Danger close! How to blow up your rifle in two easy lapses

This used to be a Carl Gustaf Mauser until it had its life suddenly and violently cut short. The rifle had survived more than 100 years and two world wars before catastrophe caught up with it. 

We’re pleased to report that the man behind the butt survived to tell the tale, but only by the skin of his teeth.

As always, it was not one but two momentary and avoidable lapses that allowed the disaster to happen.

The Mauser action is generally regarded as strong, although there are varying degrees of strength in the myriad versions made over so much time. The Swedish Mauser used a strong tooling steel in its action and is not regarded as being weak. 

Being a Model 96, it lacked the third safety lug of the later Model 98 versions, which used the root of the bolt handle as a back-up. 

This particular one had been rebarrelled to .243 and was firing handloads when it was destroyed.  

The shooter, who we’ll call Donald for reasons that may become clear, said he’d fired a shot that didn’t sound right — more pop than bang, apparently. However, he didn’t dwell on it and chambered another round. 

That was his second mistake. 

The first mistake was in the handloading. It is most likely that Donald put no powder into the case. He wouldn’t be the first make this error.

The detonation of the primer would have launched the bullet a short way down the barrel, where it stopped, forming a blockage.

In lining up the next shot, Donald said he was having a little trouble getting his sight picture right and moved his head slightly away from the stock. This may have saved his life, and certainly his face. 

When he squeezed the trigger, the rifle exploded in his hands.

The blocked barrel created a catastrophic build-up of pressure inside the chamber and the gas couldn’t escape fast enough to be contained.

The barrel didn’t rupture. Instead, a blast of pressure into the magazine well blew the floorplate open, bent the bottom metal and bulged the well to left and right.

The synthetic stock broke apart, sending pieces out to both sides and taking the fore-end off. 

Worst of all, the bolt locking mechanism couldn’t cope. The front receiver ring opened like a can, a piece disappearing from the right side where the bolt was locked in. The bolt also tore out of the other locking lug. The bolt stop disintegrated. Even the bolted-on scope bases were blown off.

The big Mauser bolt launched backwards like a missile, skimming past Donald’s slightly off-centre cheek and taking a significant piece of his ear with it.

If he hadn’t adjusted his head position to an unusual one before firing, the bolt would have smashed into his face just below his right eye. It doesn’t bare thinking about. 

He never found the bolt.  

Surprisingly, the two projectiles left the barrel. Perhaps the first had made such small progress into the rifling that the second simply shunted it the rest of the way. In this case, the pressure build-up behind it was still too drastic for the rifle to handle. We’ll never know for sure, and it’s a moot point anyway.

Of course, what Donald should have done was check the barrel for obstructions after that first unusual shot didn’t fire as normal. 

It’s easy to be a critic in hindsight, but our point here is not to criticise — Donald knows how lucky he was — but to remind us all never to ignore those little warnings.

Thanks to Mudgee Firearms for access to this wrecked rifle.