Now that's a dirty trickLooking closely at the picture, I would say a few things. Yes one very very lucky shooter.
From what I know about the Howa design, (But I am no expert) the venting holes in the bolt / action design are such that in the event of case failure or dare I say it, explosion, the bulk of the force is directed down through the mag well. Looking at the bottom metal and the way the stock has shattered, to me this looks like the design has done this. The action has clearly also split from the excess pressure meaning the remaining gasses etc could go somewhere away from the shooter. Not sure if these failures are intentional for situations like this, but one way or the other, it would still be as scary as hell.
I had a fellow shooting at the local range. He had just bought two new packets of 30/06 Hornady from a local retailer. He could not figure out why it wasn't hitting the target, He checked the boxes and they were 30/06, but when I checked the 3 fired cases they were 3x 270. He went straight back to the shop to sort out the swap issue because if someone had put the 3x 270 into his packet, it seemed likely the same person could have placed the 3x 30/06 into the 270 packet. Now I check my new boxes of ammo when I go to use them even if they are a new one.
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