A reader emailed us with the above photo …

Long time reader here, I went shooting on Saturday and this is what happened to me! I was very baffled. it was Hornady Steel Match .308 FMJ fired out of a CETME. I had a couple of hiccups when I first bought my CETME, but after cleaning it and breaking it in, the gun has been very reliable for the 4 years I have owned and shot it. It probably has 6-700 rounds through it and I can count on 2 hands how many times it has jammed.

It shot fine all day and this happened. Somehow it fired the first bullet, sheared the casing in half cleanly where the neck meets the body, then flung the body of the casing out. Meanwhile the neck stayed in, then it loaded the next bullet and forced it through the neck! I definitely know (and witnessed) the CETME/G3 family of rifles are terrible with brass, but this is just ridiculous. After clearing the jam, the gun ran fine after for the rest of the day.

My question is, have you ever seen this or heard of this happening?

CETME, H&K G3 and other roller-delayed blowback rifles are notorious for wrecking brass cases. I have seen dents and cracks, but never a full decapitation of a neck before. Have any other readers seen this happen in a CETME or G3? I am not sure if that neck was weak, or it somehow (over charged?) expanded further into the fluted chamber than usual and got jammed, or both. At least our reader knows his extractor works!

Edit: I have a very poor memory. Alex wrote an excellent post on this issue earlier this year.