Bulged barrel On a Winchester Model 70 .308 Win.

Gil Martin

I was working as a Range Safety Officer today at our local gun club and had a number of folks shoot on our rifle ranges. One fellow and his buddy were sighting in their rifles in preparation for our upcoming bear and deer hunting seasons. They were on the 100 yard range, fired a few shoots and then departed. Shortly afterward they returned. I welcomed them back and they told me that a rifle barrel was bulged during sighting in. They had no idea what happened to cause the barrel damage because they were shooting factory ammo. I suspect there may have been a bore obstruction of some kind. No one was injured, but a nice pre-64 Winchester rifle barrel was ruined. It pays to be very careful and check the bores before shooting. All the best...
Gil

Elvis

better a bulged barrel than one blown up...... at least no one was hurt.

Vince

A couple of very lucky guys...it could have been a lot worse mate. This is testament to the quality and strength of the older firearms.

Fit a new barrel and start the load development again...but check for obstructions this time.

slimjim

surprised they came back ...

Elvis

saw something on another forum this week and thought to share....chap was trying out subsonic load in 7.62x39mm (it would now have to be a bolt action or single shot) he tried his old load from another rifle with a steel cased pulled milserp projectile....trouble being it got stuck a ways down the bore....he tried tapping it out with cleaning rod but it would not budge....so he packed barrel from breach with black powder,filled a primed case with same black powder,closed bolt on it...tied to tree and fired it....result,no more obstruction in bore and zero damage to rifle
thinking outside the square....
theory was you cant overload with black powder,it just goes out end of barrel.

reminded me of the saga with Slimjim???? awhile back,what was solution now...freezer and water hydrolics or somesuch???

Aloysius

I would hesitate to try that out, except when it's a lead bullet. When a jacketed bullet got stuck well enough, you cannot imagine what kind of destruction black powder is capable of.

Vince

Aloysius wrote:

I would hesitate to try that out, except when it's a lead bullet. When a jacketed bullet got stuck well enough, you cannot imagine what kind of destruction black powder is capable of.

Yes, I agree Aloys. Unlike smokeless powder, black powder doesn’t so much burn as explode. It was the “go to” explosive before things like dynamite were invented.

Elvis

it seems he got away with it...this time.maybe the tieing to tree bit was a good idea after all. I do know bottle neck cartridges arent such a good idea with BP...the x39mm is rather similar to 303 brit or 3030 in that its a gentle taper with small shoulder.