EXPLODING .22 SHELL!

[nc.hunter]

Hey guys, have i got a story for you, earleir today i was out shooting my crosman air rifle, (because when my dad aint home I am not aloud to shoot my .22 LR.) Well anyway, I was shooting some rotten eggs in my feild, which is the same feild that we shoot my .22 LR in. I guess a spare shell was left in the grass and when I took a shot at the eggs i heard a loud bang! when the shell went off a few peices of egg and metal skinned my left arm. I went over to look and the shell had blown a hole in the egg and the ground. I was sure lucky that the shell was facing towards the ground and not at me!

[ArkansasHunter]

WOW Thank goodness you didn't get hit in the eye !!! That is werd !!! Glad your O.K.
A.H

[Taurus Fan]

I saw a report once about someone who had loose .22's in their pocket and one went off, the cause was a 9 volt battery in his pocket. One of the rounds had come to rest against both terminals, shorting the battery and making the .22 hot enough to detonate. They duplicated it later, so it wasn't a freak occurence. As far as it being lucky the cartridge was facing down in your accident, not to worry. The case explodes and the shrapnel is what you have to worry about, the bullet doesn't really go anywhere without a barrel to let the expanding gases do their thing. The bullets aren't going to move much compared to the bits of blown up case. That stuff about throwing cartridges in a fire and seeing bullets zinging off in all directions as if they were shot from a gun is pure hollywood.

[Windwalker]

I'm glad you weren't seriously hurt. If a piece of that shell casing had hit you in the eye it would have really been bad. It just goes to show you that even being as careful as you can be accidents can still happen. Take care and enjoy your shooting.

[.22hustler]

We do alot of shooting in orchards and in areas where the grass gets mowed. We're very careful about what gets dropped on the ground because of what you described. Maybe you were carrying loose rounds in your pocket and grabbed a bunch to load your .22 and dropped one. It happens, and you can't prevent everything. I use CCI mini-mags that come in the plastic case. It's not fool-proof but I think I keep better track of what I've shot. It just goes to show you anything can happen while using firearms, and bad things do happen to good people. I wish I had a better answer...

[wunhunglo]

Taurus.
[QUOTThat stuff about throwing cartridges in a fire and seeing bullets zinging off in all directions as if they were shot from a gun is pure hollywood.E][/quote]

Not true................I'll cut a long story short but a friend of mine had reloaded some 7.62 ammo and after reloading thought they looked a bit grubby & decided to clean them in his tumbler. (yeah I know!!) Well some time later as he's in the kitchen having a coffee he hears a Crack, then another and wonders what it is..........Yup, up in the loft of his garage, his tumbler is on fire and the rounds are cooking off! He managed to extinguish the fire but not before he had a couple of holes in his roof and in the floor of his garage loft..............They are still there to this day! The floor is 3/4 chipboard & the roof is 3/4 softwood sarking with slates. Holes are very irregular and only one is a lovely bullet shaped keyhole.
So it can happen & does happen, even to a guy who's been reloading for years!

ps. We never let him forget it either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Taurus Fan]

Originally Posted by wunhunglo

Taurus.
[QUOTThat stuff about throwing cartridges in a fire and seeing bullets zinging off in all directions as if they were shot from a gun is pure hollywood.E]

Not true................I'll cut a long story short but a friend of mine had reloaded some 7.62 ammo and after reloading thought they looked a bit grubby & decided to clean them in his tumbler. (yeah I know!!) Well some time later as he's in the kitchen having a coffee he hears a Crack, then another and wonders what it is..........Yup, up in the loft of his garage, his tumbler is on fire and the rounds are cooking off! He managed to extinguish the fire but not before he had a couple of holes in his roof and in the floor of his garage loft..............They are still there to this day! The floor is 3/4 chipboard & the roof is 3/4 softwood sarking with slates. Holes are very irregular and only one is a lovely bullet shaped keyhole.
So it can happen & does happen, even to a guy who's been reloading for years!

ps. We never let him forget it either!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/quote]



Are you sure those holes weren't made by the casings? Mythbusters tried throwing cartridges in a fire and cooking them in an oven until they went off, bullets didn't go too far, but the cases were dangerous.

Annotated Mythbusters: Episode 85: Red Rag to a Bull, Hot Bullets, Bull in a China Shop

[elmer fudd]

so how did your dad take it? or havent you told him yet?

[wunhunglo]

Taurus..There is definitely one key-hole that you can readily identify as a bullet hole. he others were just like shrapnel holes. Note; these were handloads for use in a bolt action and not heavily crimped military rounds.

