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Years ago I competed in long range high power competition, actually decades ago, and reloaded to get the very best in accuracy and consistency in my rounds. Every once in a while I would miss the warning signs of incipient case separation, small cracks and discoloration of the case. Most times a separation isn't too drastic, but once I had one blow hot gases back at me, putting a ding in my glasses and I kept those glasses to show my students for many years.

Once during a match, really concentrating on shooting and follow through, I ejected the previous case and started to run the bolt forward to chamber the next round when I noticed that it was getting very hard to move the bolt. Luckily I stopped in time to be able to pull the case out with my fingers, but the separated case stayed in the chamber and I had to retire from the match to go fix the problem. When removed, the separated case showed the classic discoloration near the base that would have warned me if I had looked harder.

I have seen that happen a couple of times, usually with reloads.