Accidents with Blaser rifles Model R93

Lutz Moeller

Germany

[Please: access to the Spanish Version of this article if you like to see the photographs that reflects this incidents, thank you]

We consider this report of great relevance. Mr. Lutz informed us about various serious incidents happened with multicaliber rifles model R93 made by Blaser.

This guns, well known by every shooter, hunter and police sniper are expensive and, figurately, are done and made with great care and quality.

They always have been elogiated, between various gun magazines and by very famous writers as being confident weapons, secure and accurate.

That is to say, something that I mentioned in our last article about the new model of the CZ 75: What have been analyzing this gunwriters about a gun? The smell and softly surface of the stock? If the gun shoots straight and towards the front side of the barrel ? If this guns feed correctly the cartridges inside their chamber? Are these analysis enough to define a rifle, like the Blaser R93, as "The Bolt Action Rifle of the Century" such as has been done by an famous american magazine? Ask serious people such gun engineers, weapons designers, ballisticians, master shooter/swat elite instructors, etc. about what are their opinions about such conclusions, please.

The photographs speak by themselves and the facts couldn´t be turned over, only for that, we are making public this situation -of course, leaving the benefit of the innocence and doubt- with the objective of alert all the owners of this gun and trying to evitate, in the measure of our possibilities, that more potencial injured shooters arise in every part of the world. J.M.

On August 16, 2003 in Norway a Blaser R93 has his bolt blown away through the face of Jan Sørlie, 41 years old, he lost an Eye and part of his skull. Now he has only one eye and a titanium plaque that replaces the portion absent of bone in his head.

Albrecht Huf, 38 years old, suffered the same this year in Germany, but he was a bit lucky.

The following photographs contain images that could hurt emotionally the sensible reader. If this is your condition, please, we recommend you not to seeing them.

Photo of the first injured shooter
Photo of the second injured shooter

I´ve taken notice that the following investigations are taking place:

1 Accident near Münster with a Blaser rifle model R93 caliber 6,5x68
1 Accident near Koblenz recently with a Blaser rifle R93 caliber .300 Weatherby
1 Accident in Africa with a Blaser rifle model R93 caliber .416 Rem Mag, that then was stolen
2 Accidents near Nantes, one with a Blaser R93 caliber .375 H&H and another with a .300 Winchester Magnum
1 Accident near Paris with a Blaser R93 caliber .375 H&H
1 Accident in Austria

After the last accident, the CEO of Blaser company, Mr. Knöbel, said to the press that in all the models of his brands sometimes wrong ammunition, in bad state or bad reloaded could cause the gun rupture and the shooter could be injured.

This is certainly valid: that a blown of a gun could be produced ocasionally for various reasons, but what is not normal or common is that the shooter results injured in his head or face. For this matter I´m distributing this information to every important media of the world so, by them, to communicate with me every users that have suffered problems or hurts with Blaser rifles Model R93 of any caliber.

A gun engineer of Germany, Mr. Arndt G. Kriegeskorte, after making a technical analysis of the R93 action and saying that they are risky and insecure for the shooters, was menaced formally by Blaser that if he continue telling about his findings will be demanded by Euros 200.000 (about us$ 250.000.-)

This demand is active and pending of application against him.

At the IWA 2004, Blaser tried to make a rupture of relations between me, Lutz Moeller and Kriegskorte saying that he "Always has something against Blaser". To transfer an objective problem to a personal level relationship es a very old and dirty trick.

My Suspicion is, if a Case ruptures (must not, but may) the Pressure is mostly kept by the special Lock, may contract the Springs and pus the Lock to open the Rifle. In that Case, the Lock flies through the Shooters Face.

I actually look for more Evidence of more Accidents and would like to know People, Failure and Injury for Wittness at Court.

Deportiro Online Magazine has in its archives the technical report of Ing. Kriegeskorte -in character of private document-, so we have the compromise not to inform about its contents for not affecting the legal situation with Blaser company and till it will be cleared the position and responsability of this company with respect to the accidents.

