows. HAMMER Mechanic comes as close to describing him as anything else.

To the story. He is checking the rounds that he has loaded for the match by chambering each round to make sure it will seat. He has a lot of trouble at matches with rounds stopping just short of allowing the block to come up. Instead of using a lever block he uses a wood dowel and a plastic hammer to tap (his words) the round home. He has a cleaning rod in the barrel to tap the obstinate tight rounds back out. Well he is using this procedure on a particularly tight round when it goes off. The bullet starts down the barrel but hits the cleaning rod and ejects it across the house. The case comes out the back where his hand along with the dowel and hammer is. It didn't look like his hand was too badly hurt. Fortunately for him he had the rifle lying across his legs so he wasn't directly behind it. The worst damage was apparently to a piece of antique furniture that the cleaning rod hit. The bullet itself was stuck in the barrel. I'm guessing that the cleaning rod acted like an obstruction and slightly bulged the barrel. Not sure where the cartridge case ended up. He took it to a gunsmith who spent 4 hours working on trying to remove the bullet with no luck. There is a new barrel on order. He said that his wife hasn't stopped ******** at him since the incident, imagine that. He has decided not to use a hammer and dowel rod as a seating tool anymore though.

BTW this guy isn't senile he still practices law. I don't know how many times my buddy and I have tried to explain to him case length and bullet seating depth and other common sense reloading practices but it goes in one ear and out the other.


Bob

[4060MAY]

A guy that I shot BPCR with has WW embedded in the bone on his left had, from doing the same thing...difference was he did it on purpose to drive the bullet into the lands
Fudd's first law of opposition, If you hit something hard enough, it will break

[waksupi]

Holy cow.

[w5pv]

The header said it all

[brstevns]

Like I have said a number of times, ( You can't fix Stupid!)

[Hamish]

"Match Director". ???? (Yeah, I know, it's usually whoever you can get to do it,,,,)

"Dowel and a hammer". ????? Hammer and firing pin?

Sounds like some serious questions need to be discussed.

[oldred]

The header said it all

You beat me to it!

[country gent]

You also have to watch the case pushers as some dont have a cit out relief for the primer and can push directly on the primer. I have seen other use the wood dowel as a "pusher" for stubborn rounds one guy even went so far as to make a wood tool for this od was rim dia and a 1/4" hole drilled in it to not touch primer. Using a impact tool for this just isnt using common sense. He must have really been "tapping" on it to detonate a primer though.

[Boz330]

Sounds like some serious questions need to be discussed.

Not anymore! Even this hard headed German Marine can learn something, although it took a little pain.
I think John Wayne said it best " if you are going to be stupid you better be tough".

Bob

[Ballistics in Scotland]

It is amazing just how many firearms accidents do result in no or very limited injury. But it isn't a thing you would want to count on. Practicing law is not conclusive evidence of non-senility, unless he was always like that. I don't believe a Marine Corps major is immune to constructive criticism, but I expect he gets it from people you don't hear much from. I am reminded of Ronnie Barker the comedian's definition of a practicing homosexual: "One what ain't quite got it right yet."

Something which brings the bullet to a standstill would almost certainly bulge even a thick barrel wall A slight bulge might even be undetectable on the outside. I don't think you could make things any worse by heating the bullet enough to melt it, or melt the core in the unlikely event that it was jacketed. At least this would probably yield a barrel worth relining.

It is a good thing he wasn't using a Martini, which is probably even more efficient at redirecting an escaping case upwards.

[bedbugbilly]

Hmmm . . . sounds to me like the guy needs to find a good lawyer and sue the pants off of the folks who made the rifle, casings, dowel, plastic hammer . . . surely a great "liability case"

Aren't you just glad you weren't around when all of that happened? I hope you all put a lot of room between him and your shooting station. The saying used to be "Physician, heal thyself. . . " . . in his case . . . sounds like it should be "Lawyer, sue thyself . . . ".

Lucky that he wasn't standing in like with the bore . . . .

[Huvius]

OK, now I have some experience reloading and most if my rifles are falling blocks and it has never, ever dawned on me to mallet in my tight fitting cases! Not even primed cases are forced into the chamber.
I guess there is no accounting for stupidity and honestly, I now find myself observing the line at the range before setting up next to someone who appears to be this kind of guy. Doesn't take much observation to get a good idea of who takes shooting as seriously as they should.

[Saltner]

In Italy there is a proverb ...
The mother of stupid is always pregnant and gives birth always so many twins.

[fishhawk]

Well Bob one thing for sure is you can always tell a German ..........(but you can't tell him much) and yes I am German.

