So I got a New England Firearms Handi-Rifle Pardner in .223 with a nice scope at a yard sale. Go to the range at my lunch break, set up targets at 100 yerds, trudge back to the bench...load up, first round, from a brand-new box of ammo...

Expecting POW!
But POWrrFFT says the gun - and my face suddenly HURTS....The casing ruptured and I got a spray of fine brass powder right on the cheek...looks like I brush burn...

And all I can think is how freaking close to my EYES that blast of metal powder was....

So now, the gun is full of brass filings - and as I find out later after a good cleaning, it's broken too (firing pin is destroyed, it seems).

Of course, AFTER the fact, I learn that .223 and 5.56 aren't the same, and even though I used ammo labeled .223, not 5.56, it didn't say .223 REMINGTON on the box, so it may be a case of 5.56 loads packaged as .223.

Anyway, damage to the gun is consistent with a 5.56 round being chambered in a .223 remington gun - it seems that the primer blew back into the firing pin, the case wasn't correctly seated and the resulting rupture made a mess of things. I'll be hauling it off to the gunsmith...this will be an expensive bargain!

Glad you're ok, sounds like you were wearing eye protection.

Was it factory ammo, or someone's reloads?

Factory Ammo, yes eye protection...stuff happens on the range...

When you have it at the gun smiths have him check the head space also. OH and tweezers work real good to get the brass out of your skin so you do not get super face.

Yeah, I want this gun totally checked out. It really turned out badly for me...was a cool gun, but if the repair is super-expensive...well you live and learn. Fortunately no brass actually is embedded in my skin...that's good.

Back to my trusty M6 Scout....my all-purpose gun that I use more than any other!

FWIW, some rifles, such as the Ruger Mini-14, accept both .223 REM and 5.56 NATO. Always read the manual.

Pat

It isn't a matter of RTFM- just about any firearm manufactured for .223 Remington will handle 5.56mm milspec, just like any .308 should handle 7.62 NATO, or any .30-06 will handle, well, .30-06. Even though the manuals might caution against military ammo, and SAAMI might say there is a difference, the manufacturers KNOW that these guns will at some point be fed military surplus fodder. The only time I might say it is critical is something like the ADC Model 1 derringers, in the .223 loading, due to just how little metal there is, but for something like this that started life as a 12 ga shotgun action, there's enough metal there that I think it would more than compensate for the higher pressures.

These little "handiguns" might another exception, but we would have been hearing a lot about this if it was a chronic issue. I'm wondering if there was a flaw in the chamber, or the action might not have been entirely locked. I'd also like to find out if you have a lot number on that ammunition, and run it down, becuase if the case itself failed, then this wouldn't be an isolated incident, odds are something would be bad with the lot.

This wouldn't happen to be cheapo European ammo, would it? I've thrown a lot of US military ammo out of my Contender, and I've never seen anything that even looked like it was bulging, much less ruptured, but I've heard a few horror stories about cases made in the old ComBlock.

Martin,

Sorry to hear about your experience! Perhaps you should contact NEF (H&R / Marlin) - that should not have happened. I understand that the primer was pierced - or did it actually blow out? Two different failure modes there. Did the case head separate / rupture?

You are correct about generally not using 5.56 in a .223, although an accident like yours would be rare. See http://www.winchester.com/lawenforcement/news/newsview.aspx?storyid=11
and http://www.thegunzone.com/556faq-nb.html

However (ahem) - it's not all as simple as that - not really too much of a Dr J / Mr H. Yes, milspec may be loaded to higher than SAAMI spec. The "problem" didn't get really serous IMHO until 1) it became a NATO round and 2) the SS109 and longer bullets came onto the scene. Back when the only ammo was US M193, it just wasn't much of a problem.

As Ironraven noted, many weapons handle both just fine - probably in main part because they are designed for 5.56. But be careful with firing 223 in semi-autos - there is a milspec for the energy required to light off the primer, and it is, as a generalization, higher than non milspec. Reason is to reduce / eliminate slam fires cause by a floating firing pin doing an inertia ding of the primer when cycling the bolt into battery. I've never had one, but I load my semi auto ammo with milspec primers for that reason.

Pending hearing back from you, I'm guessing you either had a pierced primer (gun flaw) or the gun fired when it was not completely locked up (also a gun flaw). Frankly, I seriously doubt that one could suffer a case separation in this caliber / action combo unless the action was previously sprung enough for you to notice (and how would THAT have happend? Not enough available energy in that size case).

I'm VERY curious to hear the specifics once you have them. Please share!

Again, glad to hear you're OK.

Tom

"just about any firearm manufactured for .223 Remington will handle 5.56mm milspec"

"any .308 should handle 7.62 NATO"

OK, fine. I refer you back to post #1 in this thread.

Pat

I had a NEF Handy Rifle in .308, a real POS! <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Yes, and NEF is not only a quality brand (as a part of Marlin), but the design is a minor modification of the H&R Topper which has been around for decades. .223 is also a very popular chambering for it, as are a number of much higher pressure rounds. If it can not survive 5.56mm milsurp ammunition pressures, then how can it handle.30-06? I ask that out of pure curiosity, as a friend has a .30-06 barrel for his, and has owned it for several years.

