Let's make a list of all the kabooms you are personally aware of, as follows:

Gun make and model

Ammo manf. or handload

Any other info you think relevant

Only KB (destroyed rifle) I ever witnessed was an old M1 carbine. Uncle forgot to do the thing my Dad reminded me do do upon chambering the first round in M1 carbine. Always whack the op-rod handle to make sure it's in battery and locked up.

Blew the right side off rifle, stock and metal bolt parts, Dad and I (standing behind and off uncle's right shoulder) got shrapnel in faces, arms and shoulder, Uncle was unscathed.

Not sure I blame this on the weapon as he had been shooting rifle and reloaded a mag forgeting the above step.

Mike

Only one I've seen was a Super Redhawk - double-charged.  Not a lot left.  No major injuries.  Not mine, and I didn't do it - it occurred at the Tucson Rifle Club, and the pictures are posted in the office to remind people TO BE CAREFUL!

Original 1911, not Armory rebuild.

Shooting surplus ammo, first shot was a low charge, projectile stuck in barrel.  Follow up shot bulged barrel, splitting barrel, and scaring the shit out of me.

Number of injuries - 0
Number of times I pissed my pants - 3

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Winchester single shot 12 gauge goose gun (Full choke)

Using handload 12 gauge, 3 1/2" magnums.  Powder measuring device failed, dumping a double powder charge, of a hand mix of fast burning and slow burning powder, making a very hard hitting powder.  First clue this happened was I was looking up at the sky with a broken collar bone, a barrel that looked like a Geissler tube, and my best friend laughing his ass off.  Supposeably the recoil lifted me off the ground and had the visual muzzle effect of a shoulder fired howitzer.  I was 13 at the time, and prolly weighed 100-110lb or so.

Number of injuries - 1
Number of times I pissed my pants - 87

AMT 45 backup
split the barrel right down the middle.
no injuries.

This is a great topic.

Jeez, if I stick to the "technical" definition of kB!, I've never had one.

I did break the bottom barrel lugs off of a Springfield 1911 once though - it was at the end of an 800 round day.  The slide came back, stripped a fresh round off the mag, and continued to fly off the end of the pistol landing about 8 feet in front of me.  I just stood there looking at the frame in my hand.  I didn't know whether to shit or cut bait.

The fault, of course, was mine.  It was an aftermarket "drop-in" barrel that broke, and not the fault of Springfield Armory.

My G21 is a retired range gun that's had umpteen thousand reloads through it, 3 years ago I switched to an Accu-Match barrel (w/ a much tighter, fully supported chamber).  It's a machine.  I've only had my G34 for a few months so I haven't given it much of a chance to explode in my hands yet - we'll have to wait till after this Fall to see if it will.

SA 1911A1

Our fault, using reloads for Ruger.  14.4gr HS6 with 185gr XTP's

Blew back end of slide off rails, mag out of well, extracter missing, and firing pin/retainer gone.

Funny thing is, rounds make awesome pig load in my Ruger

______________________________________________

Rem 870P

Winchester 2 3/4" 00B

Blew barrel and cracked foregrip--Remington promptly replaced

While not really a kB, my S&W 22A top strap/rear sight broke off.

I was using standard remington .22 ammo.

Wasn't hurt, just pissed. S&W said to send it to them, but I haven't had time yet. Hopefully they'll fix it. I really love the gun; it's as accurate as a model 41 at a much lowrr cost.

Para ordnance P-13 .45

Winchester 185gr Silvertips

It was the best thing that ever happened to that pistol.  I don't think it ever shot more than 50 rds without some kind of malfunction.. even after a few trips to a gunsmith.

My son had an  Inland M1 Carbine blow on him. Hand reloaded ammo. I assume a squib load, but he must have missed it as he is not a very experienced shooter, and we weren't there with him.
Blue Sky barrel bulged and split slightly about 4" forward of the chamber, top hand guard blew off. No other damage or injury.
We have rebarreled the gun, and replaced the upper hand guard, gun works fine again.
Edited to add:
Almost forgot about the Mac-11 that had a port explosion on me once. Bulged the metal around the port, and slightly cracked the top of the Zytel mag. No injuries.

