I have never experienced it myself but when browsing another forum I saw a post on a punctured primer in a Winchester Model 70 and the shooter is pretty confident he would have lost an eye if he wasn't wearing a pair of glasses.

I am curious if anyone else has experienced this sort of nasty gas venting, and if so in what type of rifle. Since reading the post I'm a bit apprehensive of some of the rifles I own even though primer punctures are rare occurances in the past one hundred years.

I'd like to know if anyone who has experienced the gas vent in use has had the gas blow straight back or down or elsewhere, and which rifles they were shooting at the time.

Richard

(I've posted this exact message on a couple of forums)

when i was young and stupid i liked to push the limits and had a couple punctured primers with insane handloads. no damage. both were in a Model 70 winchester. it just felt like hitting a few bugs on a motorcycle. i'm very lucky to have survived some of my stunts.
i think the Mauser and the Winchester have the best gas handling system, but i can't remember how the bolt shroud covers the left reciever raceway (the straight shot to the face) on all of the others.
the obvious way to prevent this (or at least reduce the chances) is don't do the stupid things i did. (i thought max loads ought to be alright without working up from the starting loads).

monty

From a puntured primer - hmm, seems unlikely. Most modern (and by modern I mean from 1890s on) rifles do have various ways to vent gas from the chamber.

A model 70 currently has some vent holes in the bolt to directy any gas from the firing pin hole into the magazine.

Now, if he was picking pieces of brass out of his shooting glasses... then yeah, agree.

Have had case heads leak gas (starting to split but not a full separation) in both a Ruger 77 and a Savage 110; never felt a thing and only noticed by the black crack in the case.

My dad had the head split on a case in a Rem model 7; smelled the powder gas, but he said he got just a puff on the cheek.

Not saying people don't get hurt by such things, but that's why safety glasses, earplugs, etc., exist.

One other thing - in respect to gas handling, the push-feed actions are generally much superior to the controlled-round feed.

The Savage might be the best of all, since it has baffles that block the bolt lug raceway behind the bolt head, and holes in each side of the receiver to vent.

Haven't had any gas get back into my face, but have popped a few primers over the years. In two cases, that single primer failure lead to a nice big eroded "pit" in the breech face. In once case, ruining the bolt (as the pit left 1/2 the primer unsupported, any other load fired would also pop it's primer). In the oither (Martini action) had to repair the breech block.

Gas can come back. Most are well vented and baffled, but people tend to change bolt shrouds or do other modificiations that look a bit prettier...but may not be as safe as original equipment.


Wear GOOD shooting glasses...not a fashion statement, and DO NOT continue to shoot any ammo that shows distreessed primers.

I was sighting in a M77mark2 in .270 for my friend, using Federal factory ammo and I had a primer completely blow out of the case, Felt a little gas and debris come back, nothing major, in my stupidity, I wasn't wearing glasses. Had the gun checked for headspace, etc. and they didn't find anything, chocked it up to a factory overload.