I was shooting my dad's 9mm yesterday when I felt a blast of heat on my hands, followed by the sight of debris flying off the gun. This case was still stuck in the chamber. Upon closer inspection the missing pieces of the gun were part of the plastic grips that were blown off by the blast, but other than that there didn't seem to be any damage to the pistol or, thankfully, my hands. This was a factory load, by the way.

OUCH!!! Looks like it fired "out of battery". Has anyone inspected the gun? Glad you weren't hurt!

Glad you weren't hurt! What type of pistol was it?

It's a Smith and Wesson Model 469.

Sounds about right for S&W auto. Glad your OK!

Sometimes it can happen if someone has relieved the chamber feed-ramp chamber and left too much case unsupported. Definitely get it inspected by a competent smith.

WOW,,,,nasty!

Wolf--How about posting a pic of the Smith&Wesson Auto

Will do. One moment please.

Here it is. Those are the plastic pieces that broke off the grips. And, it seems the picture got flipped. Oh well.

l glad you are ok wolf..Any plans to find out the cause of the ''kaboom''? Ammo company or Smith&Wesson inquiries in the future?? lf the gun is still factory stock its likely S&W will replace it for free..lts doubtful you would get the old one back.. l think l if the gun were not at fault that leaves the ammo..Thats when l would pull a couple of rds apart and ck for overloads..

l was a party to a kaboom once.. NOT a pleasant feeling.. l am glad Mr Ruger makes strong guns-else it would have been a rough row for me

The brass in the photo does not appear all that deformed (blown out yes, but not massively buldging). I would say that the brass had some existing defect and failed in the chamber when the charge was set off.

The guns and pictures I have seen that have actually fired out of battery, the brass shows a distinctive expansion nearly all the way around the case head
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2011/02/10/springfield-xdm-kaboom-2/

The typical case of firing out of battery is normally attributed to striker fired pistols, where the striker is released under spring pressure before the slide is fully closed. The hammer fired nature of the 469 should preclude the pistol from being able to fire in this condition. If the slide is back even a little bit, the hammer should be resting on the bottom edge of the slide, keeping it from making contact with the firing pin.

The bullets I was shooting was an old box of a brand called American Ammunition, or something along those lines. I've never heard of that brand before, and judging by the condition of the box it was fairly old.

I'll take the pistol to a gunsmith to make sure everything else is in working order, just to be safe.

If you get a chance to go through "Dean Speirs" information its a eye opener.
http://www.thegunzone.com/

Not to be arguementative, but that case is blown out more than half way around. There's no way that the action was locked up when it fired. Even a sloppy feed ramp won't blow out more than ninety degrees. I've had two hammer fired semi-autos fire out of battery. To be precise, they "slam fired". One was a frozen firing pin, the other was finally attributed to a raised primer. I'm not saying that either of those things are what happened here, I'm just saying that they can, and have, happened.

The lack of a distinct bulge is what led me to this conclusion. Most out of battery firing creates a distinct ring or massive bulge at the back of the brass, where a case head separation does not build the same pressure in the chamber thus no bulge in unsupported areas.

Not saying it couldn't have been a case of firing out of battery, but it does not look like it to me.

All in all, I am just glad the OP is OK. The gun should get throughly checked out, probably by S&W, before I would fire another round out of it.

That's definitely on my to do list.

Glad to see that you are ok.

http://forums.officer.com/t73377/


Wolf....This may be your answer

282

Interesting. Thanks for the link, sw282.

Same thing happened to my father's S&W 411, in it blew the case head out over his head, extractor bent 90 degrees. Sent it back to S&W and they sent it back saying that they gladly fixed it. But they would not disclose what went wrong, and said they made minor repairs. Looking inside there were lots of new parts. It has an unsupported chamber, but they claimed that wasn't the problem, so our guess is that it fired out of battery.