[Kenny Wasserburger]

Scary! Guy should be banned from the range, has no regard for himself, or his fellow shooters let alone his equment.

KW

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Not anymore! Even this hard headed German Marine can learn something, although it took a little pain.
I think John Wayne said it best " if you are going to be stupid you better be tough".

Bob

Indeed he did, but someone else could have said that being tough is liable to suppress much-needed advice on the stupidity.

The actual incident still begs a few questions. What, for example, stopped the cartridge from chambering effortlessly? If it was neck diameter a force-fit would be dangerous, promoting excessive pressures. If it was the bullet hitting the end of rifling, that is fine in a .22 or other heel-bullet rifle. The block (not, for preference, the blockhead) forces a soft bullet into the rifling. With a large non-heel bullet you risk telescoping it into the powder space, or having the rifling pluck out the bullet, scattering powder into your rifle's internals, when you extract an unfired round. I can't believe a brief movement of the bullet before hitting needs such measures to avoid it.

Townsend Whelen found that tin-plated bullets gave wildly excessive bullet pull tension, as tested by instruments. But this didn't result in drastic overpressure, although having to accelerate a much heavier bullet would have done. Only when enterprising National Match shooters lubricated their bullets with forbidden grease, and it presumably filled the gap between case and chamber necks, did pressures become dangerously high. What I think this proves is that bullets don't actually pull out of the case. Gas expands the neck off the bullet, like blowing into an adhering surgical glove. This would make a case neck forced into a tight chamber neck quite dangerous.

The other question is why a gunsmith couldn't remove the bullet. Even if it couldn't be driven out (suggesting a deep bulge at the actual bullet location, which is unusual but possible), enough heat to melt an ordinary cast bullet wouldn't do a fraction of the harm already done. I have heard of a bullet jacket remaining in a bulge, and being shot through with pretty good accuracy Maybe this happened if the gunsmith drove the rod through the bullet.

[Boz330]

Well Bob one thing for sure is you can always tell a German ..........(but you can't tell him much) and yes I am German.

Lots of German blood in me as well, but I got the mechanical and the common sense Gene. Although my dad would probably take issue with the latter when I was young. Some of my common sense was acquired the hard way.

Bob

[Tackleberry41]

Doesnt take much to be a lawyer. The one my ex picked, simply the first one to show up in a search, was a complete idiot. Its a small town, hard to find any long time locals who dont know all about her. Said something to someone one day about that being her lawyer, they just rolled their eyes. Seems only reason she manages to stay in business at all is her husband is some sort of state senator.

Ranges are full of those of questionable intelligence. Was hanging out where my friend works, girl came in, wanted to rent a gun. Had a state permit, said she knew what she was doing. Didnt even know which way the rounds went in a mag, much less load the pistol. Somebody I knew years ago, forgot his ammo so grabbed some of mine, I tried to say 'no that wont...' already shoved it in, my neck sized hand loads that wouldn't allow the bolt to close so you could fire it. And couldn't get the bolt back. And a former cop, somebody who should know at least a little about guns, gave '9mm' to someone to test fire a gun, couldn't figure out why it jammed. Yea 9mm makarov does start w 9mm vs the vastly more common 9mm luger.

Not sure whats up w Germans. Lots of German blood, worked on every car line made in Germany. They make some very fine products, but always seem to find some way to really screw it up somehow. I was gracious in pointing out to the factory reps who would visit the dealer, there was a reason they lost 2 world wars. That if the old design began leaking oil after 30k miles, maybe some thought into improving the design, vs complaining to me that I fixed to many of them since the new design leaks even faster, and now takes more labor time to fix. Yea that 2 piece timing cover sure was a marvel of engineering, where a 1 piece unit wouldn't leak oil every 15k miles. They came up with all sorts of 'fixes' that never fixed anything, vs just making the cover one piece.

I really like H&K rifles, but maybe way up by the front sight wasnt the best place to put the cocking handle.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

In my town of 10,000 people three lawyers have been prevented from practicing in the last few years, that I know of. German blood includes every drop of my wife's, and the family have been agin every government since Frederick the Great. I suppose we should credit Germans with the courage of their convictions, said to be a virtue. But when a plan weeks or years in the making breaks down, the Germans are prone to run around in ever decreasing circles, or defend with their lives their belief that the Emperor does have clothes. The British will say amid götterdamerung and the Apocalypse combined "Will a new plan by lunch-time be all right?", and it may not be great, but it will do.

[Boz330]

Weeeell they do have some pretty good beers.

Bob