Oh just noticed this. Bullet is stuck in the chamber.

 

It appears that the cartridge fired while still in the magazine. Why? Good question, an overly sensitive priming charge, a sharp edge on the front of the bolt? Don’t know, but I’d set that magazine aside for now. Strange.



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Is there a firing pin indent on the rim of the exploded round?

 

I'll look

 

Is there a firing pin indent on the rim of the exploded round?

How could there be? The case was still in the magazine, far away from the firing pin on the top of the bolt.



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Since there's a bullet stuck in the chamber, I'd say there was an OOB detonation with the 9th round where most of the energy went down, into the magazine holding the tenth round. Looks like some unburned powder there...

 

When you remove the stuck bullet look for a bullet in front of the one you are seeing now.... Never seen it happen but an out of battery slam fire due to a barrel jamb. Easy enough to disprove when you clear the barrel. Just WAGing now.

 

slam fire. theres a dent from the bolt above the E if the E is rightside up

 

Good catch. Sumpin' ain't lined io right with that gun

 

I was shooting Eley Force using the bolt spring that came with the barreled action I got from a company everyone brags about here. And I do too. Should I have installed a stiffer spring for the Eley Force ? The 1st, 2nd and 3rd round hit the target. The bullet from the ruptured round was stuck in the chamber. I don't want to think I have to use a face shield and gloves to shoot with !! Thank you all for helping me try to figure out what actually happened here.

 

A little late to the discussion, but no one seems to have picked up on the build process of the weapon. It looks like this might be a custom build from you comments. Might there be an anomaly in the barrel installation. Vblock, torque, barrel alignment? When thousands of an inch matter and inch pound rules, very small things matter. Years of motorsports taught me when things go bad, revert to basics before looking for the unusual.

 

One in a million things like this is one of the reasons to wear some sort of eye protection... Always.

 

My guesstimate is along the lines of what HKS offered. Out of battery detonation of the 9th, directed downward.

 

From the way the case ruptured it's clearly an out of battery detonation, nothing supporting the case- so it blew downward to find a way out....The bullet shows obturation at the base- it had some gas pushing it hard enough to get it to obturate....

Maybe an oversized bullet that stuck in the chamber as the bolt tried to load it? With the bullet stuck and the bolt pushing forward the case would have been unsupported and the force of the bolt could have caused it to detonate....could even be a combination of tight chamber and oversized bullet....Tolerance stacking can create strange issues....

How many rounds of the Eley have you fired in this gun?

VERY GLAD YOU'RE OK!

 

#18 hit the target the same time #19 exploded and #20 remained in the mag ... with a dent in the case.

 

ive had rounds jam up against the top of the chamber and the bolt stop against the case head like that. i dont know why mine didnt go off but yours did. but the best way to eliminate that from happening is to have smooth trouble free feeding. if it was me id send pics and an explanation to ruger and suggest they build better magazines before someone gets hurt.

 

I would surmise that literally BILLIONS of .22 rounds have been run through 10/22 rifles and magazines. How many times have you seen a situation like this? I'd say their magazines are pretty darn good for less than $15 apiece.....

 

When a kid my dad purchased 4 boxes of 22Lrs from the HWD store. This was back in the day when your purchases were wrapped in paper and tied with string. We got home dad told me to grab those 22s, I was going on 5yr old. Well I guess I was carrying that ammo like it was nitro. So dad set us down on curb and gave a technical class on 22 ammo.
After explaining to show how safe 22 ammo is , he flicked it out into the street. It went off!
Point being anything can happen. I’ve seen a lot of unexpected things happen with ammo and 99% are with Rimfire.
It amazes me in OPs case the cartridge exploding in the magazine had enough pressure to shoot bullet into chamber.
In all Rimfire ammo detonated out of chamber the case is what is propelled. This is what happens with ammo detonated in a fire. Actually things take the path of least resistance.
Not being right there when it occurred, my 1st guess would be magazine malfunction.

 

When a kid my dad purchased 4 boxes of 22Lrs from the HWD store. This was back in the day when your purchases were wrapped in paper and tied with string. We got home dad told me to grab those 22s, I was going on 5yr old. Well I guess I was carrying that ammo like it was nitro. So dad set us down on curb and gave a technical class on 22 ammo.
After explaining to show how safe 22 ammo is , he flicked it out into the street. It went off!
Point being anything can happen. I’ve seen a lot of unexpected things happen with ammo and 99% are with Rimfire.
It amazes me in OPs case the cartridge exploding in the magazine had enough pressure to shoot bullet into chamber.
In all Rimfire ammo detonated out of chamber the case is what is propelled. This is what happens with ammo detonated in a fire. Actually things take the path of least resistance.
Not being right there when it occurred, my 1st guess would be magazine malfunction.

