Jaywalker and others-
Pursuant to obtaining an R93 and then hearing rumors of "blow-ups" on the 'net, I contacted Blaser in 2005 and received both personal letter from the home office and a copy of a press release from Blaser that was made available to the media and the public in general.
Here is the letter I received: (I didn't know how to scan it and send it here so just rewrote it for the benefit of all who are interested.)
Dear Sir,
As you are aware of, on January 10, 2004, at a shooting range near Koblenz, Germany, a Blaser R93 was damaged and in that accident the shooter was injured.
Unfortunately this issue has been taken and exaggerated from various people in order to discredit the R93 in an un-objective and dubious way.
On January 22, 2004, the CEO and Technical Directors of Blaser Jagdwaffen GmbH were able to look at the rifle in question, with three police officials with the permission of the public prosecutors office Koblenz.
The steel showed deformation in the lockup area as well as two definite cracks beginning at the rear end of the chamber. Powderized brass was found in the lock-up area. There was deformation on the bolt head as well as deformation on the bolt head elements. The cam plate, which supports the assembly in locked position, and the right rail were broken away from position while the assembly was in a closed and locked position.
In a series of tests through DEVA (Deutsche Versuchs- und prufanstalt fur Jagd- und Sportwaffen.V.) measurements of the gas pressure were increased to almost 8.000bar/116,000 psi, whereby under this pressure there was no measured deformation to the outer contour of the chamber area in the barrel. There were also no deformations to the bolt head.
Without wanting to anticipate the results from the public prosecutor and after examination we have concluded clearly the damage was caused through extreme overloaded gas pressure. With consideration to the above mentioned DEVA examination, it is our opinion that the cause of this accident is without doubt due to the ammunition and cannot be related to the rifle. (my note: the independant agency DEVA later confirmed this as their findings also).
At this point we would like to clearly state, that the technical design of the R93, with more than 100,000 rifles supplied (and now more than 160,000 as has been mentioned in a post above), has not been found responsible for any accident where the rifle has been damaged. Every single R93 is controlled and tested by the state/county proof-house according to the C.I.P. regulations using proof cartridges exceeding the maximal allowed gas pressure by a minimum of 30%. The R93, however, withstands loads/gas pressures way above proof-level as our in-house/combined DEVA-tests clearly documents.
In the test reports from DEVA it was confirmed that there is no reason to doubt or fear the R93s strength and durability. DEVA states, "In the case of destruction to a rifle with an (illegal) gas pressure of 8.000 bar or above, this eventually may result in injury to the shooter. This cannot be related to the rifle."
"There are no reasons for us to doubt the safety of the technical design of the R93."
Unfortunately, it happens in individual cases that the use of defective or incorrectly loaded ammunition results in damage to the rifle and/or shooter, no matter what brand or type of rifle is used. For example, in 2003 we were aware that in Austria alone, three cases of destroyed bolt-actions rifles occured due to incorrectly loaded ammunition with three different rifle manufacturers being involved.
Even through there are enormous numbers of R93s on the market there are extremely few cases occuring through inadmissable, well overloaded gas pressures where a rifle is damaged or destructed. For this there are appraisals from different institutes with clear statements: In none of these cases a weapon-lateral cause of the damage was determined.
The Blaser R93, through its extremely safe and practice-suited technical design is one of the most popular hunting rifles offered on todays market. The straight fact is that with the enormous numbers of the R93 in the field today it is extremely rare that a rifle is destructed through incorrectly loaded ammunition. This is argument enough for the R93.
Yours sincerely in good hunting,
Blaser Jagdwaffen GmbH
Bernhard Knobel
Perhaps we can put the safety of the R93 design to rest finally. Hearsay is that a Weatherby was just blown up in this past half year. With the tens of thousands of handloaders out there, any manufacturers action can be turned into a bomb with a double charge or so of a two-fast powder.
Gdv
