I hope the link works, if not could someone fix it for me.  Truly amazing the amount of destruction to this guys rifle.

"http://communities.prodigy.net/sportsrec/gz-762d.html"

communities.prodigy.net/sportsrec/gz-762d.html

thanks sgtar15

ouch! that must have hurt!

This is an old story.  The Barrel was the culprit, totally substandard metallurgy.  It is actually pretty amazing this didn't happen earlier considering how screwed up that hunk of steel was.

icemanat, I remember seeing this before.  Where did the barrel come from?  Was it aftermarket or supplied by SA.

I saw this before somewhere.

I remember this one from an older post, but it still amazes me every time I see the pics. That was one of the sickest KB's I have ever seen, he was lucky to get through it without any serious injury.

Those nutty Germans.  
Still trying to win WWII, through sabotage, one kaboom at a time.

THe barrel was a total no-name.  It supposedly came from an armorer who had it left over from building some military rifles.

Another reason to only buy barrels from reputable folks. All the reputable barrel makers invest time and energy into testing the metallurgy of their barrel blanks before they touch tools to them.

Evidently the metallurgical composition of this barrel was such that it should have been rejected for rebar let alone a rifle barrel. It was all loaded with cracks and the rifling groove corners were acting as stress risers into the body of the barrel.

Just looking at the barrel and the cartridge case you could tell the barrel went first by the extrusion of the case into the barrel crack and the lack of cartridge pressure signs.

The shooter was real lucky. The orientation of the cracks minimized his exposure to fragments and high pressure gasses.