my rifle blew up...

[The Bubba Effect]

Eyes and Ears! Glad you were not injured.

 

[Double T]

I would be interested to see the barrel. IF you had a squib, followed up by another, the pressures could go up enough to break the extractor pin and shoot the gasses out of that tiny extractor channel, which it looks like it did. If there was no squib, then this was very possibly a highly overcharged round. It would have to be. Even if the bolt failed, you wouldn't think that it would lock into place. I'm thinking the overpressure pushed the exploded brass into the extractor channel and basically "staked" the bolt into place.

No barrel bulging OP? Would be very simple to check for even a slight bulge with calipers...

 

[saleen4971]

subbed!

i agree that you most likely dont have a live round in there, but if you arent comfortable with it, get it to a smith and have them document everything. i wouldnt want to send a complete rifle to them without it being documented. if its all trash, it doesnt matter if it gets cut open anyway......

 

[AA&E]

Just throwing out my 2 cents but couldn't have been a blockage in your gas system? Bent gas tube at the key/ Or blockage in your gas key itself???

I'm no expert but I can't see how that would cause the BCG to detonate. IME gas tube obstructions usually just result in short stroking or failure to cycle.

Just spitballing, but I don't see how there could be a live round in the chamber. The bolt lugs are still engaged and the bcg is basically gone. I don't see how a fresh round could have been picked up/chambered when the whole bgc is blown to hell.

I also don't see how it could be OOB if the bolt lugs are engaged.

The way that BCG is blown to hell, it looks to me like the bolt carrier began failing several rounds prior to the kaboom. My wild guess would be that it was cracked pretty much all the way through when the last round touched off.

I suppose it could also be a really overpressure round, but I would figure to see more barrel damage and venting out the magwell. I also would not expect to see a largely intact bolt. I just don't see how you get enough pressure inside a bolt carrier to blow it in half without shearing off the bolt lugs.

I'm really curious to see what FailZero has to say.

This. I've worked (as an occupation) in small arms before. I've shown this to people I know that still work in small arms (direct involvement in the US military special weapons platforms) and most believe this is likely a) overcharged round... or b) a squib (low or no powder charged round) followed up by a fully charged round that fired and encountered the blockage from the first shot in the barrel causing catastrophic failure due to pressure. But these are all guesses without inspection.

You can turn off the gas system entirely and you essentially turn your weapon into a fancy 30 round capacity bolt action rifle. Nothing within the gas system will cause this type of destruction. Even if it could/would, the gas tube is such a weak link it would be the portion that blew out. Not the BCG and upper receiver.


Edit - I went back and looked at the photos again. Without closer inspection but just off what I see in pictures... That bolt appears to still be in battery, the extractor is still angled up and not turned toward the side ejection port. The gas system didn't have an opportunity to charge the bolt carrier/gas key to unlock the bolt lugs. So... overcharged round... squib that didn't make it past the gas block port followed by a second round... these both seem very likely to cause this instant catastrophic damage.

While I think a poorly cast BCG could cause similar damage, I don't believe a standard charge would destroy the bolt carrier even if the bolt cracked. Also, nothing in cycling the BCG with a broken bolt should cause that level of damage in itself. This appears to be pressure driven destruction.

If it were a broken bolt carrier to begin with, most likely it also would not have interfered with the bolt unlocking and the BCG would still have begun cycling back. If the bolt broke due to a weakness in the support of the bolt carrier it would have still unlocked and started to cycle before failure. The way this is locked up solid I suspect the bolt is still completely in battery and hasn't begun rotation to release. This leads me to believe the pressures were intense enough to cause failure before the gas impingement system had an opportunity to function. I doubt the shooter noticed, but I'd wonder if the round hit target. Even in a failure the round is moving so fast and already in the proper path that his reaction to the detonation would not have had an influence on the projectiles path. This is why recoil doesn't influence our shots.

FWIW.

 

[AA&E]

I'm with ya on the whole failure of the bcg. I've read about fail zero having a bunch of bad bcg and out of spec bcg problems a couple years ago. Either way that sux

This is the one component where you get what you pay for and should never skimp. The barrel is another. I saw an email I received the other day for a $69.00 complete BCG. My initial thought was, no thank you.

 

[datIANguy]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGlAVMQxfUc

I came across this little video while doing some research on my AR. Says Federal American Eagle Ammo was used as well.

 

[david890]

I suggest using a cleaning rod to determine if a round is still in the barrel.

It may have been an over-pressured round. The pressure ruptures the case, venting the gas through the extractor. I'd also wager the BCG was damaged prior to the over-pressure event. There may be signs of carbon around the edges on the pieces of the BCG, which would tell you that rounds were fired while the BCG was cracked.

 

[jh1978]

So after getting it back from my gunsmith, he determined that it is unlikely that it was a mechanical failure. The primer was stuck in the barrel 1/4" behind the gas block, case still in the chamber and bolt lugs fully closed. It had to have been faulty ammo. I'll be sending the parts and gunsmith report off to Federal to see what they think.

Here are some more images.
Catastrophic AR-15 Failure - Album on Imgur

 

[Bfish]

Hopefully it works out for you.. Continue keeping us updated!

 

[droidmonster]

Yes, please keep us updated I'm very interested in the outcome. And glad you are okay.

 

[output]

If you are after some money. Contact a lawyer. If you are after some answers send the stuff into Federal.

 

[jh1978]

If you are after some money. Contact a lawyer. If you are after some answers send the stuff into Federal.

I'm not looking for money. I would ideally like to be able to rebuild my rifle. If it's just dumb luck then so be it but if it's an ammo problem then Federal Premium needs to know so they can take action to recall the lot. I wasn't hurt but others might not be so lucky.

 

[ghuns]

I'm not looking for money.

How un-American of you.

It's not like you spilled hot coffee on your lap. A gun blew up in your face. It's like a winning lottery ticket brah. Cash in.

 

[caulfieldian]

Saw this on reddit earlier this morning. Glad you're okay.

I've got a double star lower sitting around if you need one.

 

[jh1978]

Here's a better photo album.. sorry about the first one... never used imgur before

Catastrophic AR-15 Failure pt.2 - Album on Imgur

 

[cbhausen]

Holy SH*T this is the same ammo that blew up my Tavor:

https://www.indianagunowners.com/fo...itive-experience-iwi-us-customer-support.html

 

[jblomenberg16]

Hmm....saw the cross link...very interested in root cause. XM193 is generally pretty good stuff. Has to be a major goof up with wrong powder, or something very wrong in the formation of the cases.

This is the kind of stuff you usually see with reloaded ammo and the wrong type of powder (usually faster burning pistol powder) being used.

 

[cbhausen]

Sure looks like pistol powder, over-crimp, or to much bullet setback. I'll do some Google-Fu tomorrow and see if we're the only two... Seems highly unlikely.

 

[natdscott]

Known issue with Federal XM193 of all varieties.

There have been so many GD rifles blown up by this specific load that I'd never even CONSIDER chambering a round of it in my rifle unless it were a life/death situation and that's all I had.

If a Wylde chamber can't eat it, a 5.56 cannot either, and there have been BOTH blown up by this sh**.


Leave it on the shelves and vote with your dollars guys.

-Nate

 

[cosermann]

Known issue with Federal XM193 of all varieties. ...

Really? Anyone know if this is limited to recent lots? I ask because a lot of people fired a lot of Federal XM193 over the years [1] (including myself) and this is the first I'm hearing of it. So, I'm wondering if it's a recent lot or lots. If it were a systemic problem, one would think we'd be hearing about many more blown rifles.

[1] - Ammunition review and reference