Sig P229 .40 Cal.
Using Rem. Golden Sabres I don't really know what happened but my hand started bleeding and my extractor was somewhere down range The whole damn bottom of the case was blown off though and the rest of it was stuck in the barrel.

I can honestly say, that in all my years  of handling a firearm(since I was 9), I have never had a Kb. This includes owning and shooting Glocks for the past 3yrs.

Ruger Super Blackhawk
240 grain semi-jacketed Remington ammo I believe

My fault, barrel obstruction.  Damn river mud came up end of open holster off four wheeler, plugging barrel.  Pulled, shot, bulged end of barrel and sent front sight sailing some friggin place.  no injuries except pride.  Ruger replaced barrel and front sight free, and that was after I told them what I did.

Springfield 1911A1

Handloaded Lead 185 grain.

DOUBLE LOAD!!! OUCH!!

Blew the mag out of the gun, dented 3 rounds....
No damage to gun...

New underwear????  Almost!

No KBs for me.
Still waiting for my Glock model 35 .40 cal to KB like they all say it will. [rolleyes] Over 1000 reloads and still shooting fine!

Thank god the only time I ever did anything that would have caused a KB it was on a revolver.

I was shooting a .38 at the range cone day. I fired and barely heard anything. The target was unscathed. So, I draw back the hammer cand fire again. This time, hot gases come pouring out around the cylinder.

I remove the cylinder and voila I have 2 rounds jammed in the barrel. The first stuck halfway down and the 2nd stuck behind it, causing the only exit path for the gas to be around the cylinder.

Not exactly a KB, but I fugred it was as close as I came.

SIG P229 in 357SIG.
Totally my fault, as I was one of the first to experiment with reloading the 357SIG cartridge (1995).  I tried using a standard 9mm (.355) FMJ, and it fell back into the case, causing a KaBoom.
Result:  The case blew the head off, and both plastic  grip panels blew out.  The extractor flew far, far away.  Never to be seen again. Otherwise, the gun was fine. $50 in spare parts and I was back in business.

Case rupture on a Japanese Type 99 rifle (6.5 mm).

Ammo was factory reloaded using cases that were originally 6.5 Japanese semi-rimmed, which was used in machine guns.  The rifles took 6.5 rimless.  The cases appeared to have had bullets pulled, been lathe-turned to remove rims, then resized and reloaded (factory Berdan primers in place).

Turning down 6.5 Japanese semi-rimmed to rimless is a bad, bad thing to do.  If you ever get any Japanese ammo that looks like it has been altered in that manner DON'T SHOOT IT!

All your Kb's are belong to us.

I can't believe I was the first.  

Next what's a Kb?  I have been around firearms for a little over 20 years and never heard the term.  The only thing I can come up with is Kaboom!

1- M1918 BAR. Fired out of battery. Damaged bolt, charging handle, and destroyed magazine.
Cause-improper primer.(Too sensitive for open bolt MG) in handloaded ammo. Minor injuries.Weapon was repaired.

2- M-2HB HMG- Fired with excessive headspace. Damaged feedcover, bent. Blew belt feed pawls off reciever. Cracked trunnion.
Cause- Operator error. Minor injuries.Weapon was repaired.(Very expensive repair!)

3- MkII STEN. Disintegrated mid burst.
Cause- Poor reweld. No physical injuries. Weapon was correctly rewelded.

4- BYF42 P-38. Blew top cover of slide, rear sight, and safety plunger..
Cause- Pierced primer, Czech surplus (NOT S&B)
No physical injuries. Weapon was repaired.

5- M-1911A1 Colt. Catastrophic case failure.Split stocks, damaged magazine. Minor physical injuries.
Cause- Unique lot of .45 ACP ammo, headstamp reads "CCC- " with an 80's date. Unusual two piece construction using a base coin swaged to a brass tube.
Minor physical injuries, weapon was repaired within minutes.

6- Ballester Molina. Case failure.
Cause- Ammunition failure, similar to above case. (This ammo is luckily, scarce.)
Barrel was swollen, slide spread. stocks split.
Weapon was repaired. Minor injuries.

Meplat-

Only one...PWA AR 15 with FNMI 1:7 NATO barrel.

Federal American Eagle brass, 23.1 grains of AA2520 behind a Sierra 80 MK, loaded to 2.55" OAL.

