Well heres the story, please excuse any typo's or grammatical errors as it is a little difficult to type using the entire left hand and only the thumb and index finger of the right. I think I did pretty good though.

Me and a few friends decided to go target shooting as we always do while my friend is home on leave from Camp Lejeune. After a fight to get to another friend's house where we were shooting (we had a lot of setbacks) we finally got to shooting. I put one mag through my new Glock 19 and put that down for my Mosin-Nagant M91/30. Loaded up from a stripper clip after fighting with that, preceded to fire 4 of 5 rounds just fine. 5th round didn't come out of the magazine enough to contact the bolt so I pushed it down to see if it would come back up, nothing. Dropped the plate and pulled the round out from the bottom, closed the plate back up and re-inserted the round into the top of the magazine, pushed the bolt forward and BOOM. Round exploded with the bolt approximately 1/4 to 1/3 closed and sprayed gunpowder and shrapnel into my right hand.

Spent around 8 hours in the ER, with at least 3 of those waiting for a damn room. Spent 2 hours picking out unburned powder out of my hand and then get told that only one of the original 5 pieces of metal showing up on the X-ray was pulled out. So as it sits right now I've seen an orthopedist who told me they are more then likely going to leave the shrapnel in unless it causes problems. Not my best day. Just thought I'd share and see if maybe anyone had an idea of how this happened.

I know, I know... Pics or it didn't happen. Sorry for the quality, can't find my gf's digital camera so these are from my cellphone.
The white/gray color is from all the antibiotic ointment they practically poured onto my hand. In the first picture it is hard to see because of the quality but there is actually a piece of the casing sticking out of my hand between my thumb and index finger.

This is before any cleaning, just while I was sitting in the ER just after getting my room and having a nurse look at the hamburger hand.


This is the next morning.


Notice the almost perfect outline of the Mosin-Nagant's ball and stem bolt handle on my hand.


As of about an hour ago.


Haven't gotten the rifle back yet. State police looked at it with my friends trying to explain what happened, they didn't take it though. It's still at the friend's house where we did the shooting. When I get it back if my friend's haven't touched it I'll post some pictures. I've been told that pieces of the casing are stuck under the bolt and that the bolt is stuck about half way open. Apparently the round actually contacted the breach but didn't enter the barrel. Will update when I get a look at the rifle.

Damn, Bro!

Sorry to see this, but glad it wasn't worse. I'm also curious to see if you can come up with a reason for why it happened. What type of ammo were you using?

Get well soon!

Ouch, that sucks.

What flavor of ammo were you using?

I am wishing you a full and speedy recovery.

in!


(for info and spec)

That looks like it smarts.  




Hope it heals quickly.
Consider this a tag for info before I go shooting my 91/30 or M44 again.  

Did you gauge your firing pin protrusion in your 91/30 before firing it?



You'll note that the 91/30 tool that was issued with these rifles has notches in it to check firing pin protrusion when you reassemble your rifle's bolt.  The above pictures are why.



Get well soon.

OST

What kind of ammo were you using?

Possibly sear broke?

Or possibly something hard on the bolt face struck the primer?

ETA:  Similar out of battery fire happened to me with 9mm.  Little sharapel missed my left eye and lodge under the skin.  It healed up and I didn't know the sharapanel was under the skin until couple of weeks later.  I had to cut it open and take it out.  Not a big deal.  Wife couldn't do it and did not want to go to the doctor.  Just a littlem lump now.

Sounds like a sear broke, or something in the bolt.  Sounds like when the bolt went to turn in to lock into battery it let the firing pin go with the bolt half open... Damn lucky it happened with the bolt half way closed, could have been bad if it would have went boom, and the bolt was fully open.

Definatly looks bad, but I'd say you were pretty lucky, considering.....

Definatly want to see pics of the rifle, when you get able to post them...

Now that I have studied my M44 here, I have noticed the rifle will go off out of battery, in pretty much any position, if the trigger is pulled.  If you do this with the rifle empty if will just shut the bolt all the way, but if a round is in there, it would go off out of battery.  I doubt you pulled the trigger while you were working the bolt, but I'm thinking maybe the pin between the trigger and sear has broke, or the sear broke, or something in those lines.

You guys with mosins, take your rifle, and pull the trigger with the bolt half closed, and see what I mean.  Something in the trigger group broke. Either that or the bolt has failed, but that's not really likely IMO.

Goes to show it pays to disassemble the rifle and inspect every thing before firing.

Good to see it wasn't any worse, hopefully you'll heal up quickly. Hand injuries.... been there. I'm curious to see the rifle too.
think the ER wait is long now, just wait until O's "change goes into affect...

damn  

in for the definitive analysis of what happened and pics of the rifle. Hope your hand heals up, that looks painful

holy crap! I just gave 3 of those exact rifles to family as gifts!

Hope you heal up fast.  You will never forget that incident.

TAG for more info.



Sorry to hear that happened I am just about to pull the trigger (figuratively and literally) on an M44 so I wold be interested in seeing more info.

Quick post before I go look for my girlfriend's camera to take pictures of the rifle.

