Stainless Tikka .243 exploded at the range today - lots of luck

[scaramanga69]

Hi guys,
I am in the Uk and 3 weeks ago I bought a brand new sako 75 stainless laminate in .222 rem, after reading this thread last night I imediately took my gun out of my cabinet and checked the serial number, imagine my shock and horror to see that my gun's serial number fell between the two numbers qouted in the previous post, so this morning I rang the UK part of Beretta ( GMK ) and they told me that only 80 rifles were affected with the crap steel and 20 of them were sold ,the rest never made it on sale they were caught in time, it sounds like the affected rifles went over the pond to you guys, thankfully mine was not one of the duff ones, I couldnt sleep last night thinking that I had a lemon in my cabinet.

 

[FirstFreedom]

That's good news, Scaramanga, BUT, do you really, actually feel 100% safe that they're not mistaken when they say that it was limited to 80 rifles, and yours wasn't one of them? I would still be fearful when shooting it, unless I had excruciating detail of how, exactly, they knew that the crappy steel was only in "these" particular 80 rifles - why did it happen, how did it happen, in what way was the steel inferior, how exactly did they pinpoint it and thus know it's limited to those 80, etc.? I sure would like more details, and if I were you, I wouldn't be able to shoot it just with some telephone assurances and hope that their fear of lawsuits caused them to tell me the truth (particularly if they don't have attachable assets within the jurisdiction within which you would have the ability to sue them if it DID blow up on you).

I've always thought that while carbon steel is stronger, stainless steel tends to have more elasticity making a kaboom less likely. I dunno though.

Hmm, I dunno - anyone know?

 

[Handy]

I would have thought the opposite. Nickel and chromium make steel harder, but not more ductile.

 

[mete]

First freedom, it's not good to make generalizations on steels, too many variables.....Scaramanga , as I understand it there have been blowups in Sweden, Australia,Canada [2], USA[2].

 

[MeekAndMild]

You've got to understand that rifle barrels can get stress risers anywhere the radius of curvature of a corner is very small, i.e. every edge of every groove. So microscopic cracks can develop as a matter of routine, even though most of the time they never go anywhere unless the barrel is overstressed, like in shooting overloads, or with throat erosion from magnum loads.

But if the alloy is hard or brittle then bigger cracks can occur more easily and propagate quicker. With a sailboat you're only seeing forces of maybe 5,000 or 10,000 pounds but the fittings get more angular flexion. With rifles the flexion is smaller but the pressures are much greater. The sailboat rigging failures I've seen occurred under high winds but how do you create a low pressure situation in a rifle barrel.

Only stainless barrels I'm really comfortable with are my Glocks, which have no lands nor grooves (thus less potential for stress risers), .22s because they are thick and low pressure and my black powder rifle, because of the need for rust resistance and the fact that I can load it to only 100 grains of powder. Turned down on a really good buy on a Steyr last week because it was stainless.

More discussion on fatigue resistance and crack propagation:

http://www.key-to-steel.com/Articles/Art45.htm

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-66380.html

 

[mete]

The comment in the links about Krieger is incorrect - they do make stainless barrels out of 410 which is like 416 without the sulphur. So 410, 416, 17-4 and the Crucible steel variations 416R and 174SXR are used for barrels......Stainless steel has been used for many years for barrels so that is not the problem.Nor is rifling causing "stress risers" a problem. It is obviously a bad batch of barrel steel that is the problem .What is 'bad' about it can be a number of different things. BTW the Titanic sank because of bad steel but there where three bad things about that steel. The blown up guns failed after two or three boxes of ammo were fired.

 

[PsychoSword]

Well I haven't been able to get much info about the rifle, my internet connection has been down and I had finals this week, so I've been busy. I stopped in today again and two new guys were working. They didn't want to give me any contact info for the "Tikka victim" , but I did talk to them awhile to see if I could get any information out of them about the rifle. According to the one guy he said that the rifle was made after the supposed recall cut off date. I won't be able to get anymore info until I talk to the main man.

 

[MeekAndMild]

Nor is rifling causing "stress risers" a problem.

Suggest you test this hypothesis and look at a few barrels with bore lights and magnifiers. You might be surprised at the nonuniformity you'll see.

If I ever get a metal cutting bandsaw I'll cut the three cracked stainless steel pistol barrels I've collected over the last few years (one Kimber, one Ruger and one S&W) in half longitudinally and publish some photos. I haven't figured out how to illuminate them well enough to photo them from the butt end or I would have posted already.

Thought about borrowing an otoscope, but it would only give about a 2x magnification.

 

[Danindetroit]

There are different methods of rifling guns, so you would have to figure out how the rifling was done. Maybe pistols are done only one way.