I refer you to my post. This is not an issue inherent in the design of the firearm. This was most likely an ammunition failure, possibly caused by over loaded or low quality cases. The odds of a quality control failure in the production of the firearm and barrel are remote, but not outside of the realm of consideration. Another potential is a problem that I've seen with VERY old Toppers, where the action seems to be locked, but isn't, which causes the action to open during firing; while it is extremely unlikely in this case, due to the age of the firearm, it is possible that there was a lock failure due to a malformed part or maintence on the part of the prior owner.

The reason why I say this NOT a 5.56mm vs .223 Rem issue is becuase of the sheer number of of these guns which have been fitted with the .223 Remington barrel, and virtual gaurentee that they will be shot with milsurp ammo (inexpensive gun, inexpensive practice ammo- notice the similiarities?), means that we would have heard about this long before now if the NEF actions and barrels weren't able to handle the milspec ammo.

I said "just about" and "should", becuase there are some very light weight and/or lesser quality frames and mechanisms that have no purpose even trying to handle the .223, such as the various derringers made for it, and becuase some of the vary early .223s and .308s were on the market before the details of the military ammunition was widely available to the public. It also may apply to the various .223 break action conversions for the 1911 that have been produced. BUT I'll go so far as to say ANY rifle chambered for the .223 Remington cartridge manufactured in the past 25 years, and having met approval of both federal and industry regulatory agencies for commercial sale, can and will fire the 5.56x45mm NATO specification round (even if you have to hand feed it), baring catastrophic and freak failure of the cartridge and/or the gun due to issues arising from insufficent quality control. Any time a manual says that you should not fire military specification ammunition, it's in there due to the insistance of lawyers.

While there may be some failures to ignite (due to harder than standard primers), to feed (silly, over long bullets, but that would apply only to a VERY old .223, and never to a break action) or to properly eject (due to very slight case swelling, which would be no worse than experinced on the H&K roller locks), when using military ammunition, the firearm should be able to safely handle that. Other than those points, the whole "military vs similiar civilian" ammunition is anachronism for modern firearms, and mostly stems from when the military had not yet adopted smokeless powder as a propellent, but the sporting shooters had. It was furthered when sporting rifles were produced for the .30-03 cartridge, which not only had a round nosed bullet but also a significantly lower chamber pressure than the .30-06 that used the same case. (A similiar issue led to the .development of the.32 Special, vs .30-30 which uses the very same case.) When fired out of a well made bolt action, such as the Spingfield, they were fine, but when fired out of a rebarreled Krag or one of the many cheap (not inexpensive, but truely cheap) breakactions of the era, the .30-06 would have an extremely negative effect on the action. But for most modern production weapons, this issue is mostly an urban legend which the lawyers keep alive.

Martin's accident is a fluke, but the point you are looking at hasn't been an issue for decades in all but a tiny number of cases. Any action which the manufacturer says will handle .30-06 is not one of those cases.

Here's the exact situation, with images:

The NEF Handi-Rifle is clearly marked .223 and the cartridges I bought were also .223 - not match-grade, just some generic .223 from Sportsmans guide:


I checked the barrel for obstructions, there were none.
I inserted the round into the chamber (this is a break-action gun), snapped it shut, made sure it was locked, cocked the weapon, got steady on my target, and pulled the trigger.
The blast wasn't right, and of course, there was that mist of brass on my right cheek.

The case ruptured quite completely:

Part of it fell right out, the rest needed to be pried out with pliers.

You can see pretty well where the firing pin SLAMMED into the cartridge - there's quite a deep impact there.



In looking over the gun back home. I can't tell if the break action lock was a factor or not - I noticed that once after I snapped it shut and checked that it was locked, the next time I handled the weapon, the action opened! Now I can't be sure if what I thought was a loaded, locked breech was in fact a problem. Although the gun was locked after the cartridge blew apart, I wonder if it somehow came unlocked during ignition of powder?

Anyway, that's about all the detail I can give, short of the weather at the time of the accident.

Martin,

It may be an optical illusion, but apart from the case being ruptured, it looks swollen out, as if the chamber is grossly wrong (too large - not for .223). Adding to that thought, that's an unusual case rupture UNLESS the chamber is jugged out.

The firing pin indent seems a little large (diameter) for a caliber that uses a small rifle primer, but perhaps all NEF frames use the same firing pin (?) That looks like an indent left on a shotshell primer, FWIW. <shrug> Shouldn't make an difference, other than being overkill. Primer was not pierced from what I can see (no scorch marks radiating from the primer / primer pocket area)

Sounds like the lock-up may be twitchy but no way for me to tell without the rifle in-hand. But you would have noticed for certain if the action was not locked when it fired, even with a .223.

Is the ammo loaded with 55gr or 62gr bullets? What is the twist rate on the rifling (you can check that with a tight patch and a cleaning rod)? These are clues, depending on the answers.

At this point I am very suspicious of the chamber dimensions.

Please let us know what you find out from a gunsmith.

Regards,

Tom

No, the case isn't swollen out, but it looks that way.

Wow.

I've never seen a cartidge (in person or photo) that looked that bad. I agree with Tom, I wouldn't touch the rifle until it has been gone over by a smith, AND I'd contact NEF. I'd also call Sportsmans Guide, becuase this is just freakish. Even with a badly dimensioned chamber, I can't imagine this happening without something being funny with the ammo unless your chamber unlocked.