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Posted: 5/4/2009 2:52:44 PM EDT
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I had my first kaboom today. I am posting the separately in hopes of getting my questions answered.
S&W M&P 15T C-Products stainless steel mag Some older PMP rounds had been hanging out for a while I had been shooting for a while today. I was doing some transition and movement drills and using some older ammo that I had lying around. About 6 rounds left in the mag. Bang. Rush of air down the chest. Rounds fall out of the bottom of the mag. Case extracted itself but had a vertical split down the side that was wider near the base and the primer was blown out. I ejected the mag body and stripped the gun down to inspect the bolt, carrier, upper, lower, etc. and all seemed to be good. I put it all back together, cycled the bolt and did a functions check. I manually cycled a few rounds through the weapon and it ejected them without a problem. After consulting a few guys on the range, I gave it a tentative test fire. Three rounds, fine. Fives rounds, fine. Ten, fine. My lucky day, game on. So… I shot about 100 more rounds with no issues. Then about halfway through a mag of wolf I pulled the trigger and hear a click of the hammer falling. I tried to safe the weapon and selector would not moved from fire. The bolt carriers is not in battery by about 3/4 of an inch and I can see the bolt in the star chamber. I could not get the bolt carrier to move more than a half an inch forward or back. Dropped the PMP shell case and the gun off at the local gunsmith today to get it fixed so no pictures to share yet. I doubt my luck was so bad as to have two bad rounds in a day. I suspect the bolt was damaged by the overpressure with the PMP shell and it took a while for the damage to cause on issue. Perhaps a bent extractor. I will know more when the gunsmith calls me back. In the meantime, I have searched for postings on the topic and have a couple of questions: What should I expect to be broken and need replacement? Extractor? Bolt? BCG? Will my upper be fine? Lower? How can I be sure? Should I send the gun to Smith? Should I throw the mag away? Thanks for any info / suggestions. |
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oh boy, ammo snobbery arises once again.
There's nothing wrong with Wolf as practice ammo. Get over it. Besides, he wasnt shooting wolf when the kb happened. My MRP upper functions FLAWLESSLY with wolf when mounted on a "carbine lower" with standard mil-spec carbine buffer tube, buffer, and spring. With my rifle lower (Standard A2 stock, buffer, spring) it doesn't quite make it all the way to the rear sometimes with wolf. I'll be clipping a few turns off the spring as soon as I have time to test. That should solve the problem. Either way. Its cheap, and can be very reliable. So why not use it? Oh and I dont want to hear "It will ruin your bbl" With the price difference between wolf and nearly any brass cased ammo, you could pay for a new bbl in 2000 rounds of shooting. Don |
Here's my professional WAG. That's wild ass guess. It's an industry term. 
So you had a split case. Next hundred rounds no big deal. You get a Wolf round to not fully chamber and it goes click. Of course it won't go on safe the hammer is down. I bet you didn't grab the charging handle and slam the buttstock down on the bench to extract a stuck round so I'm going with gunsmith gets the stuck round out in about five minutes time and everything is fine. You got the heebie jeebies after the split case and not surprisingly got overly cautious when the round didn't chamber. Think if the bolt broke. I think you could charge the weapon in that condition. Just a guess mind you. Good luck. |
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MK13 - Thanks for the helpful input. You are right that the split case gave me the creeps. I did collapse the butstock and bang the charging handle a few times pretty hard without result. I didn't want to get too "caveman" on the gun and make things worse so I stopped and took it to the smith. I hope that is all it is. If it is an easy fix I will be gald to pay him for the piece of mind to inspect the gun.
Primer - I did not find the blown primer but took a good look in the upper and lower when I inspected the rifle. I assume / hope it fell out the ejection port or the bottom of the mag well but will know to look for it next time. Thanks For those requesting pics, I won't be able to take any until I get the gun back. Stay tuned and thanks for looking. Absent pics, any general thoughts on what parts I need to be paying attention too post kaboom to make sure they weren't damaged? Thanks |
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Good news and bad news...
Good news is that the gun smith called and said there was a fired wolf round stuck in the chamber. He was able to get it cleared, inspected the gun, polished the chamber and declared all good fo only $25. Bd news is that I haven't been able to pick it up yet so still no pics. |
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Quoted:
Good news and bad news... Good news is that the gun smith called and said there was a fired wolf round stuck in the chamber. He was able to get it cleared, inspected the gun, polished the chamber and declared all good fo only $25. Bd news is that I haven't been able to pick it up yet so still no pics. Do you mean it was a squib? |
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Here's my take -
When the case split and the primer blew, it sent hot combustion gases down over the bolt face and the entire BCG and magwell. You didn't say anything about cleaning and lubing the gun after the incident, so if you were shooting a dry gun (the oil now cooked by the escaping gases), you developed a sticky bolt and consequent failure to go fully into battery. And technically, this wasn't a kb, was it - the gun didn't actually blow up on you. (Just being an asshole here.  )
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I haven't seen the wolf case yet so I don't know for sure but I believe it was fired and failed to eject.
Mike, you are correct that I didn't lube after the split case so it could have cooked all the oil out of the BCG. Question - If the gun is OK, should I sh$% can the mag that got blow apart? It seems OK but what do you guys think? |
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Dump the mag, just to be on the safe side, or turn it into a 1 rounder or a "no live ammo" trainer. Clean, inspect and re-lube every square inch of the working parts of the rifle, buy a few factory fresh boxes of ammo, perhaps some Black Hills, and do some slow fire testing. If all runs ok, eat up whats left of the Wolf and let the whole incident become a learning experience.
I shoot Wolf, hell I shoot whatever I can get my hands on. And I know that regardless of manufacturer or country of origin, KB's can happen with any bullet at any time. Glad you and the gun have come through unscathed. |
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