Yikes!

I'm no gunsmith, but based on what I know about how the 94's action is supposed to work, it sounds to me like it fired before the action was fully forward and locked (or conceivably it went all the way forward but failed to lock). That would have caused the cartridge to be blown backward out of the chamber while it was going off, which would almost certainly have caused it to rupture, and with the action open (probably thrown the reset of the way open by the blast, which is after all how blowback actions work), the debris and gas would naturally have vented out the top.

(I'm just curious, was the lever thrown forward by the detonation?)

Ninety-fours are supposed to have a couple of different mechanisms to prevent that from happening, but, well, you know what they say about mechanisms. I'm glad your friend wasn't seriously hurt.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
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