My old friend was lucky...

[K.Mooneyham]

My old friend, Keith, from early in my USAF career, and a current friend of his, Hector, came up to visit this weekend. Their wives and my wife went shopping and us guys went to the range. It was rather busy and lots of firearms making the noise that they do. Keith had several pistols; one of them is a Ruger Super Redhawk in .454 Casull. Now, it is fine to fire .45 Colt rounds in a .454 Casull because the two are like .38 Special and .357 Magnum. He had hand-loaded some .45 Colt and that is what he brought with him to use in the Ruger. From what he says, the first round through it had an "odd sound", but because of all the other pistols firing, he dismissed it as "hearing things". He then fired the second shot which sounded, to me, like a small cannon going off. He stopped, looked at the barrel, and the front sight was GONE! Not only that, but the barrel was bulged. We figured the first round was a "squib" load or the powder charge didn't ignite for some reason, and the bullet got stuck in the barrel. The second shot actually pushed the first bullet out, knocking off the front sight and bulging the barrel. The top-strap and cylinder looked fine, amazingly enough. He said he had loaded lead roundnose bullets and we figured that maybe the softness of the lead allowed that first stuck bullet to be blown out, but with the results that I described. No injuries, and the front sight was found by Hector, a few feet BEHIND us on a bench. So, I guess the lessons here are the obvious one of "if it doesn't seem right, it probably ain't right", and STOP shooting and check it all out. And the second one is that Ruger, whether you like them or not, builds some really tough products!