I grabbed a bottle of my brother's H380 and loaded some 308 Win rounds up to test with increasing charges.
The first (low end load) load I fired over the Oehler 43 resulted in an extra loud BOOM and lots of smoke. I glanced at the screen of the laptop computer setting just to the right of the rifle there on my Bronco's tailgate to see the M43 register 80,000 PSI. I didn't notice what the MV was but saw the bullet POI was about 8" high or so. Either an error in MV or BC resulted in a dashed line through the shot fired on the display, which simply indicates the shot will be overwrighten by the next shot unless you toggle the dashed line OFF. Well, something I did shortly after this triggered the strain gage to record another shot, or something the sky screens sensed did. The shot was recorded over in any event.
The rifle was a Springfield Armory M14 SS Match. The receiver was intact, the lower half of the bolt face was blown off but the bolt remained in lockup. The base of the case ruptured, which blew the lower bolt face off, blew the other two cartridges in the mag in half and out the mag. The spring, follower and ammo were blown out the bulging mag and all over the place. The fiberglass stock was split almost full length of the forearm, and about 6" back through the wrist area on top and bottom both. Of course the OP rod was bent, the barrel I was never sure of.
Later on Springfield Armory sold me a complete new rifle for $500 as the receiver was indeed found to have hairline cracks all around the receiver ring and lug abutment area. This was over a $1500 dollar rifle keep in mind, so $500 was a pretty fair deal in my mind.
Turned out it was NOT H380 in the bottle. My brother had dumped something else (still unknown, as he can't remember) in the bottle and did not mark it as such. It was stick powder though, not H380 (ball powder). Had I ever used H380 before, that would have been my first red flag when I was loading them. I still have samples of the powder that was used and I do know it's nothing I've used before.
My brother's friend, when they were both still teenagers, fired a squib load in a 38 Special of his, and not knowing the bullet had just lodged itself several inches down this worn out barrel, he proceeded to get "four or five" more full house loads lodged behind it! Still wondering why they could not see the impacts on the 4'x4' sheet of plywood set at fairly close range the next one fired finally stopped between the frame and cylinder and locked the cylinder. Barrel was extremely bulged and they were real lucky the action held together!
I had this happen to me one time with my Colt Anaconda and some handloads I missed charging a round on. Luckily the primer didn't have enough energy to get the bullet clear of the cylinder the "first" shot and locked it up, cause I was attempting to fire it again when it would not cock again!