As a juvenile delinquent I used to take .22 rounds into the concrete floored garage and hit them with a hammer making them go off like firecrackers.....That I lived long enough to be "reformed" is something of a miracle to me all these years later....

 

Does that bullet stuck in the chamber "look" like it has rifling engraved on the extractor side?
Or is it my eyes seeing things?

 

I believe the mark you are seeing was made by the extractor.

 

I've enjoyed reading this thread, and I agree with the consensus that the OP suffered an out-of-battery (OOB) detonation when the bolt was in the process of chambering round #9. But I've not heard anyone explain where the dent in the case of round #10 came from. I've seen dents that looked very much like that come out of my 10/22 clone when there was no OOB detonation. I've always assumed it was caused by the bolt failing to push the round completely out of the magazine, and the magazine pinching the round between the rotor and the mag housing when the mag rotates. In this case, the bolt was pushing round #9 out of the mag, right? So round #10 should have still been in its slot in the rotor. I don't think the detonation would have caused the dent, or would it have?

 

#10 was still in the mag. The out of battery detonation dented it.

 

Lawyerman, My preferred Hammer Ammo were .22 Blanks from a Ramset.

 

Or shotgun primers hit with a hand sledge. Enough energy to bounce the sledge back up into the air about 6”.

 

I had a W-W Super-X blow the magazine out of my TC Classic Sporter and crack the stock through the inletting for the mag well.
I contacted W-W to report it, and they wanted me to sent them the rifle and all of the remaining ammo. When I questioned them as to why, they immediately referred me to their legal department, and wouldn't talk to me any further. I had to use epoxy and Brownells brass repair pins to put the stock back together and refinished the stock with Tru-oil. You can barely see the joint where the stock broke. I will never buy W-W ammo or products again. They treated me like I was trying to scam them.
From the recovered case, it looks like as soon as the bolt started moving, the case blew out.

 

I too recently had a ww ammo fail. I was shooting a Winchester 75T. It split the rim in a similar fashion. This was an in battery fail. The bolt was most definitely closed.

No damage to the rounds underneath but it actually made the 5 round magazine about. 010" wider. I started a thread called ammo fail.

 

Does that bullet stuck in the chamber "look" like it has rifling engraved on the extractor side?
Or is it my eyes seeing things?

Does that bullet stuck in the chamber "look" like it has rifling engraved on the extractor side?
Or is it my eyes seeing things?

Here is the whole affected mess. The magazine is good to go. That bullet is banana shaped.

 

Here is the whole affected mess. The magazine is good to go. That bullet is banana shaped.

Thanks for the response. Just to make sure I understand, round #10 was still fully seated in the mag, and not hanging halfway out, for example?

I pulled the fragged piece of brass out of the magazine and dented #10 was still in there.

 

I believe the mark you are seeing was made by the extractor.

Not sure which mark you are referring to, but the OOB round never came even close to the extractor. It never left the magazine, let alone being pulled out of the chamber by the extractor. The rim shows a deformation which probably initiated the OOB detonation, probably made by the front of the bolt as it struck the rim trying to push the round out of the magazine. As mentioned, very strange.


Edit: After reading-reading the post I see that the mark renferred to was the bullet, not the case. So yeah, it could easily be from the extractor.

 

try hand cycling a few rounds. see if there is a dent on the bottom of the nose of the bullet. i have a brownells bolt and receiver, kidd bolt and receiver and ruger bolt and receiver. all 3, when using the ruger 10 round mags, bounce the bullet off the bottom edge of the breach before entering the chamber. sometimes the round stops the bolt, sometimes the round is forced into the chamber. all 4 of my 10/22's did this to some degree or another. some 'tweaking" of the mag and bottom edge of the breach can help. the 15 round mags feed better in my rifles

 

Okay

 

Maybe I should use the stiffer spring on the Eley Force. I had the "standard" in there when the OOB detonation happened.

 

I don't own a 10/22 but in reading this thread and looking at the pictures a couple of questions comes to mind; could the introduction of a small foreign particle into the magazine affect the angle of a round about to be chambered and can a 'bent' round be fit into the magazine?

I do agree that it was an OOB case failure, just thinking about what may have caused it.