So a friend of mine and myself went to the shooting range Monday. He was shooting his Charter Arms .357 Magnum when he pulls the trigger,gun goes off,the bullet hits the target and he is left holding 1/3 his pistol. "Uh Hey Dave................ where is the rest of my gun"













Luckly no one was hurt as we found pieces 30 feet forward and behind where it was fired from. He was shooting factory .357 Winchester silver tips. It wasnt a squib round. Charter Arms is going to replace the firearm with the model of his choice. I believe he plans to trade it for another model of gun. Anyone ever seen anything like this before?

[Edited on February 7, 2007 at 12:13 AM. Reason : .]

2/6/2007 11:53:29 PM

lucky son of a bitch

2/6/2007 11:55:23 PM

Damn, he's lucky. Kaboom's rarely turn out so well for the shooter.

Bet he moves up to a Colt or a Smith, this time.

2/7/2007 12:00:02 AM

That guys lucky to be alive

2/7/2007 12:04:18 AM

it happens......and kb's dont kill people
what he is lucky for is that Charter Arms is replacing the pistol, most gun companies blame it on the ammo

[Edited on February 7, 2007 at 12:14 AM. Reason : 1]

2/7/2007 12:12:36 AM

Here is what it is suppose to look like

http://www.charterfirearms.com/products/Charter_Mag_Pug.html

2/7/2007 12:16:58 AM

glad noone was hurt

2/7/2007 12:56:51 AM

Was this a new handgun? How many rounds had successfully fired through it?

What kind of defect could cause that sort of damage?

2/7/2007 1:35:17 AM

damn!

^flaw in the casting (gas bubble, etc.)? or in the strength treating? that'd be my guesses, but i'm no gun expert at all.

[Edited on February 7, 2007 at 2:02 AM. Reason : .]

2/7/2007 2:02:07 AM

Has he been reloading his used shell casings?

2/7/2007 2:49:35 AM

Whoa.

And yeah, hidden defects (microscopic cracks, voids, etc.) would cause something like that. Or a whole bunch of overcharges.

2/7/2007 5:48:47 AM

snap some pics of the caseheads so we can see the primers.

I would replace it with a smith or a colt or hell even a tarus

2/7/2007 7:29:49 AM

i know that you said no squib....but that has squib written all over it. I have seen the aftermath of a squib, and it looks just like that.

2/7/2007 9:14:07 AM

"Bag-O-Gun" FTW

Be very thankful you didnt lose any organic parts.

This makes me want to keep shooting only rifles.

2/7/2007 10:55:32 AM

^^^^ Overcharges over the life of the pistol, you mean? I could see that, steady diet of +p isn't really that good for anything, mechanically.


Was he shooting .357 or .38?

2/7/2007 11:20:47 AM

Quote :

"Was this a new handgun? How many rounds had successfully fired through it? "

He bought it used. We had probally put 150 rounds through it.

Quote :

"Has he been reloading his used shell casings? "

No. He had been shooting 38 specials through it . When it gave up he was shooting Winchester silver tip.357 magnum rounds through it.

2/7/2007 11:29:40 AM

Quote :

"i know that you said no squib....but that has squib written all over it. I have seen the aftermath of a squib, and it looks just like that. "

It wasnt a squib. We were shooting "knock down" targets and the round found its mark as did the round before it. Also there was no swelling of the barrel.

I showed the parts to a friend of mine who guessed that the mechanism was out of time.

2/7/2007 11:34:10 AM

Quote :

"the mechanism was out of time"

... in more ways than one.

2/7/2007 11:42:35 AM

I know metal injection molded (MIM) parts are an issue for a lot of 1911 owners. I don't know what Charter Arms' methods are for manufacturing, but thats the only thing I can think of. Still, its wierd how the frame broke in three places at the same time instead of just cracking in one or two weak spots and how the threaded part of the barrel came apart as well.

2/7/2007 12:06:57 PM

once you get one failure it makes sense that it would fail in other places too, its probably not designed for reduntant strength

2/7/2007 12:27:03 PM

Hmm.

Wouldn't it have to be REALLY REALLY out of time to get a failure like that, though, to the point that a bullet wouldn't actually go accurately downrange?

2/7/2007 1:00:19 PM

I'll take your word for it, I was econ, not engineer

2/7/2007 1:14:49 PM

charter arms guns are generally not that well made. sell the replacement and get a smith or ruger.

2/7/2007 1:24:44 PM

Hey, I'm the pistol killer here. I have always carried Colts but when Charter came back online in 2000 I though I'd give them a try as I carried a bulldog when working undercover. I am trading the replacement in on a 1911 and I have a custoimized Detective special as a backup. Personally I don't know what happened. I was fortunate, all I received was a little powder burn on my support hand. Thanks for all of your thought.

Gary

2/7/2007 1:59:46 PM

if your sure it wasn't a squib then I'll bet it was just enough out of time to rattle the shit out of the frame everytime it was fired. I had a materials lab where we did fatigue testing on stainless steel bars. Once a small crack is formed, the steel can be flexed (in this case by a .38 or .357 round) 10,000 times. But on cycle 10,001....boom. You suddenly have two pieces of steel.

Either your friend just has really bad luck or the guy that sold it to him noticed a tiny crack and decided to sell a dangerous firearm rather than send it back for repair.

Glad he's alright though.

2/7/2007 3:56:07 PM

That's what he gets for shooting southpaw.

2/7/2007 6:40:39 PM

Quote :

"Either your friend just has really bad luck "

That about sums it up.

Quote :

"That's what he gets for shooting southpaw."

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

2/7/2007 6:47:35 PM

The pic was of his left hand but as he says in the post^^^^ it was his support hand.

[Edited on February 8, 2007 at 3:43 PM. Reason : ^]

[Edited on February 8, 2007 at 3:43 PM. Reason : nevermind]

2/8/2007 3:42:58 PM

Too bad Mark David Chapman's Charter Arms .38 didn't explode in his hand.

2/8/2007 8:58:52 PM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_Arms

2/9/2007 12:13:46 PM

That's very nice of them.


I'd be pissed and sue. Firearm casualties are serious business.

2/10/2007 9:35:26 PM

Well they finally sent his new Bullbog .44 (Son of Sam Special) this week. He allready traded it in on a Colt 1911. The Bulldog was an even shittier gun than the .357 that blew up. I predict that Charter Arms will be no more very soon. At least they stood behind their product but I guarantee I never will again.

3/21/2007 6:37:10 PM

He traded it on a Colt, or just a 1911? I'm pretty sure a Colt owner would require body parts as collateral on a trade for a Charter Arms piece.

3/21/2007 10:10:29 PM

Traded on a Colt commander 1911 + some cash

3/22/2007 11:21:33 AM