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Vaquero Blowup The load used was 9.5 grains WW231 under a 200 grain cast lead bullet. Consulting the Lyman handbook it shows a MAX of 10 under an approximate 250 grain bullet so it was certainly safe, and wasn't a super reduced load. The case was Remington loaded 3 or 4 times with light loads, the primer was CCI standard pistol primer. I had loaded 50 of these loads, as mentioned earlier. All 49 of the loads that were fired showed absolutely none of the standard signs of pressure, primers were ok without any flattening, extraction was effortless. My brother was shooting the piece at the time, the incident happened on the last cartridge, in fact it was the only cartridge in the gun, as sometimes happens shooting a box of fifty we ended up with one left to shoot. The noise seemed exactly the same, my brothers perception of the recoil wasn't any different than the previous 49 shots. In fact, he didn't know anything had happened until he went to unload the spent cartridge. The previous six shots worked perfectly-he was testing for accuracy and had bullet strikes from the fired rounds- and there wasn't any indication of a fizzled round- we have had those over the years and it has always been evident that something different had happened. The damage to the cylinder may be visible in the pics I am sending you, I apologize in advance for the quality but my digital camera doesn't have a close focus. But the damage was cracking the cylinder completely lengthwise on the outside right in the middle of the chamber and then cracking the metal between the cylinder. The base pin was bent and it appears that the frame has a slight upwards bow. The cylinder looks like an egg- out of round. The barrel looks unharmed, no bulges or cracks in the unsupported area of the throat. As mentioned earlier I always visually check powder charges- especially with the faster burning powders. As an experiment I put a double charge in a case to see just how obvious the difference was, 18 grains of 231 is readily apparent. I am absolutely at a loss to explain this incident. I am sending the gun back to Ruger and will let you know what their speculation is.
Thanks so much, Select an image for a larger view
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