Case head failure due to thin case web.  Bolt split longitudinally in two places.  Magazine blown out and destroyed.  Bolt was stuck in barrel extension and carrier had to be driven out with a drift (from the bottom).

The remains of the case had almost 360 degrees of circumfrential failure immediately above the thin web.  Other cases (non-Federal) show 0.06-0.08" of brass above the upper extent of case failure.

Remaining lot of this brass was sampled for thin webs.  ~5% showed webs dangerously thin.

BTW, that was the 4th round of that string.  Using an LC case for the same load gives 2510 FPS with an SD of 18.  It ISN'T an overpressure condition as it doesn't happen even with Laupa cases (heavier than Federals).  Laupa delivers 2540 FPS with a 15 SD.

Most impressive so far...
EMF Colt 45 Replica.
Handload double stuffed.
Blew top strap off.
Blew cylinder in half.
The cartridge next in line ignited when the first one let go.
Shooter not hurt.
EMF replaced firearm for $150.00.

Custom 1911.
Hand loads.
Squib stuck in barrel.
Next round split bbl from lugs to 1 inch of muzzle.
Owner looked and felt pretty silly but fessed up.

FN 49 8mm Mauser
Hand loads.
Fired out of battery.
Blew bolt/carrier back and jammed in full open position.
Stock split from receiver forward about 18 inches.
Shooter shook up.
No other damage to rifle.

Parker-Hale Boltgun in 7 Rem Mag
Shooter fired 270Win in it.
Stock split forward of recoil lug about 3 inches.
No other damage to rifle.

FireStar 45acp
Hand loads (overloaded)
At about 4500 rounds the slide cracked by the lugs.
Importer replaced slide/bbl no charge

M38 Carcano Carbine in 8mm Mauser
Hand load of 55.7gr of Win231.
Remote fired to see what would happen to action/bolt/firing pin.
Wow! Handgrenade
I think shooter would have been killed.

Next up a 98 Mauser with the above ammo...

I forgot a really good one:
One day, my college (graduate) housemate received anew competition barrel for his new M1991A1 Colt.  Not wanting to wait to go all the way to the range, he decided to fill a trash can with water in the bathtub.  He then wraped the M1991A1 with a towel (presumably to muffle the sound) and proceeded to point the barrel down towards the trash can.  Without realizing it, he actually stuck about 1/2" of the barrel into the water.  KaBoom!  Split just like a cigar on Buggs-Freaking-Bunny.

Smith&Wesson Sigma-40 S&W caliber. Magazine destroyed and shooter received brass shrapnel in hands. Gun and loads sent to S&W. All S&W would say it that they don't approve reloads in their guns. When we checked the reloads all appeared to be within specs.

Local Police Dept. had two Glock 21's KB, Cause was improper reloads. Magazines and frame destroyed, no injuries.

Same local Police Dept. had a Glock 22 KB, The same dept attempted to keep this incident under wraps for obvious reasons [B)]. Magazine destroyed and damage to the frame. No injuries.

Colorado State Park Police (Resource officers or Rangers as they refer to themselves) had 3 Glock 22's out of an order of 40 have KB's. The guns had damage and the magazines destroyed. No injuries. The cause of these KB's appears to be improperly loaded commercial reloads.

Winchester bolt action stainless bull barrel rifle. Shooting factory ammo. Had a small KB gun was sent in and Winchester said it was fixed just a little out of spec. head-space. Gun was returned and shot about 20 times with the same federal ammo. On shot 21 had major KB destroyed the bolt,barrel. Sprayed the spotter (ME)in the face with shrapnel, shooter not injured. Thank GOD for safety glasses if I had not had them on and not have been looking thru binoculars I would have had a serious problem. Winchester replaced the gun but would not give any reason for the KB. I have heard that Winchester is having problems with their stainless barrels since FN took over.

Sig-Saur P-229 has a KB that blows out the extractor and spring. No injuries or other damage. Load was a Federal Hydra-Shock 155 gr. I called Federal and they were great. Wanted to know if there where any injuries and the damage to the gun and the lot number of the ammo. They then advised me that there was a recall on that lot number because of high pressure problems. I never saw any recalls. Federal paid for the parts to fix the Sig and offered to pay for the labor cost. Since I was the dept smith I declined payment for the labor. Federal sent me three boxes of ammo and sent the owner of the gun replacement boxes and also three extra box's for his inconvenience.  

