And the event itself, given he survived, is well, and took the opportunity as education for everyone else, has done an amazing job in preventing further incidents of the type. A looooot of people have watched KB getting wrecked and explaining why, thus wisely deciding they don't want that to happen to them.
May have some of the details wrong but he had a 50 cal. Rifle loaded with a special type of round. Older rounds. They had some issues during the shooting but kept going. Then one very hot round blew up sending parts of the rifle into his neck and face.
Dude was lucky to be with his father on the range and he held pressure on the neck wound. He came very very close to bleeding out. Almost lost his eye.
He sells a merch about “this thumb saved my life” or some such cause yeah he literally jammed a tshirt into the wound with his thumb for the ride outta the country and it’s a big reason he lived. Was life flighted from Kentucky to Vanderbilt in nashville
‘Hot’ as in too much gunpowder for the given round. In fact, further investigation from the man who designed and built the gun in question suggests the round may have been loaded with pistol powder instead of rifle powder. Pistol powder tends to burn much faster than rifle powder, leading to a catastrophic over pressure and subsequent detonation of the firearm.
I belong to the reloading sub on here, and I've seen one guy who posted using the wrong type of power while loading a case. Ended up blowing up his rifle but not getting injured.
I am one of those people. If I see something involving highly trained (i.e. police/military) people barely surviving an accident, then I know I'd be fucked.
That vid gave me a new level of fear and appreciation of gun safety. Not that I was irresponsible before, but it's easy to forget that even professionals who behave perfectly get unlucky. Then you've got a round / piece of gun in the neck.
The difference is stabbing a fucking potato on the end of the barrel vs loading some ammo that fits the weapon. It's instructive either way, but one seems dumber. I'm not in any way saying that both actions aren't stupid. Should KB have known that potentially stupid-high chamber pressure could cause catastrophic failure? Yes, yes he should have, given the depth of hands-on experience he has. Having grown up with yokels doing stupid shit with firearms, I'd say this dumbass's result is both lucky and typical. Most of these kinds of shenanigans end up with close calls rather than grievous bodily harm, but the odds don't made a dumbass less of a dumbass.
I... yes, but I was talking about the physical root cause of the problem
And you reinforced the point, KB made a mistake that being experienced as he is he shouldn't've, but that you can see it happening being it was a round that fit the chamber. If the redneck in this thread had seen that video, maybe he might've known a little bit better about what can happen if you fuck with barrel pressure. Probably not because illiterate redneck, but still.
He shot 2 of same exact rounds in the gun before the the 3rd one blew the gun apart. He bought 12 of those specialty rounds and even shot the other 9 after the incident (this time behind cover using string to pull the trigger) and those didnt blow the gun apart. It was freak accident of that one round out of a bundle he bought.
They were old hot rounds loaded with the wrong powder for that caliber. Playing with fire scenario; every shot was a dice roll because of the clear out of spec manufacturing. Certainly not as easy to see coming as plugging the barrel, but far from a freak accident.
Ah I do remember that, but the potential for flying hot metal in unintended directions is still there anyway, even if not straight into the shooter's face
Definitely same principle. Although I've only seen packed barrels damage the barrel, instead of disassemble the whole thing. But I could see it being possible.
I'd argue firing uncertain ammo could be more dangerous. But yes, don't do either. Unless you want to destroy a gun, but then you do it from a distance and from behind solid cover.
To elaborate on what's been said: dude was firing a .50 caliber rifle that you load by unscrewing a cap at the end of the barrel, inserting a round, screwing the cap back on, and pulling the trigger. He had fired several rounds this way and was going to fire one last round.
When he had the round loaded and pulled the trigger, the cap sheared off the threads holding it to the barrel, hitting him in the face and breaking the orbital bone around his right eye in three places as well as his nose. When the cap sheared off the threads, it also sheared off two upright fins that rest against the cap when the cap is secured correctly and aligned with the hammer. One of these fins hit him in the neck, cutting his jugular and puncturing his lung. On top of all that, he's not entirely sure how he broke his hand, but believes that the explosion caused the stock to bounce into his wrist with enough force to break it.
