A case-full of Bullseye did this Rossi in.
Brothers and sisters believe me, when a handgun blows up in your hands it will ring your chimes! That doesn’t necessarily mean it will physically hurt you. In fact most of the dozens of blown up handguns I’ve heard about have done no physical damage to the shooter.
What I mean is having one blow right there in your own two mitts not only scares the hell out of you, it will ruin your confidence in your ammunition and your know-how in general. I can state this will absolute certainty because I have experienced it.
The date was April 1, 1991. I remember exactly because it happened to be our 13th wedding anniversary. Yvonne had a little bit
of a head cold and was napping on the couch, so I took a couple of Colt SAA .45s down to my steel target range to plink for a bit at a dueling tree.
The first five shots bounced the paddles back and forth as proper. The Colt .45, a 1914 vintage one that had been given to me by Hank Williams Jr. the first time he visited me here at home, was then reloaded with another five handloads. At the first shot the Colt blew with a sound sort of like a FIZZ-BANG.
The top strap detached at the rear and bent forward and the top half of the cylinder just disappeared. It could still be in orbit for all I know. I was unhurt.
Duke managed to blow up this nice 1914 vintage Colt SAA .45.
A friend of Duke’s blew the topstrap off this very nice Colt SAA
.38-40 with powder he bought “cheap” at a gunshow.
Run Away!
As strange and as silly as it might sound my very first impulse upon looking at the ruined Colt was to run; run to nowhere in particular but just to leave that spot. My second instinct was to pack up my gear and quit shooting. I did neither. Instead, I loaded up my second Colt .45 with factory loads that I also had along and shot those 50 rounds slowly and carefully. It was sort of one of those “get back on the horse after he bucked you off” kind of things.
What caused that Colt to blow? To this day I have no idea. That day I had 200 rounds of handloads with me. The bullets of the remaining 194 were pulled and the powder charges weighed. None were abnormal. One “expert” insisted that I had stuck bullet number five in the barrel and then the gun blew when round number six was fired.
Ok, dimwit, in that case who smacked the dueling tree’s paddle on that fifth shot, the tooth fairy? The most hilarious comment offered was the fellow who said it had to be the air space in the huge .45 Colt case because “You know; air cannot be compressed.” Yeah dummy in that case what did you put in your bicycle’s tires when you were a kid?
Long ago I gave up trying to figure out what happened because I’ve heard literally of dozens of other handguns that have blown up. The one single thread running through each and every one of those instances that I personally know about is the shooter was using handloads.I personally do not know of any handgun blowing apart with factory ammo. Could that be why the gun companies only warranty their handguns with factory ammo?
Do I only shoot factory loads in all my handguns now? Nope. I’m an avid handloader and a darn careful one. I don’t begrudge the time spent at the reloading benches; consider it quality time spent with precision tools. And I certainly don’t reload my own ammunition in order to save money.
One fellow I know does just that and is always looking for bargains on powder, primers and bullets at gun shows. He got a bargain alright! It was a can of powder labeled Unique and it didn’t bother him that it had been opened. When he loaded up his vintage Colt SAA .38-40 with his usual Unique load, the cylinder split and the topstrap simply disappeared. Lots of savings there, huh? I have nicknamed this fellow Shrapnel.
Trail Boss
Here’s one thing I have done with my own reloading, however. With large capacity revolver cartridges — those originally designed for large dollops of black powder — I only use the new IMR Trail Boss propellant now. It is “fluffy” to the point you can’t get a double charge in a case, it will overflow. Normal charges pretty much fill up even huge .45 Colt cases to the base of the bullets. That property alone takes a lot of variables out of the handloading mix.
Take my word for it. You don’t want to blow up a gun. It will ruin your day — and doesn’t do a thing for the gun’s value.
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Yep its Summer Time!
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Just too cool!
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That water is really, really cold. Unsplash photo by Yeo Khee.
The year was 1986, and I was getting my first taste of soldiering. My initial foray into the real Army was Northern Warfare School. Three weeks in the wilds of Alaska alongside 146 other ROTC cadets would be my first proper experience in uniform.
Northern Warfare School was divided into three 1-week phases. The first week was mountaineering, the next, river operations. The third week was spent on a glacier. That was about as comfortable as it sounds. At the end of those three weeks, I had learned how to run a rope, accumulated a proper quiver of survival skills, and come to appreciate some things that I had not previously appreciated. One of those things was river crossings.
They call it a rope bridge, but it’s really just a rope. One poor slob has to cross the river with the rope and then tie it to an anchor point on the far bank. The rest of the unit then tightens and secures the rope so everyone else can cross without getting wet. As burgeoning leaders, however, some rocket scientist figured we needed to appreciate the plight of that unfortunate sot who has to swim the river. As such we all got to check that box.
The river in question was comprised solely of glacial melt and was flowing at what I would conservatively estimate to be about 200 miles per hour. I have no recollection of how wide it was, but I distinctly recall there was ice floating in it. At the time I would have estimated several kilometers, but in reality, it might have been a bit shorter.
We rigged two ropes at angles. To cross the river you’d tie an anchor around your chest with a sling rope and hook into the safety rope with a snap link. You’d then cross using one rope that was arranged at a slight angle downstream. Once on the other side, you’d unhook, snap into the second rope, and cross back over by the same means. We had a massive bonfire cooking on the near side so we could warm up upon our return.
Just Embrace the Suck
One of my comrades had a great idea. He really, really, really didn’t want to get into that cold water, so he donned his wet weather gear underneath his uniform. That meant above his underwear went a pair of rubber pants that he duct-taped tightly around his ankles. He wore a pair of suspenders to help keep his plastic pants in place. With his uniform arrayed on top no one was the wiser. He was quite proud of himself.
This idiot was in the first few troops to cross. Taking hold of the safety rope he lowered himself gently into the cascading tumult. As soon as the water got above the top of his rubber pants it flowed in with great vigor. The immutable dicta of physics then inflated his snivel gear like a sea anchor, exploded his external uniform, and tore his hands from the rope. In moments he was spinning uncontrollably in the river like some kind of leviathan crank bait. He was unconscious in short order.
The instructors had anticipated such foolishness so they had a spare loose rope across the river. They hooked a snap link on the end of that rope and affixed it over the rope from which my buddy was now twirling madly. Half a dozen of us towed the poor guy’s limp form to shore where the medics went to work on him. Now it was time for the rest of us to take a turn.
So just how cold was it? By the time I got across the first time I could only feel a single solitary little spot in my chest about the size of a walnut. Everything else—hands, feet, head, butt — seemed to be missing. By the time I got back to the near bank, I could not have reliably identified my own gender. All 147 of us stripped down and climbed into the fire. As we thawed out, we peeled off to get into dry clothes. Of the 147 troops involved, fifteen were female. No kidding, we were so cold none of us noticed.
The miscreant in the snivel gear survived, barely, and I vowed never again to undertake an arctic river crossing. While that was not “THE” reason I branched Aviation it was indeed “A” reason I branched Aviation. Next time I figured I’d just fly across.