This may have been posted before, but I have never seen it on here. The story says a guy brought it into a gun shop for disposal after his "new load" did not work out for him. I bet he ruined a good pair of underwear.

I wonder if he took any shrapnel to the face?

I would assume a little anyway. I hope he had on some shooting glasses. Good example what carelessnes, stupidity, and plain out not knowing any better can do.

Lucky man!!!!!
Did he ever determine cause?
Double charge.
Over max hot charge
Wrong combo powder and SEE
Obstruction in barrel?

Wow, that is a chain fire. Never seen that happen on revolver...

.44 can be easy to double or even triple charge with the extremely fine grain powders. Always be careful!

Me neither. It appears it would have to be a tripple charged or wrong powder for it to get that hot.

Could out of time cylinder have done that?

That's a major FUBAR.

Ahh, a little duct tape would fix that right up!

I wonder if the recoil was significant???

Good ole eye and ear protection!


Another good reason for me not to reload.

Looks like a parts gun now! Can i get them grips?

perhaps a light load through a bullet just into the chamber then the next round had no where to go but out?

Just a theory.

Saw a cylinder on a ruger black hawk 45lc do that at the local indoor range in Sherman.

Guy said it was a hand load and that it was probably due to a charge of powder that didnt take up enough room in the case. Hence the reason Trail boss powder was created to take up more space in old school .45lc type cowboy action calibers.

I had never heard of that and if its true or not I dont know but it makes sense.....any of you guys heard of that?>

Interesting! I know you can make a big difference just from loading a 800 fps to a 1200 fps in 44 mag
I just have to wonder what fps that was loaded at?
(LOL)

Holy old thread.

Wow! That's my fear of what will happen to me one day with my luck.

Something like that is not really about luck. There was something definitely wrong with that load. Another reason not to trust a scale completely. I visually inspect every powder charge when loading. Too high or too low in the case would be easy to spot. Luckily, i have yet to find one. So it's either bad loading technique, or he was pushing the envelope way too much. Either way, no luck involved. Well, I guess he's lucky if he lived!

With some powders, it could have been an under charge as well.

Seen A Colt Python do that, turned out to be dual powder charge, he'd been loading some shot-gun shells and there was powder left in the tube and then 3031 was dumped on top of that.

I've had one bad experience with re-loads. Fortunately, not as bad this.

Guess I'm a wuss. I won't shoot anything but factory loads.

heck, it coulda been factory loads. I blew up a ruger m77 all-weather .308 with hornadays about 8 years ago. Either no powder or a light load in one of them that didn't get the bullet outa the barrel. Next shot... boom out the side of the barrel about 6 inches from the breech.

NO RELOADS for me.

man i don't even think shooting glasses would of saved him from that!

No reloads in my firearms except MINE.

Did he hit what he shot at?