After inspecting the rifle it appears that what MIGHT have happened is that the round jumped out of line with the chamber and the lip around the bolt face hit the primer, setting the round off. Reason behind this odd explanation is that the lip has a small section that appears to have been hit hard and has been flattened out a little and is much more shiny then the rest of the lip. The extractor is pretty much gone and the stock cracked top and bottom from the rear screw almost to the buttplate. The whole receiver appears to have been warped by the blast and the magazine plate now has a lot more wiggle room.. Will post pictures of the rifle soon.

ETA: Ammo was 1980's Russian surplus I believe. The rifle never actually fired, the bolt was still cocked. I never gauged the firing pin. Didn't know enough to, but as it never actually fired I guess it doesn't matter much.

Also a friend who was with me wrote down the serial number and stopped by the gunshop we go to, where both the rifle and ammo were purchased, and told the owner and employees what had happened. They told him to let me know that if I brought the rifle in they would give Century International Arms shit and try to get me a brand new rifle. Honestly I don't know if I'll ever fire another bolt action, much less with confidence.

ETA2: I want to make sure everyone is aware that this wasn't my first time firing this rifle either, I had a good 200-300 rounds through it before this whole event. Pics on the way.

I'm sure they will be fine. That looks like a freak accident of some sort.

OP sorry to hear about your hand that looks awful. Get well soon.

Well that sucks.  Darn Commie rifles are still hurting Capitalist 60+ years later.

Alright here come the pics.

Bottom of the magazine notice the large gap that wasn't there before.


Missing extractor.


Bottom of bolt.


Crack on top of stock.


Crack on bottom of stock.


Receiver sans bolt.


Next few pictures are all different close ups of the bolt.






In that last picture of the bolt face you'll notice 2 bright spots on the lip of the bolt. One is by the channel where the ejector goes and the other is about half way between the ejector channel and where the extractor used to be. That bright spot is where I think the bolt contacted the back of the round possibly setting it off. Yes I know the bolt face is dirty.

Tagged with great interest, as I recently bought my first MN.

I wouldn't let this get to you to the point you don't want to fire another bolt action. Sounds like a freak occurrence that shouldn't stop you. Sorry to hear about your experience and as all above have said, we wish you a quick recovery.

Thank God for pics of the rife because I was beginning to think you screwed up your hand by violently masturbating.  That being said, I'm glad your OK and that it's was a 91/30 and not a all matching German K98 or something else not easily replaced.

Holy balls that's disturbing.  Any plans to take it to a gunsmith to try and find out what happened?

No, that's disturbing.

Sorry to hear about your hand.  That must have been an experience that... shook you up a bit.  I think I would have to go change my pants afterward =D.

As to Mosins, I own 5 now, and have fired many hundreds of rounds out of them over the years.  I have never had a failure with any of them, so to those who are worried about mosins they bought recently or are considering don't let this change your minds.  Just remember you should inspect ALL used firearms very carefully before using them.  With surplus rifles checking the headspace and firing pin protrusion is key.  There are many great resources on the internet for Mosin Nagants that will explain all of this to you.  Not to disparage the OP, just some words of advice.

I pulled the bolt out of one of mine and did some comparisons with a cartridge.  It looks like if I match the edges of a cartridge up with the areas where there are "bright spots" on your bolt that the lip of the bolt face does indeed cross the primer nicely.  I still think there would have to be some foreign object debris of some sort there to make it go off, however, since the primer is flat with the rear face of the round and there is nothing protruding past the lip of the bolt face.  Could be a bad combination of multiple problems:
1.  Round somehow got off track
2.  Foreign debris happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time
3.  Bolt was closed with enough force to set off a primer.

Question for the OP:  When you say the bolt was 1/3 closed, do you mean it was 1/3 of the way moving down the channel, or was it fully forward and 1/3 of the way turned into the locked position?  I assumed the former when I read your post, but several responses seem to be assuming the latter (such as the person pointing out that pulling the trigger can cause the bolt to "close", which is only true once it is seated forward).

Might as well get your rifle replaced if you can.  If you don't feel confident checking out the new one yourself, send it off to a qualified gunsmith.  They shouldn't charge you much to check it over and headspace it for you.

Take care.

Is it possible that you lost track of the number of rounds in play? That's not a jab so please don't take it that way. Here's a theory: You are having a difficult day and everything is complicated and not working smoothly. You are having trouble with the feeding/chambering of the Mosin. You lose track of the rounds fired. Something gets "bobbled" when attempting to chamber a round and you wind-up with an unfired round chambered but not under the control of the bolt face/extractor. You draw back on the bolt but a new round, presumably the fifth and last round in the mag won't feed (possibly because the already chambered round interferes with the vertical rise of that last round). You remove the jammed round and reinsert it into the mag. When you push that round forward, the pointed end of the bullet hits the primer of the chambered (and forgotten) round. That's the only explanation I can conceive for your description of what happened:

"...re-inserted the round into the top of the magazine, pushed the bolt forward and BOOM. Round exploded with the bolt approximately 1/4 to 1/3 closed and sprayed gunpowder and shrapnel into my right hand".

