Went out to the range today to re-zero the ACOG on my Bushmaster AK brake shorty.  I also brought out my Maadi ARM AK to burn up some of the cheap Wolf 7.62X39 I have laying around. I loaded 5 rounds of Q3131 into the Bushy and proceeded to fire a 5 shot group, all 5 hovering around 1" to 1.5", looked good to me. I had some loose 5.56 rounds on the bench when I loaded up 10 rounds of 7.62X39 for the AK and proceeded to shoot at some clays out at the 100 yard mark, was squeezing off some AK rounds, bang, bang, bang, POP. I stopped, put the AK down and waited a good minute before I picked it back up, muzzle still downrange, and removed the 30 rd. mag. I slowly pulled the bolt back and could see the end of the "BRASS" shell casing. Holy F*#%, I just fired a 5.56 in the AK. I don't know what I was thinking when I was loading the mag, but I was talking with some other shooters when I was loading the mag and obviously wasn't paying attention. I took the cleaning rod and ran it down the barrel and the 5.56 casing came right out, ruptured in the middle of the case, fire formed to .30 cal in the mouth. No blown primer, the rear 1/2" of  the case still the original diameter. Ran a patch through the bore of the AK, pulled it all apart, no barrel bulges, just alot of soot in the bore. Obviously the preasure in the chamber was quite low due to the .22 cal bullet and the .30 cal bore. I loaded up 1 round of 7.62X39 and squeezed off a round, went and recovered the empty, looked perfect. I shot another 100 rds. through the AK after that, no problems noted. I just think how lucky I was not to have an AK bolt imbedded in my forehead! My stupid mistake but it just goes to show that when you get distracted such things do happen. My motto has always been "It's better to be saftey concious than to be unconcious"

Never keep candles and firecrackers near the birthday cake!

Glad to hear you got through this one OK.
Thanks for the reminder.

Pics!  We need pics!  

oh well its a AK I am suprised it didn't work, I was amazed that the 7.62 could be loaded into my 223 mag.

About two weeks ago I was loading some 9MM on my Dillon 550.  My two year old strolled in and proceeded to play on my computer which I keep in the same area.  For about two minutes I loaded ammo and watched her at the same time.  Then, while placing a bullet, I noticed that I had DOUBLE CHARGED A CASE!  I realized that this wasn't a good idea so I stopped loading and played with my kid.  After she went to bed Idecided to check the other rounds that I had loaded by weighing them.  Sure enough, I found another one that was exactly 4.2 grains heavier than the others.  I set it aside and when I find my puller I'm going to verify the charge.

Lesson learned, and I managed to keep all of my body parts intact.

Glad to hear it turned out ok.

Why is only the front half of the .223 brass expanded?  Thicker walls toward the rear?

SB

Well.... I can't say that explanation does much for me

Is it possible that Troy is finally stumped?

No.... I can't believe it...

I am going to have to study this now.... I'll be dreaming about the physics of it for the next month... sigh...

SB

I shot a 9mm out of a 40 once by mistake....I was loading my mags out of a box of loose rounds and a 9mm must have been in the box.  It was fired out of a Glock...it formed the case to 40 size also.

medcop