leak of explosive power in old .22 rifle

[veeveeaar]

I have just bought a .22 BSA single shot and was sighting the rifle. Inquisitively i wanted to try different types of ammo, IOF , CCI Mini Mag, REMINGTON etc. In this process, I loaded WINCHESTER LAZER ammo . The velocity was overwhelming. While trying my second shot using the same ammo, there was a powerful leak of explosive power from the chamber and it was scary. I have never seen such leak of gas and flame from that part of any gun. Friends please explain the reason for this.Is the gun at fault or the ammo?

[timmy]

Veeveeaar:

The problem could be either with the gun or the ammunition, or both. I father chamber of the gun is too large or damaged in some way, or if there is a problem with the way the action locks, this could cause the leakage you note. The cartridge case does not provide the strength to contain the pressure of a fired round, it only contains it by sealing the gaps in the action that are there by design. If the gaps to be sealed are too large, the case cannot seal them and there is a violent leak of burning gasses.

On the other hand, the case does have to have some degree of strength to do its job, or the same result can be experienced.

Given that you experienced the problem with the higher pressure ammo and not the lower pressure ammo, I would suspect the gun, but both the gun and the fired ammo would have to be examined to determine which one, the gun or the ammo, is at fault.

I would not be shooting the gun until you are able to locate the problem, or have someone look into it for you. Be sure to save your fired case(s) for this examination.

[marksman]

I hope I am wrong but the practice of polishing the pitted Chamber to sell a rifle at a good price is very prevailant in our country. Sometimes the gunsmith gets carried away and ruins the chamber which could have been much safer as was.please check if the fired shell has bulged somewhere along the length or at the base. I have seen a Dan Wesson revolver in cal. .22 lr with totally ruined chambers due to over enthusiasm of a not so efficient gunsmith. Shooting hyper velocity ammo is anyways unsafe in fire arms that are ancient but reconditioned to look good. All the single shot BSA 22s that I have seen did not have as strong bolt mechanism as to cope with high and hyper velocity ammo of today.
Best of luck,

Marksman

Marksman

[Kittu]

Hi veeveear as timmy suggested it can be fault of ammo or rifle.winchester ammo have a brass case which is not strong.in my elder dayswhen i didnt knew of loads in .22 i took out buullet of cartridge and doubled powder and shot i cant tell what happend for some time.the bullet passed barrel but forhand of rifle went like bullets in both directions.it was more scary then yours.it was a iof .22 rifle later i noticed two holes from chamber to forhand that saved me thanks

[Mark]

veeveeaar,



Do you still have the empty cartridge casings? If you do, can you post pictures of them please?

I suspect the chamber is worn and causes the thin rimfire shells to split, but if you have some of the empty shells and can take a picture or two it can help figure out the problem.

[Hammerhead]

If only it has happened to one type of ammo, then you go for ammo not the gun. And stop shooting before you figure out and try if you can post some pictures as Mark asked it before.

[veeveeaar]

Friends Thank you for your feed back.
I did not bother to look at the case,as i was totally bewildered then. Now when Mr. Mark has raised the question of ammo case, i went to the shooting place and found that case on the table. one of the two cases ( Winchester Lazer) was slightly bulged, other was cleanly cracked to the entire length. I am not so computer literate. I will post all pictures of the rifle and ammo cases as soon as i get any one of my techie friend s.

[timmy]

Veeveeaar: the conditions you describe are what one would expect from a chamber that is too large. The cases of the lower pressure rounds are able to hold, but the higher pressure Winchester rounds put too much strain on the brass case, causing it to split.

We will wait for your pictures, when you get the chance to post them.

[Mark]

veeveeaar,

I look forward to the pictures.

This is a common problem with old rifles, but fortunately it is an easy one to fix if one has a lathe. You drill out the chamber area and solder in a piece of steel, then you cut a new chamber in the piece of steel. quite simple and cheap to have done.

Can you get an empty 22 magnum cartridge case from someone? I have a similar problem with an old 22 and eventually I am going to reline the entire barrel, but if you can find an empty 22 magnum shell somewhere I would be happy to repair this gun like that and take pictures of the entire process for you.

[TC]

veeveeaar,
You have only said the weapon is an old .22 BSA single shot rifle. Could you please let us know the model and action type i.e bolt or martini (these are the only actions .22 BSA single shots were made in) ? That could throw some light on the issue you have. Photographs showing detail of the breech and action could be of some help.

regards

TC

[kedarmarkale]

Mr veeveeaar,
May be the fault is with the CRH (chamber head space) of the weapon as u said it is old what happens is the space between the front face of breech block and the rear face of barrel increases only by millimeters... almost all of the cartridge cases can take this extra load of propellant gases however if a very high powered cartridge is fired the metal of case gives away due to lack of support releasing the high pressure gases between the BB(BREECH BLOCK) and barrel rear face....
some rifles and machine guns do have a crh adjusting mechanism but i am really not aware of any .22 cal rifle which has such a mechanism.
regards
Marks

[Mark]

Mr veeveeaar,
May be the fault is with the CRH (chamber head space) of the weapon as u said it is old what happens is the space between the front face of breech block and the rear face of barrel increases only by millimeters... almost all of the cartridge cases can take this extra load of propellant gases however if a very high powered cartridge is fired the metal of case gives away due to lack of support releasing the high pressure gases between the BB(BREECH BLOCK) and barrel rear face....
some rifles and machine guns do have a crh adjusting mechanism but i am really not aware of any .22 cal rifle which has such a mechanism.
regards
Marks

I do not think this is the situation with this particular rifle.

Again, a picture of the split case will be worth 1000 words but it was described as having a split running the length of the shell. When you have excessive space at the rear you will get a split that runs across the shell, or else the entire rim of the shell separates.

[Grumpy]

I agree with Mark and Timmy that it would seem that the problem is one of an oversize chamber which is what a longtitudinal split would suggest.
The first .22 lr rifle I ever owned was a BSA single shot bolt action which utilised a separate extractor which slotted into a recessed channel on the underside of the bolt..... a poor system as there was an obvious ( with hindsight ) weak point. When chambering a round the actual extractor part supporting the head of the case broke off and fell into the bottom of the bolt channel leaving the bottom half of the case unsupported. Upon firing there was a distinct flash and an almighty crack. On examination, I found the unsupported part of the case had blown out very neatly - it looked like a pair of open double doors. Whilst the problem was easily solved by welding the two parts of the extractor back together I suffered hearing loss and extreme tinnitus for several days and was completely deaf for several hours because of shooting within the confines of a garage. The point of this story is just that if a firearm has a fault it should not be used.