This sounds more real.  Even if the firing pin were protruding it wouldn't go off until the bolt was being closed.  To touch off the primer takes some amount of force.  Simply sliding a bolt forward won't do it, you would need to slam the bolt forward hard with the palm of your hand.  I see the bolt knob outline on your palm, were you forcing it shut?  Where exactly was the bolt when it went off, sliding down the rail or were you closing it. Seems that is the way you are explaining it you were sliding it forward after picking up the shell.  I have well over twenty MNs of all sorts and have never experienced a problem chambering a shell where it was hard enough to set off a primer, they actually feed fairly well.  The only other thing would be a badly damaged case / bent or creased that would not allow it enter the chamber stopping it about where you seem to describe it.  I hope your hand heals up ok, thank God it didn't hit your eyes or blow crap up under your shooting glasses.

wow that's a drag man.  I hope you heel up fast.

I must admit, the bolt outline on your palm made me chuckle

tag

That is weird. It'd be nice to know exactly what happened.

Thank God your a'ight!

Sound like we need to send this to Mythbusters.........

No, I did not lose track. When I said I re inserted the round into the magazine I meant I opened the bolt fully and visually inspected the problem, there was only one round in play at this point and all previous rounds had been extracted and ejected perfectly. I had the rifle down at my hip and not shouldered at this point because of the difficulty I was having with the last round jamming in the magazine. To be honest with all the trouble I was having with it I should have just tossed the round instead of fiddling with it but I was frustrated and happen to be stubborn.

Edited for clarity and grammar.

The bolt was moving down the channel when the round went off.

I'm going to take it to the gunshop where I purchased it as soon as I get the chance and see what they think. I'm for sure not gonna stop shooting, but I think I'm done with bolt actions at least for the near future. If they can't get me a new rifle I'll just keep this one and mount it on the wall or something.

I wouldn't let this scare you, or anyone, away from Mosins, or bolt actions, in general. Actually, I think your much more likely to have a "Kaboom" with a semi-auto.

damn that's nasty.  at least you still have your eyes.

I think in the end, it was a once in a bazillion chance of it happening, and it happened.  Kinda like getting hit by lightning.  I'll definatly pay more attention to chambering rounds now.

I smell a Mosin O' Truth section... Just kidding, lets not have you mimic my painful experience as I already took one for the team.. Not being an expert it was the only conclusion I could come to. I'll post with results of check up with orthopedist and gun shop visit.

OT - Does this mean I'm famous now that Old_Painless has responded to my thread? When's the next Box O'Truth update gonna be O_P?

Well, I guess you could look at it that way.



Except YOU were the Box O' Truth.      









 

WOW! I fire my Mosins on a regular basis and have never had a major problem like that. Glad you aren't seriously hurt.
I'm also curious, was the bolt all the way forward, just not locked into battery when it went off?
Now you have a scar similar to that Nazi guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark. His was a medallion though..

Sorry for the misfortune but count your blessings as it could have been worse.  Glad that you are ok and keep us posted.
Nice to see it looks like you are healing up well already.  

Please post this at www.gunboards.com on their Mosin Forum.  Those guys are the foremost experts on all things Mosin-Nagant.

Do you have any pics of what may be left of the case, probably not much left?  Would like to see the primer area and what is left of he case if anything.  Man you got lucky should have bought a lotto ticket that day in case you had any luck left.

Snowman357

KB7DX - The bolt was in the process of being pushed forward when the round exploded. My best guess is about 1/3 of the way closed, but it may have been more.

The_Insider - I'd rather not join yet another forum, having trouble keeping track of the ones I already belong to. However, if you feel so inclined you are welcome to post a link to this thread for them.

snowman357 - What case? There were only small fragments of the case left. There were two larger pieces of it found. One sticking out of my hand between my index finger and thumb and one visible by x-ray that is still in the center of my palm, under the skin. I may go looking for the rest of the case in the spring when all the snow goes away. Until then and even then it will be very difficult to find.

Speaking of snow, the day this happened the temperature was about 22*. Could the cold have had an ill effect on this? My other thought was that the round had cooked off, but only firing 4 rounds before it and with the action not fully closed I wouldn't think there would be sufficient heat to have that type of malfunction happen.

I have seen this once before, actually, also with a Mosin. That one was an M44 using E. German ammo. That one went off on the first round. Chamber was clear, magizine loaded, first round to be cycled detonated with the bolt maybe halfway cloed. Don't know what hppened, and my friends hand looked similar to the OPs. We never did figure out what happened, but at the time e thought defective ammo and all present disposed of our E. German ammo on that theory. Until now I hadn't seen or heard of anything like it happening. That was probably 10 years ago. Starting to wonder if my assortment of Mosins should be wall hangars though.

Glad you're relatively ok though.


Cpt. Redleg

Understandable. I don't recommend it.

This is a real possability I own 7 currently and love the guns, but this could happen I caught myself before almost doing this very thing. Do noit let this turn you off MN's are great and sturdy guns. Get the checked by a smith there is a possabiity of salvage if checked.

I wonder if you had a high primer?

I have seen them, albeit very rarely, in military surplus (and even in factory ammo) and if that edge of your bolt caught a high primer as you slammed the bolt home.....