Was this a reactivated tube?

Did they refill the hole? or ?

He looks better than I expected TBH

That's some horrifying shit

Watched it like 5 minutes ago. Dude is very lucky.

Damn, lucky is a understatement. Somebody's god was looking out for him.

Rewelded, xrayed, pressure tested, and re-sleeved internally according to them. But I can't see any sleeve inside.

Yeah I have doubts it was re-sleeved. Take a look at this RPG-7 cutaway picture. I don’t even see how they could fit a sleeve in to the chamber as the ID of the chamber is narrower than the ID of the threaded section. Attached File

Attached File


I fully intend on thoroughly testing my RPG-2 from a stand before even getting near it. I never liked the idea of the expansion chamber for home-brew rounds and this is just reinforcing that thought.

I was wondering when this was gonna show up here. I've been looking into this a lot, and know some of the people involved. I put a post on reddit when it all happened as a warning to people. This stuff can kill you.

The tube was patched/rewelded by TXMGO's guy in Florida. They were selling these launchers and rpg-2s as "reactivated." I emailed them asking if these were rewelded as I didn't think it was safe, and all they said was that "reactivated means fully functional" or something like that.

The ammunition was made by AZAO, he sells his ammo as kits that need to be assembled(mainly the booster). Great care needs to be had when assembling the booster. The charge is typically 6 divided charges of black powder. They go off sequentially to increase the range of the projectile. I know someone here was one of the first to re-activate an rpg-2 and they planned on just using a tube full of black powder until I commented on my research that showed the segmented charges.

Soon after the incident, txmgo told multiple people that the welds didn't fail on the tube. This is obviously not true, as you can see that the rectangular patch blew out. Apparently they told BHS that they sleeved the tube internally, this is also not true as you cmwould have to slice the tube open to do that. It also would decrease the volume of the expansion chamber, which could negatively affect the pressure curve inside. Txmgo also claimed that the owner was not cleaning the launcher enough.

Some are speculating that parts of the booster broke off or clogged the venturi at the back of the expansion chamber, causing high pressures. While this is possible, I don't believe that to be the case, as the high speed footage shows gases coming out the exhaust cone very forcefully and smoothly. A blocked exhaust would have a delay or possibly some variation in blast.

Some speculated that the projectile was stuck in the tube because they were using black powder (dirty) and weren't cleaning the launcher. BHS confirms that they were cleaning the launcher and the projectile started moving as soon as they charge ignited. So take from that what you will.

You can see that they were using a larger booster charge on the shot from the incident. This could have contributed to the weld blowing out, but those same charges, and some 50% larger, have been used successfully in non-rewelded tubes without any signs of problems. Many people are shooting these rounds out of airtronics RPG-7s and new made RPG-2s without any issues.

There are ways to fix a demilled rpg-7 tube that are much less sketchy than patching a square hole in the bottom.

Thankfully, txmgo has pulled their launchers from gunbroker. If you have one of their launchers or know someone that does, I'd think twice before shooting anything but a 7.62x39 trainer out of it.

If it was re-welded, xrayed, heat treated, sleeved, etc as they say, it may be alright for a while, But it'll never be as strong as fresh tube

Jake - ChevTec Group

It appears TXMGO’s website is down as well.

Who is the Todd that BHS said sold off his collection and got out of the NFA rental business because of the incident?

Todd Kern of PA2A, forward unto freedom, and maybe another business/name was a guy that ran a machinegun rental business. He is the one that BHS contracted to provide the launchers and ammo. He is seen in the original video and you'll probably see him in the next few videos of them shooting HE rounds from remote firing stands.

He sold off all his machineguns and gave up his license a week after the incident. Can't blame him. I'd feel sick if that happened to one of my customers. I think he still has the carl Gustav for sale on some forums.

Only thing I notices weird is that he isn't wearing eye pro in the video. Which is weird

With regard to the weld failing, i do not think the weld failed. It appears that the metal at the base of the weld puddle failed. Could be that there was some embrittlement at the base metal. Not sure how you would sleeve it, but no expert on these things.

I agree with the rest of what the poster said on the booster coming apart. The back blast out of the tube was pretty solid and  did not look like it was blocked. But at the same time the blast happened in 3.4 millionths of a second. So could it be possible that the blockage happened and the pressure curve was so fast the tube ruptured before the we could see the exhaust drop off?

No sleeve inside no sleeve outside

Liars.

I will clarify that the patch failed. The base metal cracking around the weld would be the result of it becoming hardened from welding, and then not properly heat treated to relieve the stresses from the welding process. So while it may not have been the actual weld bead breaking, it is still a failure from improper welding.

I agree with you about the blockage. It could have been very sudden and unnoticeable, but usually the answer is the most obvious one.

Pure speculation on my part, coming from experience with high powered rockets. It's not super uncommon to see catos due to plugged nozzles. A piece of the liner or propellant comes apart and sticks in there. You're right that it would show some anomaly, like a chuff out the back. I guess its possible that there was still powder burning off behind the venturi after it got plugged but I would still expect to see something

They describe the boost charge as being a series of charges separated by discs, designed to ignite sequentially. My somewhat speculation/not an expert in RPGs thought is that the cardboard case holding the boost charges disintegrated. In stead of the charges igniting sequentially they all went off at once, or at least the first one went off, which disintegrated the tube, then the rest went off at the same time. We see something similar in some of the larger rocket motors that need to have the propellant grains bonded to a liner. If the bonding isn't done correctly the grain will have more surface area exposed causing the pressure to spike and rupture the case

I'd like to know more about the propellant. whether it was loose black powder or cast into a binder to limit burn rate

Its loose black powder since they are a roll your own booster

Correct. It's not a rocket charge as most people assume. It's just a segmented black powder charge. The fiberboard disks have a hole in them and help to control the burn of the black powder.

Does anyone know what the heat treatment or material condition of the tube is?  Is it quenched-and-tempered?  Carbon content?  What alloy?  Tensile Strength?  

I have the Engineering Design Handbook: Recoilless Rifle Weapon Systems, but have never perused it extensively.

I made a thread back in the summer about these re-activated RPG's and how the reweld seemed sketchy. Guess I was right.

Thank you for all the added context and info.  I remember you warning people about the rewelded TXMGO launchers a while ago.  After watching BHS's videos and the podcast interview, I still didn't know the launcher was one of these TXMGOs you had warned about, nor that the ammo used was AZAO.  I hope more analysis will be done on the failure, and it can be determined whether the ammo did actually contribute to the failure or if it was entirely the launcher.
Great info, thanks again for all your contributions to the DD world.

I seem to remember Sean blowing himself up with a homemade frag a few years back.

I'm late to the party posting on this, but I thought I'd weigh in as well. When I reactivated an RPG-2, I did it with a brand new tube; while I'm not a metallurgist, the occasional suggestion to re-wled seemed highly suspect to me. To that end, I have never tried to reactivate an RPG-7 (although I do have a couple of demills), because I couldn't see how to plausibly get a new tube made (without spending absolutely crazy bucks). When I saw these on gunbroker, I was really intrigued, but didn't get one when I found out they were re-welds. I hope txmgo buys back any others they put out there.

Does anyone know of a source of method to reactivate an RPG-7 using a newly made body? I guess probably not, since it's such a complex shape, but I'd surely be interested in any suggestions.