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

[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]

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 [IMG] [/IMG] 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/ubb...fpart=all&vc=1

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

#2 http://www.accuratereloading.com/ubb...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.

[Danindetroit]

I have used gun drills to drill water lines in molds, we didn't have a gundrill machine, but you can use, a regular cnc machine that has the travel needed. Rotary forging can be done hot, it is the way artillery barrels are made. I guess I need to see how it is actually done, to understand it better.

Button rifling a thin barrell will bulge it, because the button doesn't actually cut the steel, it irons the rifling in. So if yu want a thin rifle barrel it has to be rifled on a thick blank, and turned, and it may alter the bore, unless you only take off an 1/8"

The methods for thin barrels are cutting the rifling in. Broaching is a one pass method, you can use a multi pass method also.

[MeekAndMild]

For at least a year now, all types of steel has been extremely hard to get, and expensive (prices have gone thru the roof).

http://www.lightsearch.com/lightnow/design_china.htm

[LAK]

IIRC in the rotary forging process pioneered by Steyr the steel is forged around a mandrel that has the correct bore with rifling profile already on it.

On the seams theory in this case, it is interesting as the barrel seems to have split almost symetrically into three sections. I would have thought that a single seam in a forged bar or rod would have caused it to split in two.

Further, the surfaces in the breaks only show tearing in a few spots; the rest having the character of cold chocolate that has snapped albeit in an uneven fashion.

[Danindetroit]

I guess what do you think?, because the other pic shows a very different type of crack that you describe. I have seen a couple guns that had muzzles, that looked like a peeled banana, a long time ago, at a gun show. Not recently though.

I am more interested in this phenomenon, because I am considering a gun purchase, I have the choice of stainless, and blued 4130? barrels. I want to know if it is more likely to happen is stainless steel. Tikka is not one of the guns in the running, but I always thought a company can easily smile, and be nice when selling something, and nothing goes wrong, it is when you have a problem, that a company either shines, or hits rock bottom. Is there being any info, on reasons, released, or #'s of actual problems? It is the reason that I would drive an hour or more to cabela's, if you had a receipt, with a purchase date within 60? days, they just replaced the item, or trade for a different one, of same price, no questions asked, they even adjusted scopes, for free. No grumbling, no ask my manager, just did it, with a smile.

[LAK]

Danindetroit,

Bear in mind that my observations are that of a lay person; while I have a pretty good grasp of the basic mechanics, I am not a metallurgist. And I am as interested to hear the last word on this one as you are. As far as my opinions on purchasing any stainless rifles at this time - see my earlier post.

[Danindetroit]

It looks like all we have is lay people, and not metallurgists, so your opinion is a valid as anyone, until somebody posts, a sheepskin, with a materials engineering degree, and has specialized in metals, for a while. I say this because my father-in-law, build industrial oven, and has to build them to have the oven expand, that means the conveyer system, and sheetmetal, they just use sloted holes with loose fitting bolts. An engineer was specing out an oven and talked about having to do calculus equations, all afternoon, to find the stretch. My father in law said from 70 to 500 degress, the steel we use will stretch about an inch(2" total) every 10' feet of oven. It is not that hard to put in an extra inch of play, in 10 feet. The moral, I'll take 30 years experience, and some book learning, over no experience and a fancy degree. My father-inlaw does have an associates, in a manfacturing disicpline, or pre-engineering from ferris state. The lack of classes in metallurgy, is rather frightening, considering how important it is. I guess paying the money to take a class at a 4 year school, in the future will be necessary.

I was also, able to go online, and find a very good free engineering software, that calculated loads of beams supported in various ways, and almost any other basic engineering problem, including material growth, due to heat.

Just found a website that has some neat looking online tools. It is at the bottom of the page.

http://www.engineering.com/content/i...eID=mechanical

[mete]

I am a metallurgist and have been to gunsmithing school. I have tried to explain metallurgical aspects of this case on www.accuratereloading.com. Without actually seeing the guns and doing a proper metallurgical examination my experience in failure analysis still leaves it to conjecture. .....Formal education and experience are necessary.

[Danindetroit]

I am assuming now that you mean the posts, in the forums, it would be pretty hard to find with the link you provided. I guess I don't understand why you didn't just link the post.

[dfaugh]

on a variety of gun boards. As near as I can tell, all of the failures were fluted barrels, and the fractures occurred along the flutes...Which makes sense, as this would be the thinnest part of the barrel. My knowledge of metallurgy is rudimentary, at best, comes from years ago when I built race cars and did alot of "fancy" fabrication and welding. We experimented alot, and any failures similar to what's seen here was result of material (whatever it was, steel, aluminum, stainless) being too brittle for the loads imparted on it. You could have a piece that was strong enough for loads of a certain kind(compression for example), but would fracture when a different type of load (torsion for example) was applied to it. Will be interested to find out what the "final analysis" of this brings to light.

[scaramanga69]

Hi guys
I posted to this thread last week regarding my experience so far with this unforunate saga, I too own one of the sako 75's that fall within the designated serial numbers, after phoning them last week and getting a word of mouth assurance from them that mine was not affected by the recall I have since been in contact Berretta (UK) again regarding my rifle, this is basically after reading more and more of these posts that started to worry me a bit more, they have aggreed to give me written confirmation that mine is not one of them, they have absoloutely guarranteed me that none of the faulty rifles were sold by them, all of these were traced and sent back to the factory for analysis.
Of course I am in the UK so the situation could be entrirely different to elswhere, Im sure Berretta UK does not import or sell any thing like the amount of rifles that they would to the US, so maybe this has made it easier for them to track the affected batch, any how I have decided to hell with it I am going to shoot the gun as it is a real tack driver the most accurate rifle I have ever owned (.222 rem) .
Maybe you think I am crazy but I really think If there was any chance of this rifle being one of them I would have been contacted by now, any how I have put nearly 250 rounds through it, so I would have thought if there was anything wrong it would have reared its head by now.