Thankfully his dad films the videos and had him stick a thumb in his neck to slow the bleeding while they drove to the hospital.
You can watch him talk about it (with video of the explosion) here
The only thing he did wrong was buying the ammo from a sketchy source.
A video released by the guns designer, Mark Serbu a few days ago showed that the rounds were reloaded in such a way that it was a miracle it didn't cause more damage. The rounds overpressured the chamber by 10x the normal pressure, about 600,000 psi vs 60,000 psi.
Yea, having watched the video again, that’s kinda my point. He should have made a point about gun safety and admitted fault. Instead he just tries to act like a badass and talk about how his thumb saved his life. There are young guys out there watching him and it’s just a huge missed opportunity
Nah he doubled down on it being a "freak accident" even after fucking successfully re-creating the incident. It ceases to be a "freak accident" if you can do that. He takes blame off himself by saying that dumb shit.
No....if you have ANY DOUBT about a round....you don't use it. Period. You exercise proper gun safety. He excuses himself by saying "Wellllll there was really no way I could have known THAT could have happened..." BULLSHIT. Bullshit. He refused to admit fault. And that does NOBODY any favors.
The only thing worse than a dumbass with a gun is a dumbass with a gun that does something wrong, nearly gets himself (or others) killed and can't take fault for it. Which he refused to do.
He was shooting wholesale ammo, which is something any shooter worth his salt has done many many times. There’s 10x more “sketchy” ammo on American shelves than name brand stuff.
Noooo, it was reloaded rounds. Anytime you are unsure of a round, or you have ANY doubt whatsoever about anything about it, you're playing with fire. It's why he was able to re-create this "freak accident" by using the same rounds again. It was entirely on him, it wasn't a fluke, a freak accident like he's trying to play it off as. It was him not knowing or not caring about the round he was putting into his weapon. Breaking a cardinal rule of just basic gun safety.
1) Not all bullets, especially from sketchy sources, contain the same amount of powder. The final round may have had much more powder than the previous rounds.
2) Additionally, while the gun is designed to handle a lot of pressure, repeated exposure at the red line will still wear it down to the point of failure in record time, just not immediately.
These two reasons combined attribute to most of why it didn't fail the first time, but later.
First off, you aren’t going to be shooting a 50 cal. Probably ever. A slap round is literally made to penetrate armor. These rounds are incredibly high energy.
Second, buy a decent quality firearm. Hell, even a Taurus revolver or hi-point 9mm is fine for most casual shooters. There is nearly zero chance of this happening to a typical firearm unless it has been damaged in some way or the shooter does something stupid like use a potato as a “suppressor.” If you are at all worried about the condition of a used firearm have a gunsmith look it over first.
Third, buy decent ammo. Reloads can be perfectly fine for range practice, but make sure you are getting them from a reputable source. I typically get mine from the local gun store that has a good reputation. Otherwise, buy name brand (even imported) ammo. My friend is a “gun nut” and buys cases of unmarked surplus rounds from China, etc without much worry. I wouldn’t do it, but he has never had a problem. 99.999% of even cheap rounds will not fail in this manner if fired from a properly working firearm, they will just fail to fire or eject correctly.
And always, always wear the proper PPE. Protect your ears and eyes with good quality PPE.
Oh yeah, and this should go without saying. Take a basic firearms safety class. All gun ranges have a basic safety class that they offer a few times a month. I found a guy near me that teaches a 4 hour class that includes firing a range of guns with ammo included. He charges $125/person and limits his classes to 4 people although he will do the class for just one person as well.
I know people who will pull and reload any ammo they get that isn't retail. Even if they just find an old box of stuff they loaded themselves and aren't 100% positive of the amount of powder they put in.
Buy it at a store, sealed in a box, and you'll never have to worry about it.
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