[conanld]

The worst "accident" that I ever had at the range involved a .22 LR cartridge.

On one particular day, I had brought an arsenal refurbished Mosin Nagant 7.62x54R M44 rifle, and a brand new Savage .22LR Rifle to the range. I started off with the Mosin, and fired about 40 rounds through it before moving on to the .22 rifle.

Anyone who has fired an M44 knows how loud the blast can be when a round is touched off, and all the guys at the range were pretty impressed with it.

However, none of them had noticed that I had put my Mosin down and had picked up my new .22 rifle. When I touched off the 3rd or 4th round, it was so loud (and unusual sounding) that everyone at the range thought that my Mosin Nagant had exploded!

In fact, it was the .22 rifle that was the source of the blast! As best as I can determine, the action did not fully close, but the round still ignited when I pulled the trigger. I could feel the blast wave plow into my face. I was pretty certain that I was in big trouble.

Very fortunately for me, I was not bleeding. Frankly, I was amazed that my face was still intact. I was shocked at how loud that blast was. I had foam earplugs in, AND hard plastic earmuffs on, and it was still incredibly loud.

The cartridge case was split right down the side from one end to the other.

It's easy to become complacent with the “lowly” .22 LR, but now I have much more respect for it.

Oh yeah, I returned that rifle to the gun store. I just couldn't trust it after that.

LD

[vikingpreacher]

I saw a bunch of idiot shooting shotshells 1 time time to try to set them off and I just left and went home. Later I went back and found a bunch of shotshells with holes in them.

[meatloaf]

when I was a idiot kid my best freind and I plus some others decided to shoot shoot shotgun shells with bb guns. we had a few go off and we were having a great time, on the last one that we had we put it face first into a steel tube so only the primer was available to shoot. We had a hell of a time with this last cartridge so we all decided to shoot it at once. Well I dont know who actualy hit it (there were 6 of us) but a bb hit the primer perfectly. The blast of the primer blasted the bb back right into my forhead and knocked me out lol. We then spent the next hour digging the bb out of my forehead racing the clock till our parents came home, all the while trying to figure out a beleivable lie to explain the silver dollar sized magenta colored bruise eith a hole in the center, right between my eyes. I had a headache for a little over a week from it. then as that went away I got hit in the head by a pick but thats another story. Kids dont be stupid like we were.

[ponetoshooter]

when i was a teenager i got the bright idea to place pennies on top of the barrel to my bb gun and shoot the coin straight up in the air. Well the coins went way way up in the sky so me being a dumb boy decided to catch one of the falling coins. OUCH it bruised my hand bad. so i thought hmm lets get a welding glove and try it. it didn't hurt as bad but i did stop catching falling coins ouch. i still havn't told my own boys that story afarid they will try it

[SwedeSteve]

"If those pieces of brass hit you in the eye..."
Yet no one reminded him to wear glasses!

[Bravo]

I used to shoot old shotshells (paper shells that I didn't dare shoot in my shotguns) from about 50 yards with my .22. I wore safety glasses and emptied the shot out of the shells before firing at the primers.

The brass splits open pretty good when you hit the primer, but it doesn't go more than a few feet.

[meatloaf]

Originally Posted by Bravo

I used to shoot old shotshells (paper shells that I didn't dare shoot in my shotguns) from about 50 yards with my .22. I wore safety glasses and emptied the shot out of the shells before firing at the primers.

The brass splits open pretty good when you hit the primer, but it doesn't go more than a few feet.

yeah the shot didnt do much when we hit the primer with our bb guns but the primer was realy exsplosive it sounded like a black cat. And it was the bb that came back and nailed me between the eyes lol.

[OldTimer]

I was a range officer at a Boy Scout camp for a while. One year a Scout in a Merit Badge class had a sponge dressing on his lower leg. I asked what happened. The week before camp, he and a buddy were throwing a .22 LR cartridge on the driveway "to make it go off". It did, and the case buried itself in his leg...

[meatloaf]

lol its amazing we survived childhood. I hope my kids are not ass dumb ass me. lol

[dgray64]

I've noticed that certain brands of .22's don't fire off even with good hits on the rim (I've removed the shell, rotated it and fired again to get another hit on another part of the rim). On these shells, I always pull the bullet with pliers, dump the powder and through the pieces away so that there won't be an accidental discharge later. The worst brands so far have been Federal and Aguila. I've only had one Remington misfire. Anyone else have a problem with certain brands?

Dave

[andrew cochran]

I've had severs misfires from Remington Golden bullets value pack. But when you rotate the rim they go off.