Alphecca

Hard to say what might have happened, but something drove the pressure waaay up. I don't think I'd be looking at the manufacturer, though.

My guess is plugged barrel. It is very easy while out hunting to either fall, or when the barrel is pointed down, get some obstruction in there.

Even an insect nest in the barrel could cause a blow up. Always check your chamber and bore! Jack.

I'd suspect the factory ammo before I'd suspect the factory rifle...

Most likely a plugged barrel, as stated above. Would like to see a photo of the weapon...

I have studied metallurgy and failure mechanics in my work with downhole oil tools and all of the above scenarios are good first conclusions but there may be others to look into.

Modern barrels may use steel alloys with significant amounts of nickel in them. If corrosive mercury salt primers were used and then the gun was not properly cleaned to remove the mercury residue, you could have something called liquid metal embrittlement occur in which the mercury leaches the nickel out of the alloy and into the grain boundaries of the steel and forms a low melting point (and structurally weak) mercury-nickel amalgam. some very hard steels my shatter on their own just from residual stresses in the steel suddenly being released. Sulphur is another element that can cause this (especially at high temps, like you may find at the neck bullet interface as the bullet exits the case), and some machine oils have sulphur in them.

Most hardened steel alloys can be embrittled by acids as well such as sulphuric or hydrochloric acids. the susceptibility is directly related to the hardness level of the steel. annealed steels in the 18-22 Rockwell C hardness range are basically immune unless there is more than about 4% and less than around 50% nickel content. anything harder than 22 HRC may crack if exposed to acids.

This barrel really needs to be looked at by a competent mettalurgist.

I'm no hunter, but isn't 300 Rem Ultra Mag a bit much for deer?

I tend to agree it's more likely that he didn't clean the barrel before heading out, or something plugged the barrel on his outing. A long shot would be defective factory ammo.

It is worth reading the whole article.

"Whatever has happened, I'm sure that something (happened) between the time it left the factory and the accident ... and I'm sure those facts will come out as the case goes forward," Alger said.
Managers at The Sports Authority in Orem couldn't comment on specifics, but department manager Bryan Hart said he saw the rifle when the man brought it back in pieces.
"I've never seen a gun blow up like that," Hart said. "It blew me away."

Now, I am assuming when the sports authority gun manager says he's seen blown barrells, those were likely caused by obstructions. In a true assumption, then perhaps something else was going on.

The quote from Savage is also interesting.

Frankly, I think Savage, the NRA, and gunnies everywhere should embrace this litigation going forward - or at least to the point where it is clear what occurred. It certainly casts a wholly uncreditworthy light on those aspects of the democratic party (and ATLA) who claimed the firearm lawsuit preemption bill passed last year would prevent suing manaufacturers when things really went wrong.

Rorschach: Not impossible, sure, but has anyone ever made factory 300 RUM with a corrosive primer?

Unless he was firing, at some point, handloads with primers ancient enough to be the old corrosive ones, it's pretty unlikely that a 300 RUM rifle would ever see a corrosive primer, ain't it?

(Unlike, say, anything in a caliber there was surplus corrosive ammo for, like .30-06 with corrosive Korean Garand ammo...)

Sigivald, you are correct, my point however was that we cannot know the barrel's metallurgical history. We do not know what heat treating it has seen, (untempered martensite could do this too, which would be a factory defect.) we do not know how cold it was when it was fired (depending on the alloy, the ductile-brittle transition temp might have been high enough to be an issue). Or what was fired from it. We do not know what acids the gun has seen, nor do we know if any corrosive cleaners were used. I still agree that a plugged barrel is the most likely culprit, but there might be other things going on we don't know about yet.

My guess barrel obstruction or hot load...

Countertop, the press will ignore this (for several reasons, one of which will be justified by the MSM because it only involved a redneck hunter and therefore the incident is not newsworthy--reading between the lines, the MSM doesn't want the general public knowing/being educated that you can still sue gun manufacturers, and that all the drivel put out previously by the Brady bunch, MSM and Chucky Schumer was all lies) as evidence that negligence suits for a defective product can proceed in spite of the new Fed law. You should know better....

reminded me of this one.

http://www.thegunzone.com/m1akb.html

it'll all shake out one way or the other. Stuff happens, however stupidity and accidents happens a lot more.

What makes me near certain he was using handloads is the absence of an ammunition manufacturer in the lawsuit.

Excellent point.

Well, you don't expect him to take responsibility for something that has been in his control for more than two years do you? That's not the (current) American Way!

As for 300RUM being a bit much for deer, remember that he is out in Utah and is not only going after what may be fairly big mule deer over fairly long distances, but he may be a one gun kind of guy and also uses it for moose, elk, bison, etc and wants something that can handle any of them cleanly.

I've seen enough "gotta have a super duper magnum" kind of guys to know he may just be wanting something uber powerful, but we should at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

If he were using handloads, it might be possible that he had one round that due to a disorganized loading bench or distraction, skipped the powder charge and only had a primer, the primer may have had enough pressure to jam the bullet in the barrel and then the second bullet caused the overpressure burst.