M1A shooting that CBC crap mentioned above; incident occurred sometime in the mid 1980's.  Rupture split the case into the extractor groove.  No damage to the rifle (lucky).  Got gas into the face but was wearing eyeglasses.  Always wear eye protection!

I forgot about the CBC ammo adventure! Saw the remains of a SAR 4800 due to CBC ammo. The receiver ring separated. (All I saw was the stripped receiver)

Jennings .380 automatic that a friend bought.  Failed to go into battery but fired anyways - twice!  The first time it ejected the case (we couldn't find it anyways.)  Second time it didn't extract the case.  Blew a 1/4" hole through the case wall on the top side.

Years back I doing some reloading for my .357 mag for deer season.  When I finished up & was cleaning up the bench I noticed that I had used 2400 instead of 296 (compressed loads, too!)  I didn't have a bullet puller at that time, so I drove out to an old stone quarry that had about 60 feet of water in it.  That's where I laid them to rest.  That would have been a [b]major[/b] KB if I hadn't caught it.

Makes mental note to self:  Keep your head out of your a$$ when reloading, -kid!!

Glock 21 S&B factory ammo
I had shot many thousands of factory rounds with no problem over several years before this.

I've only had one "explosive" range event, with a Colt's Double Beagle and MagSafe 10mm "Mach 1.5" rounds. It was a watershed moment for me, and is related in [b][url=http://communities.prodigy.net/sportsrec/gz-gunwriter.html]Inside The Gunzine Game[/url][/b].

But the all-time [url=http://communities.prodigy.net/sportsrec/gz-762d1.html]horrific catastrophic failure[/url] occurred just over a year ago, and caused considerable disorder and fear all over the firearms Internet forums…

• Dean, jus' visitin' from [b][url]http://www.TheGunZone.com[/url][/b]…

Glock 22

From small town police dept. Was not present for the KB but saw the results afterward. CorBon ammo, Barrel Chamber had ruptured, pushing up the top part of the chamber and had cracked about a 1/4 inch of the slide just forward of the ejection port. Locked in battery, slide and frame stayed together.

No further info on incident.

I have never had one personally, but one time my dad had a Beretta shotgun blow up on him. The blast knocked into a lake, but he was unharmed. No one could tell him why. He was shooting reloads, but none of the smiths he took it to said that it looked like an overcharged round.

Another time I was taking a friend out to shoot for the first time. We were setting up to shoot in the pistol stalls at Renton Fish and Game Club Range when we hear a noticably louder than usual shot and 1/3 of a revolver's cylinder came flying through the stall's wall where my friend was just standing (it missed him by 6"). The guy two stalls down was shooting reloads he bought at a gun show. He caught a piece of the cylinder leaving a gouge in his forearm that was 1/2" wide, 3" long, and bone deep. We spent the first 20 minutes of the day picking up the remenants of the handgun. My friend was a little nervous about shooting after that. He still shoots with me regularly though.

Kyle

yeah ive seen pics of that

2 kbs i witnessed
USP in 9mm dont know the load
and a 45 colt S.A.A clone that KB with a double charge

Only 2 interesting times and no injuries:

MAC-10...ejector ripped off the bottom of a round, then when the next round hit the old one, blew out the side of the shell...drama-but nobody to my right.

STG-58...major case seperation, ripped off the case end, blew out the bottom of the clip and dumped a bunch of shells on the bench.  An "Ooooo Ahhhhh" moment.

WOW!  Lot's of firearms getting touched off!  

2 w/same gun.
vector uzi, out of battery, hirteburger L2a1- or whatever that hot carbine ammo that atf stopped import of was called.

at first the gun only functioned with the hottest loads. kaboom.
bolt damaged, topcover bowed, magazine lips bent, minor powder burns on face.
sent it back to vector, then it did it again- same result.
this time sent gun and sample ammo.
vector sent it back with the explanation that they had some barrel alignment issues due to heat treating the recievers. gun shoots everything i feed it now. no complaints.
never had a semi kb (yet), but these things happen with full autos.

oh, not really a kb, but my eagle arms m15a2 bolt broke in half at the cam pin.