 

[Fire Capt]

Sako Blow-Up

Hello,
I'm new to this site . (postings) But any way.
I wanted to get the word out that yes these guns are blowing up and I had one go off on the 13th of Oct. It was the first round fired that day and the 19th overall round fired. It was 300 WSM Sako Finnlite. I was using 180 gr nossler balisitc tips a very low pressure load. The barrel split in three Peices length wise, The reciver three ways, The stock in a "L" shape, The scope over the top of my head. I broke five bones in four fingers and just had surjery to repair my thumb. I posted this on accuratereloading.com and there are pictures there of my gun as well as three others. Go to the fourms then to gunsmithing then to Sako Blow-up. I would be happy to post them here if I knew how! I would be happy to answer any and all questions regaurding this incident, And would like to speak to others that have had there Sako or Tikka blow up on them or knowledge of this happening. I'm not a lawyer by the way I'm a Firefighter in Washington State. I just would like to get the word out on these blow-up's.
Thanks and be safe,
Mark

 

[Danindetroit]

I am their, I see mete's posts, if you want I can post pics if you don't mind, and I think in the tech section the provid a good explanation. I do it this way, for pics on my hard drive, I scroll down to mange attachments, and just clicl it, you will then browse in a new window that has opened to your attachement, pic it, and it will post, in the preview pane it is not listed, you can practice in the test section. For web based photo's, I just right click, the phot, it will list properties which is a path to the photo, double click, or right click, I think, and select all, do not just copy and paste because the name may be "link" may be shortened. Then use the yellow button slightly below the size and color options, this will put

tags around your path, and it will open automatically in some people's window if that option is selected, or they might have to click a link.

Is it lawndart who posted it, because he has a tale of somebody basically retreiving their hand, and going to the ER.

 

[Danindetroit]

Here is a link to the post on accurate reloading. I hope I do not offend anybody by posting it, Fire capt, directed me to it, it has some pretty amazing pics.

Hope you are going to be alright FC. I have seen people doing hand physical therapy, it is not fun, from the people i have talked to, hopefully you will be you are doing well, thank you for posting the info, it seems more comprehensive than we have seen on TFL. The attacks against your character, in the first posts are totally unwarranted. Good luck.

#1 This link is for the whole 17 PAGES of posts downloaded at once, lost of pics, not for people with slow connections.

#1 http://www.accuratereloading.com/ub...age=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21&fpart=all&vc=1

#2 The first page of posts 1 of 17 recomended for dial-up users.

#2 http://www.accuratereloading.com/ub...34230&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21&fpart=1

 

[mete]

BTW while Fire Capt is new to this forum , the thread in www.accuratereloading.com is two months old. We're just trying to get the word out.

 

[MeekAndMild]

I would be happy to answer any and all questions regaurding this incident,

OK, Fire Capt, my first question is whether you've looked to see how the initial crack propagation around the throat or chamber started, whether my theory about cracks starting in the rifling would be plausible or whether there were inclusions or corrosion cracks or what?

But then on second thought if I were you, I'd probably just drop off line and not say anything until after all the lawsuits have been settled. Once all the inevitable unpleasantness has been finished maybe you can post the engineering analysis. If you're not a lawyer you need one.


BTW, welcome to TFL. This place, and shooting sports in general are a lot of fun. Too bad you had to go through this experiance, but hopefully it will be your last bad one.

 

[LAK]

Should interesting to see what the final word is. My lay impression going back to the early days of stainless firearms is that stainless steels seem to be a bit less forgiving of errors in production and fabrication.

This has given me a very slight distrust (as I initially had with castings) of stainless rifles I have never really shaken off. I remember Browning originally made the bolt-heads of their Stainless A Bolts from carbon steel; although I do not know whether this is the case now.

I think if I were shopping for a Sako right now I would not likely be tempted by any of their stainless or other new offerings with all the old used ones on the market. Perhaps significant - or perhaps not - but I have never heard of any such incidents occuring before Sako/Tikka fell under the ownership of Beretta.

 

[Wolfen]

I work in an industry where steel and stainless steel are used in rod and bar form in huge volume. For at least a year now, all types of steel has been extremely hard to get, and expensive (prices have gone thru the roof). Now, with the shortage, the steel mills are shipping product that wouldn't have made it out before. We're finding inclusions, wrong chemistry, and, my guess in this case, seams. If that particular rod for that batch of barrel had a seam, that might account for the explosions.... we may never hear for sure.....

 

[Danindetroit]

Here is a good pic of the seams, that metal does not look right, maybe you can tell W, but it looks like shale, or how flint chips, I wonder if to much Si that gives wear resistance when added to aluminum, was put in this batch.

 

[Wolfen]

Actually, I looked at those pics after posting earlier. It would be pretty hard to argue about the chemical compostion without a metallugical test, but chances are the chemistry is correct on the stainless. The post I saw those pics in stated that the fracture began at the chamber and ran lengthwise down the barrel. My money's on seams in the material.........

 

[Danindetroit]

So are barrels just made from bar stock? I thought the might be rotary forged, maybe around a circular form, then broached, or drilled for the inside. I thinks I need to learn more, I know that the method depends a lot on the thickness of the barrel. The outside can be turned I assume, or ground I guess.

PS From the diff of these 2 pics, I am going to say 2 or more different factor are at work, the steel just looks so different at the seem. I bet that 1 of the factors, would not have caused the failures, or caused them to be so catastrophic. I think handy posted this about gun failures in the past, I bet he is right.

 

[mete]

Barrels can be made different ways . You can take a bar and drill it out. You can take a short bar [~12"] drill it out and rotary forge it ,which stretches it out to ~ 24". The rotary forge method IIRC was developed by Steyr at least 30 years ago and many manufacturers have used it. Rifling can be cut with a broach or more commonly "button rifled" where a carbide button is drawn through the barrel cold forming the rifling. Since free maching grades of steel are not recommended for much cold working that should exclude 416 from rotary forging. The trick is to get a straight hole [ using a single straight flute drill called a 'gun drill' ] that is centered in the barrel. The outside can easily be machined , or ground and flutes can be milled.