doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Anyone know the story behind this?

All I know is that it happened yesterday, I have no idea where or the circumstance. I ask for more info. Hope no one was hurt.

It happened to Harold Itchkawich's .32-40 Winchester Hi-Wall this past weekend. Possibly double charged with 31 gr of H-108,

Zoom in on the top photo and look at the markings just ahead of the break. There is a "3" and then another figure. I'd be interested to know what that figure means.

Brent
I should had that his thumb and figures got a few cuts (note the antler palm rest). But a chunk went through a ceiling, insulation, and tin roof.

More like 31 grains Bullseye!

That's why I want to know what that barrel marking is.

The failure of the barrel looks like a clean fracture with almost no sign of elastic give. A barrel shouldn't fail like that. Is it the original or a modern barrel?

Jerry Liles

Jerry, I cannot answer your question. But I do have a hypothesis. That is why I want to know about the symbol on the breech end. It might be the key, but I hope to find out from the owner - assuming that he had the barrel put on it. I am pretty sure it is not original.

Brent

I'm sure a lot of us would like to know what happened if for no other reason then to keep from doing the same thing. I was shooting my 38-72 one day and someone kept asking me question and I doubled charged the case. When I fired it sounded like an 30-06, luckily I was shooting a Sharps Borchardt. Before this I would have thought that a high-wall would have stood a double charge as well.

A lot depends upon the barrel and its strength in the area of the chamber and threads. A weak barrel that splits or shears will frequently cause a split or actual shattering of the receiver ring. A few years ago a new Sako bolt rifle (long action IIRC) let go, it was quite a shock to the industry at the time. The investigation revealed no fault in the action but rather a longitudinal fault in the barrel steel, allowing the force of the split barrel to destroy the receiver ring.

We saw a photo of a catastrophic blowup of a high wall on another thread here, I believe. In that case it was obvious that the barrel had split on its bottom side and then lifted the top off the receiver ring; the high wall receiver has a somewhat thinner area along the inside bottom portion of the ring and this is where the split began in both barrel and receiver in that case. I'd like to see closeups of this latest blowup to see if it's at all similar.

John Buhmiller didn't have that problem with his high wall blowup attempts but he used barrels made of modern high-strength steel.
Regards, Joe

I am told that the owner pulled the bullets on the left over ammo and found several double charges of about 31 grains of H108. I don't have any history with H108 so have no idea what that charge is.

Some older (often modified) Schuetzen rifles have been rebarrelled with barrels made of mild steel. I seem to recall the name 'Stressproof' or similar, referring to barrels originally intended for muzzleloaders but often used in the past for CF blackpowder cartridges as well. Repeated failures with this type steel have led to its abandonment by knowledgeable shooters but there are still plenty of 'em left out there. Many original early smokeless-powder barrels also fall into this category, that is, a mild steel that's only marginal in strength.

Remember Murphy: if it CAN go wrong, then it WILL go wrong!
Regards, Joe