Tikka Broken Bolt? Factory Ammo Blowup

[JPeters218]

That's great. Please let us know the outcome.

And did any of the bullets spin or move in the cases?

I'm also curious how your safety glasses fared. Did they get peppered with particles or just gas in your face?

No safety glasses. Nothing noticeable in my eyes. Just a puff of gas was all. I’ll Check the bullets in a bit. I’ll update if they do move.

 

[Lytro]

And maybe the first question would be what are the diameters of the cases near the failure area? Are they undersized and explain that hoop failure?

This was my exact thought. The result looks and sounds identical to the outcome of a smaller cartridge accidentally shot out of a larger chambered rifle.

 

[4th_point]

No safety glasses. Nothing noticeable in my eyes. Just a puff of gas was all. I’ll Check the bullets in a bit. I’ll update if they do move.

Man, I'm glad that you are OK and it was only gas. Just remember that powder particles, and bits of brass can come back at you too.

 

[Thinkingman]

I’ve seen a factory Hornady cartridge flow into the ejector of a Remington 700 - weird base failure - they wouldn’t do anything for the shooter except offer a box of free ammo. The bolt required a rebuild.

I had Hornady factory 9mm defense ammo with case head failures twice on two different 1911s.
I do not trust Hornady brass anymore.

 

[manitou1]

It does show excessive pressure though

View attachment 553912

ALL my Winchester primers look like that after firing my handloads in 7mm-08, 280 Rem, 280ai and 7mm Rem mag.

 

[manitou1]

Look at the cases in the Styrofoam, I see evidence of bulging, primers are flattened, regardless of how little or how much and there are ejector marks.

The nickel cases would probably contribute to the lack of heavy bolt lift, the nickel acts like a lubricant on the surface of the brass

How many of y'all would put your kids behind the rifle with that evidence?

Do what you want, but the first thing I would have done was contact Winchester and have them handle it or get their input and let them correct their mistake. That ammo in that rifle is a problem.

View attachment 553983

Now those primers look "smushed"!

 

[JPeters218]

Well here’s Kind of an update. I mailed the ammo on 5/17 to Winchester. Brought my gun to my gunsmith somewhere around that time as well. $65 and a week later I got the rifle back. He said it all looked good and just reassembled it And test fired it.

Now the disappointing thing is I haven’t heard a word from Winchester since their original contact with me. I’ve left two voicemails, two or 3 emails, and even submitted a new form on their site. Nothing.

i get it if they have a back log of stuff to test, but just give me an update and say it’s waiting or something. And even if it is still waiting, once they found out it was only $65, you’d think they’d just make it right just to keep a happy customer

 

[EsotericJunkie]

Eye protection should ALWAYS be worn. One never knows what might happen and this is a good example of what can go wrong when you least expect it.

EJ

 

[11boo]

You would think Winchester would do the right thing and at least ask for the remaining ammo.
I used to burn thru a fair bit of wolf 9mm when it was 90/case. Ended up with a case that threw out a squib round, which I caught Before firing again. Called wolf, they had me a shipping label in minutes for the remainder of the ammo.

Shipped it back, and three weeks later the UPS guy is giving me crap over the heavy package. 3 cases for my trouble, and a wolf t shirt lol.

Sometimes cases just fail, it happens.
This was surplus -06 that let go in my Garand. Not a reload. Wrecked the stock, but all metal was fine. 50k+ PSI not going out the bbl can do some damage.

 

[DuckDogDr]

Had the same thing happen with my Dad’s coyote rifle . He wanted me to re-zero and the ammo had corroded around the primer pockets. Didn’t damage the action luckily, there are powder burns all over the bench where the BDL spring open

 

[JPeters218]

Final update. They just now finally got back to me. He said all the ammo tested within specs, but they’re going to make it right. They’re sending me 3 boxes of Browning Long Range 168 TMK ammo.

It’s basically the resolution I was hoping for, but the lack of communication and the length of the process was frustrating

 

[4th_point]

Hey, thanks for following up on this. So all the remaining ammo was within spec, but did they provide any information on the failed case?

 

[JPeters218]

Hey, thanks for following up on this. So all the remaining ammo was within spec, but did they provide any information on the failed case?

Nope. Basically just “It all tested within spec, but we’ll offer you some ammo to make up for your gunsmith bill“. No info on the bad case