Here is your daily Public Service Announcement. Don’t shoot .300blk out of an AK chambered in 7.62x39mm. This was my mistake. Fortunately, nothing bad happened.

AK Kabooms do not seem to be a commonplace occurrence compared to AR-15 kabooms. There is this infamous one regarding a Century Arms AK74.

Nothing like that happened. Just some excess gas and a small amount of debris came back toward the shooter.  The dust cover stayed on and the magazine did not explode.

I loaded up that Izhmash magazine with some AK ammo but doing things at night gets challenging. I had a headlamp and the last round I loaded was a 300BLK round. I am not sure how I missed it but clearly I was distracted and did not pay attention. The strange thing is even though I had a 300BLK rifle out that night I do not recall having loose ammo lying on the table.

After I loaded the magazine with what remaining AK ammo I had and the one 300BLK cartridge, I gave it to my friend to shoot. He was interested in trying out my AK as he is thinking of getting one. He fired the 300BLK round and managed to hit a 200-yard steel target illuminated by my SureFire Hellfighter. The flashing LED attached to the steel target flashed red indicating a hit. However, he stopped and asked why there was so much gas coming back into his face. Here is where our second PSA comes in. Make sure you wear eye protection at all times. He decided not to wear eyepro and I did not notice he wasn’t wearing it as I was focused on looking down range.

After he fired the 300BLK cartridge there was a malfunction. The AK failed to feed. So we removed the magazine and saw that there was a cartridge stuck in the chamber. There was enough of the rim sticking out that I was able to pry it out with a flat head screwdriver. It was then I discovered it was a 300BLK cartridge. To my surprise the AK was fine and we shot the remaining ammo in the magazine.

Here are pics of the chamber. Nothing seems out of place.

I should have noticed steel cased vs brass but again I was probably distracted talking about guns with my friend. As you can see below, how similar the 300BLK round is to the 7.62x39mm. It fits in the magazine and it can be chambered as well as fired.

We got lucky. Lesson learned. Pay attention to what ammo you are loading. Segregate your ammo and do not let them mix. Always wear eye protection. My friend was extremely lucky that nothing terrible happened and he still has his eyes. Learn from my mistakes and don’t shoot 300BLK out of an AK47 unless it is chambered for it.