Alright so I got an almost brand new savage 17HMR. I was out shooting it at the range since I got a scope on it and getting it on paper. I was having a lot of failures to eject so when a shell didn't eject I didn't have any reason to suspect a problem. Other people were shooting so I didn't here the tell tail pop of the squib round also because the 17HMR has a fairly mild muzzle blast. So I ejected the shell and chambered another round and shot it. I saw a gray mist when I fired and knew something went very wrong then I noticed the bulge... The barrel bulge is super easy to see plain as day but its difficult to get a picture of. I think this picture shows it best. Lucky for me the bulge is no where near the 16 inch rifle barrel length limit. So I can just cut it off and still be legal. If you cut down the barrel to less than 16 inches its considered a short barrel rifle and subject to be registered with the national fire arms act division on the ATF. I scored the barrel with a pipe cutter and cut it with my portable band saw. I took an 8ga screw put it in my dermal and put it on the belt sander to get the 90 degree profile for the polish. Just using some wood as a vice protector. With this we will defend. That piece of crap fence is not mine. That's why it looks like crap. The bad section of barrel after cutting it off and the almost finished muzzle on the rifle. I used a screw chamfer bit and hadn't polished it with my brass dermal screw setup with polishing compound. You don't have to use a power band saw or belt sander to cut and surface the barrel but I did. I hacksaw and file would work if you have all day. From pipe cutter score to polishing the crown took me about 30 minutes. New barrel length is about 18.2 inches and over all length is about 37 inches. Still 50 state legal. Total cost was about $7, using about $700 worth of tools. I noticed my nearly new band saw blade was very dull when I used it later on regular steel, the savage barrel material is pretty hard and ruined my band saw blade.
Did my crown job work? I think so. That was 20 rounds at 25 meters. This was another 20 rounds so it's consistent. Definitely staying with in minute of bunny at well over 100 yards. Not bad for a semi auto rim fire.
You may have a point @Dunerunner but not after the saw job. No one will even consider replacing/repairing the rifle now.
This is a lesson a lot of new bees need to know , Know that your round has left the barrel before firing again . and odd sound is reason enough to stop shooting and do some inspection. Ammo factory might pay for clearing a plugged barrel, but not a round bulging a barrel behind a plug . The the misfired bullet plug has not expanded so a ram rod will usually remove it , However like a bullet hitting a target the one behind it will expand both creating a pipe bomb with no where for the dynamite in your barrel to go, but back at you.
It was CCI tnt hollow point lot L03X10. It's fixed, I wasn't going to waste time arguing over it. When you are at an indoor range and some one fires an ar15 at the same time you fire something tiny like a 17HMR it's kind of hard to know what happened. I already figured they were going to try to not to pay for it. I turned weeks of trying to get it fixed and sending it off, waiting for it to be returned into a day that cost me a band saw blade. About 20 years ago I intentionally induced squib loads in some of my rifles after I got my reloading gear just to see what it sounded and felt like and find out how difficult would be to clear a bullet stuck in the barrel.
Given the post op accuracy, the rifle is giving one hell of an account for itself. I still might send the cutoff to someone, see if they can put some diagnostics on it, assuming the projo(s) is still lodged in it. I'd be inclined to think that Savage would be more interested than CCI.
Not sure which model but of course, you checked the bolt lugs and barrel extension for cracks? Unlikely given the tiny rounds, but possible ---. I get real nervous about such things, sorry for being obvious.
If it were my weapon, I would take it and have the action & barrel, MAGNIFLUXed... before I shot it much more, just to be safe....
Oh I went back and already put about 200 to 300 rounds through it. Nothing looked damage below the bulge.
Unless you Flux it you will never know, for sure.... There easily can be Metal Stress in the Receiver/Barrel that is NOT detectable, with the Naked Eye...
The reason I rote why i did was for those others that had not experienced such things . Larger calibers have more significant catastrophes . Not sure I'd sweat the .22mag ,if nothings happened by now , but any other gun ,magniflux is a good call.
