Following are photos of a .257 Wby Mag (Vanguard) that had a catastrophic failure apparently as a result of firing a round that had a double charge of Blue Dot.
For quite some time I have been shooting reduced recoil loads that I have loaded using Blue Dot powder in my .30-30, .243, and .257 Wby Mag. I have never had a problem and have developed some very good loads using Blue Dot.
I had been working up some new reduced loads for my .257 using the 117 grain Hornady BTSP. At one point in my reloading process my wife had walked into the room and had asked me several questions. After finishing our conversation, I completed loading the set of variously charged cartridges. It was getting late in the afternoon and I wanted to go out and try them, so I hurried and got my ammo and gun and went to shoot.
I was shooting the lowest charged cartridges first and was working my way up, watching for pressure signs. The ammo was shooting really well when it happened. I pulled the trigger and for a few seconds I didn't know what had happened. I vaguely remember seeing the scope coming back at me and I knew something wasn't right. I looked down and saw that my gun was demolished. I realized I had had a catastrophic failure and went to check myself in the mirror for injuries. I was bleeding several places on my face and around my eyes.
I hurriedly picked up the pieces of the gun. The barrel was laying out in front of my shooting bench about 7 feet and it was intact. I went home an cleaned my wounds. I am so very fortunate--there were no serious injuries. I could easily have lost an eye, or even have been killed, but only minor cuts and bruising occurred!
I sent the gun into Weatherby to make sure the rifle wasn't at fault. It wasn't. They said it was the result of firing an extremely high pressure round in the firearm. Although I have never double charged a load before, apparently I did this time, and it was a double charge of Blue Dot.
I am sharing this incident as a warning of just how dangerous it is to use Blue Dot or other fast burning pistol powders for reduced loads in rifle ammunition. I am blaming no one but myself and I'm not saying its going to happen to everyone who uses Blue Dot for reduced charge loads. I know that thousands of rounds of Blue Dot charged rifle ammo has been successfully fired. I believe this event occurred because of negligence on my part. I believe that I allowed myself to become distracted while reloading this batch of ammo.
If you continue to load rifle ammunition with Blue Dot, PLEASE BE CAREFUL! Do everything you can to keep from double charging a load and do everything you can to check to make sure you haven't double charged any cases.
I am blaming no one except myself for this mishap. I am so lucky/blessed that I did not suffer a serious injury. You might not be so lucky.