Kentucky Ballistics gun explosion

[Sharpie]

Serbu will be doing a video of a postmortem as soon as he gets the bits back from Kentucky Ballistics.

Channels like Demolition Ranch, Edwin Sarkissien, Tafeldemaus - all similar to Kentucky Ballistics (minus the full auto).

Rear guard action ? (sick pun).

Postmortem thankfully unnecessary for the chump.

Entertainment over sanity ? Only in 'amerca. I don't watch this stuff, better things to waste my time on such as good channels relevant to shooting in the UK and EU.

Armchair observations, worth just as much as you paid for them.

Facts and data sadly in limited supply, and when presented, often mobbed by, all sorts of irrational twits of limited or zero knowledge but opinionated none the less.

TBH this is getting boring. Nevertheless I will observe with fascination, and disbelief, as to how it pans out.

 

[Sharpie]

Mark Serbu speaks

Aah well. Totally safe, religious, reference to "bad guys", going to post-mortem his own product (independent ?), already blaming the ammo. Lets just see how it goes.

Fine words butter no parsnips.

 

[Greymaster]

"You can't tourniquet a neck"

 

[Sharpie]

"You can't tourniquet a neck"

A vein (jugular) got nicked. Bad enough.

Had it been an artery (carotid), no amount of thumb in neck, or prayers, would have saved him. Lucky guy.

 

[User00033]

This kind of thing is a real shame. Yeah its a great “I survived” story but at what cost to others?

Mr. S. Kentucky has gone public, placing everything on God’s doorstep, before any root cause analysis whatsoever. This has created the perfect storm of speculation landing on the rifle manufacturer, with every armchair expert on every forum and social media channel voicing their opinions on the gun design and more besides. So Mark Serbu’s reputation is in tatters whether this catastrophic failure can be directly linked to the rifle design or not. I think it would have been far more reasonable to wait until there had been an investigation, to avoid the public jury convicting the manufacturer before the defence has even spoken.

I got sent the link by my cuz in the US and he immediately referenced a WhatsApp group chat we had a while back about another relative’s military collectibles, and how he had to be eagle eyed to spot fake collectible milsurp ammo which was actually once fired and reloaded. When we see a (massively) over pressure failure like this, the spotlight must surely first fall on the ammunition, its makeup, age, storage history and legitimacy. Olin / Winchester will be watching with interest I’m sure.

Oh, and it might have been said already but these M903 / M962 SLAP(T) rounds are only ever supposed to used in the M2 machine gun, as specified by... the US military.

 

[Mr. Gain]

Very glad he's alive and happy, but it's quite clear he's better at using his thumb than his brain.
Regardless of what he says, my takeaway from his video is that if you keep taking uninformed risks and ignoring the danger signs until something goes wrong then sooner or later things are likely to go very wrong ideed.
He's obviously on a survival high now, and wisely focusing on garnering sympathy instead of admitting that he is the primary cause of what has happened to him.
Secondary causes may include flaws in weapon design/manufacture, shady transactions in the ammunition market, and an entertainment environment that is always chasing novelty.
Serbu's rifles may well be strong enough in normal circumstances, but just as I'm not going to put high-pressure cartridges my nice English side-by-sides, I'd like to think that I wouldn't be fool enough to put M2 ammo of unknown provenance in a budget 50-cal, especially one that was pointing a steel plunger at my head.

 

[kennyc]

I agree with this view

 

[Hornet 6]

To be honest if asked I would have said Demolition ranch was most likely to suffer this.
Gun safety does seem to be pretty low on the agenda of most channels like this.
Youtube may not have banned them, yet, but they de-monetised the channels, although ebay
seem ok with still selling advertising on the back of them.

Neil.

 

[tikkathreebarrels]

Thanks for posting, a healthy reminder for all of us reloaders

And an equally salutory reminder for range safety officers, range conducting officers, frankly anyone who shoots rifle ranges.

 

[tikkathreebarrels]

As far as military ammo is concerned, when I was an armourer in the RAF if there was any form of misfire or malfunction in a batch of 303 ammunition we had an order to destroy all of the rounds we had in that batch. It happened a few times and as far as |I can remember despite firing off thousands of suspected rounds we never actually had one that malfunctioned.

Maybe I'm missing something but you don't really mean that you "destroyed" the suspect batch rounds by firing them off?