[url]http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?id=33150[/url]

A near-KB with an aluminum framed Manurhin P-38, and my mild lead bullet reloads.

After shooting a few thousand rounds with only a hundred scrounged casings ( I was just a kid), the casings became fatigued.  They were so tired, that 10 or so of them were incapable of placing any "neck" tension on the bullets.

So, the lead bullets became pushed in till they sat on the powder charge.  After about ten rounds, the slide became balky.  I looked at it, and it was cracked almost completely in half on both sides, near the locking lug cutouts. Couple more rounds would have finished me off.

An American Rifleman article I read later, mentioned that when you push 9mm bullets a little too far into the casing, it DOUBLES the pressure.

OOooops, guess a dozen proof loads was 10 or 11 too many.

------

Only other instances which could be considered "close" were reloads without a powder charge.  Had a few instances of .38 LRN bulletsw stuck halfway down the barrel of my M 19.  I caught it each time.

When you get a strange, weak recoil sensation, stop and look for bore obstructions.

Never had one, but came pretty close.  It was with an Egyptian Maadi AK, and I was shooting Russian ammo.  Not sure of the ammo manufacturer.  When I shot, there wasn't the usual amount of kick and it just felt funny.  I almost pulled the trigger again, but decided to check it.  When I ejected the case, unspent gun powder flew all over me.  Even got some in my mouth.  Didn't taste good.  I looked down the barrel and saw that the bullet was lodged half way down.  Good thing I checked it.  I cleared it and haven't had another problem with the rifle or ammo since.

I had two factory reloads go off out side the gun after being cycled out for not firing.  One detonated putting me on the ground, with a few brass fragments in my arms chin and stomach, 10 or fifteen rounds later another fail to fire cycled out and lit on fire.  I returned the batch of factory reloads and got factory new ammo.  When I was 12 fired a double barrel that was not latched closed, left a cicular bruise on my forehead, in the mirror it had unbruised lettering "12 gauge peters"

1911 with Briely brand Ti ring bushing.

45 handloads (not factor)

Fired, felt weird, slide stayed back, dropped mag and tried to push forward, noticed something very wrong with front of gun

Found spring, rod, and front half of bushing between about 5 foot out and just before the 10 yard targets. Ring was MIA.

Over the last 7 years I had the bushing in and 20k plus rounds (guessing from bullet orders, I like to order in 2k lots) the ring had worn its groove in the bushing to the width of construction paper and then broke.

Gun was fine, I replaced rod, spring, and plug in addition to bushing JIC.

Mine:
Cracked the cylender of my Ruger GP100. Attributed to a bad lot of CCI Blazer 158Gn JHP.

Witnessed:
Centurian 15 with "bulk packed" surplus IMI ammo. Blew the extractor, mag catch and floorplate off.

saw a couple of kb's:

colt series 70 1911 in .45 acp. handloads. blown primer/case...caused the top mag round to ignite, blew grip panels off and ejected the mag. shooter suffered only a bruised hand, the pistol was repaired, later.

e.a.a. .44 mag wheelgun. pierced primer. blew the loading door off, bent the frame, seized the cylinder, broke the trigger. shooter suffered a badly split lip, as the primer blew backwards and hit him.

i helped clear a full auto 1928 thompson that suffered REPEATED squib fires! dang thing! we used a piece of 3/8" allthread to drive out two slugs AND a ruptured case on one of the stoppages! yet, the ol' tommie gun suffered no damage!

I once bought some Australian Winchester subsonic .22 LR at a gun show.  When I touched off the first one in my Ruger 77/22 it blew the magazine to little bits and the extractor departed for parts unknown.  No part of the magazine was bigger than a dime.  Thanks to Ruger for a sturdy gun.  I can't say much for those Winchester .22s.

Beretta 92SF.
Georga Arms 115gr "Canned Heat" (reloads)
Blast in the face and the slide locked back tight.

The guy at Georgia Arms said it was likely a case failure.  He claimed Winchester brass was thin at the web.  I still like their ammo.

It wasn't really damaged, just the trigger bar pushed out and the slide locked back.
Beretta fixed the gun - no charge.  
I have to admit I'm a little more comfortable with my Glock now. [BD]