Thread: 223 on deer

Originally Posted by Tentman

Gunsmiths comment was that the barrel was potentially reusable, so no blockages etc. I don't know anymore except that the wrecked rifle was extremely sobbering viewing, made all the more so by the fact that a young guy lost his eye. It's is only supposition that the "factory round" was over pressure, could have been a dud action - albeit one that had functioned OK for hundreds of rounds.

I analyse quite a few "forum loads" and yes, many of them appear to be 70K and plus, as @grandpamac points out the velocity is usually a dead giveaway. If you want to shoot such loads be my guest, but don't come crying when a flawed case or action etc let's go and you have a face full of brass or worse

Id love to know more on the failure as for the action to drastically fail whilst still holding pressure long enough to send the projectile out the barrel. All i can think otherwise is a very hot "factory load" and maybe an oiled chamber etc

That or a faulty action that had heat treat issues or something we just have a bunch of steel shafts at work come in that all had subsurface longitudinal cracking that was revealed once the outer ground surface was turned downed. would be interesting to hardness test the bolt/action.