 

[Sharpie]

Maybe I'm missing something but you don't really mean that you "destroyed" the suspect batch rounds by firing them off?

Forgotten Weapons: The Vickers Gun Is One of the Best Firearms Ever Made

A quality gun fit for virtually any environment.

www.popularmechanics.com

In 1963 in Yorkshire, a class of British Army armorers put one Vickers gun through probably the most strenuous test ever given to an individual gun. The base had a stockpile of approximately 5 million rounds of Mk VII ammunition which was no longer approved for military use. They took a newly rebuilt Vickers gun, and proceeded to fire the entire stock of ammo through it over the course of seven days. They worked in pairs, switching off at 30 minute intervals, with a third man shoveling away spent brass. The gun was fired in 250-round solid bursts, and the worn out barrels were changed every hour and a half. At the end of the five million rounds, the gun was taken back into the shop for inspection. It was found to be within service spec in every dimension.

What's supposed to happen nowadays:

 

[aris]

One for the armchair nay sayers.

 

[Sharpie]

One for the armchair nay sayers.

So another "theoretician" has crept out of the woodwork to give us the benefit of his pearls of wisdom. Not sitting in his armchair admittedly, but might as well have been. Premised on the "fact" that the threads could only have been sheared by an extreme overpressure. Quite an assumption.

Nay.

"Unlucky" Mr Kentucky now sitting on 6.1 million views in two days, and probably ordering in a load of $25 tee shirts as we speak. Result !

 

[aris]

So another "theoretician" has crept out of the woodwork to give us the benefit of his pearls of wisdom. Not sitting in his armchair admittedly, but might as well have been. Premised on the "fact" that the threads could only have been sheared by an extreme overpressure. Quite an assumption.

Nay.

"Unlucky" Mr Kentucky now sitting on 6.1 million views in two days, and probably ordering in a load of $25 tee shirts as we speak. Result !

If you actually did watch the video - he investigates gun related accidents for a living. He explains the engineering behind the RN50 and why it is indeed sound.

Clearly you don't like Mr Kentucky

I'd be happy to hear your rebuttal of what he has said though

 

[old keeper]

Maybe I'm missing something but you don't really mean that you "destroyed" the suspect batch rounds by firing them off?

That was exactly what we did! We used Bren guns. Perhaps I should have said this was back in the late fifties, I rather expect things are rather different today!

 

[Sharpie]

If you actually did watch the video - he investigates gun related accidents for a living. He explains the engineering behind the RN50 and why it is indeed sound.

Clearly you don't like Mr Kentucky

I'd be happy to hear your rebuttal of what he has said though

As I said, I'm getting bored with this. I could question a lot of things in that vid. you posted, but it would be a waste of time.

Nor do I wish to engage in any further "I said, you said" repartee with you, largely consisting of posting of youtube links. Perhaps you could share with us your qualifications and practical experience in firearms design so we have a better picture of your credibility in making the pronouncements and assertions that you do.

FWIW If I was Mr. Kentucky I would be reconsidering sending the bits back to Serbu for him to look at, the last person on earth who should be trusted to do an impartial investigation. I'd be looking to engage with an expert forensic investigation team and engage legal representation.

Nor am I interested in any further destruction testing by Mr Serbu himself, which can only start from the premise that his gun is safe and seek every way to justify that, he's already said that it was the ammo wot dun it and he is blameless, hardly a good start.

 

[Sharpie]

That was exactly what we did! We used Bren guns. Perhaps I should have said this was back in the late fifties, I rather expect things are rather different today!

You can read about the qualification and testing procedures here:

https://diweb.hq.nato.int/naag/Public%20Release%20Documents/AEP-97%20MC-MOPI%20RD1.pdf

I think that it is still the procedure that if any failures occur in the field that are attributable to the ammunition, then all the stock from that batch is recalled and destroyed. Which will be big numbers. The regular routine testing of stocked ammo alone requires thousands, from each batch.

 

[aris]

We can only go by the evidence presented

- he was using ammunition which even if from a known provenance and not counterfeit, should have not been fired from a rifle
- the screw cap breech is a sound design.

It is possible the firearm was defective, but considering the over pressure load, seems unlikely.

I’m open minded.

 

[Fishcake]

Was going to recommend watching this but too late. The man is lucky to be alive. But the last bit of video where he says not going to do a go fund me page but please buy a tee shirt.

 

[Sharpie]

We can only go by the evidence presented

No evidence has been presented. Out.