Deportiro Online Magazine has asked directly to the Blaser Company of Germany to send an official declaration about the facts published in the present article, considered of high risk for every shooter/hunter.

-> Deportiro Online Magazine is the first media in Argentina and over the World to communicate this notice for informing their readers.

Revista Deportiro Online!
The Guns Magazine on the Web

Report from Blaser Jagdwaffen about these incidents with Blaser R93 Rifle

Blaser CEO Mr. Bernhard Knöbel and Monika Alexander

"There was also an accident in Norway last year; statement will be forwarded in the near future."

"Dear Mr. Moratto.

As you are aware of, on January 10th, 2004, at a shooting range near Koblenz Germany, a Blaser R93 has been damaged and in that accident the shooter was injured.

Unfortunately this issue has been taken and exaggerated from various people in order to discredit the R93 in an un-objective and dubious way.

On January 22nd, 2004 the technical directors of Blaser and I were able to look at the rifle in question together with three police officials with the permission of the public prosecutors office Koblenz.

The steel showed deformation in the lockup area as well as two definite cracks beginning at the rear end of the chamber. Powderized brass was found in the lock-up area.
There was deformation on the bolt head as well as deformation on the bolt head elements.
The cam plate, which supports the assembly in locked position, and the right rail were broken away from position while the assembly was in a closed and locked position.

In a series of tests through DEVA (Deutsche Versuchs- und Prüfanstalt für Jagd- und Sportwaffen e.V.) measurements of the gas pressure were increased to almost 8.000 bar /
116.000 psi, whereby under this pressure there were no measured deformations to the outer contour of the chamber area in the barrel. There were also no seen deformations to the bolt head.

Without wanting to anticipate the results from the public prosecutors office and after examination we have concluded clearly the damage was caused through extreme overloaded gas pressure.
With consideration to the above mentioned DEVA examination, it is our opinion that the cause of this accident is without doubt due to the ammunition and cannot be related to the rifle.

At this point we would like to clearly state, that the technical design of the R93, with more than 100 000 rifles supplied, has not been found responsible for any accident where the rifle has been damaged.
Every single R93 is controlled and tested by the state/county proof-house according to the C.I.P. regulations using proof cartridges exceeding the maximal allowed gas pressure by a Minimum of 30%.
The R 93, however, withstands loads / Gas pressures way above proof-level as our in-house / combined DEVA-tests clearly document.

In the test reports from DEVA it was confirmed that there is no reason to doubt or fear the R93’s strength and durability.

DEVA states:
“In the case of destruction to a rifle with an (illegal) gas pressure of 8.000 bar or above, this eventually may result in injury to the shooter. This cannot be related to the rifle.”

There are no reasons for us to doubt the safety of the technical design of the R93.

Unfortunately, it may happen in individual cases that the use of defective or incorrectly loaded ammunition results in damage to the rifle and/or the shooter, no matter what brand or type of rifle is used.
For example in 2003 we were aware that in Austria alone, three cases of destroyed bolt-action rifles occurred due to incorrectly loaded ammunition with three different rifle-manufacturers being involved.
Even through the enormous numbers of R93s on the market there are extremely few cases occurring through inadmissible, well overloaded gas pressures where a rifle is damaged or destructed. For this there are appraisals from different institutes with clear statements:
In none of these cases a weapon-lateral cause of the damage was determined.

The Blaser R93, through its exemplery safe and practise suited technical design is one of the most popular hunting rifles offered on todays market.
The straight fact is that with the enormous numbers of R93 rifles in the field today it is extremely rare that a rifle is destructed through incorrectly loaded ammuntion.
This is argument enough for the R93.

Yours sincerely

Blaser Jagdwaffen GmbH
Bernhard Knöbel"

The original texts are available for all Deportiro Online Magazine readers.

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