Crappy ammo has a lot to do with it. A couple of weeks ago I was on the last station of a round of skeet, shooting some old cheap promotional ammo in a very minty Remington M11-48 28 gauge autoloader. The report from the gun on the high house bird was wierd, and the action locked up. When I looked at the receiver, the recoil had ripped the psudo-brass shell head right off the shell and lodged it sideways in the breech. For safety I cleared the action and took the barrel off the gun and looked down the bore, which showed a heavy shadow about 6 inches down from the chamber. You could see daylight through the bore clearly, but something didn't look right, so I took a rod and pushed it through the bore. Turns out when the head ripped off the cartridge, the complete hull casing itself lodged in the bore. I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn't checked it. You can't be too careful!

ABSOLUTELY NEVER IGNORE THAT “OFF” SOUNDING SHOT.





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Mike Franzen, yes, a wad stuck in the barrel can cause a rupture. I have a Remington 3200 barrel set blown out just ahead of the forend. There was a wad in the barrel and the shooter forgot about it and later loaded and shot it. Another problem area is those dang factory shells. They can't be trusted, so shoot reloads.

I agree with Dean. The barrels look really adequate.

The thing that strikes me is the apherical shape of the failure. It is like a giant bubble and the steel in the front part of the failure is literally pulled inward quite a bit. Trying to envision this failure, it looks like a giant bubble grew in the barrel, sucking the front portion inward begroe the rupture moved forward. It looks like something a complete blockage would cause. I'm not a metalurgist, but worked with them in engineering for 35 years and looked at a lot of high pressure refinery pipe failures, and normal open tube failures just don't look like that. I would have expected a welled and burst tube, but with everything in the faild region pushed outward. This looks like it swelled tremendously locally before the final rupture occured.

The last shell fired in that barrel is still in the gun and will be examined but what is really needed for proper analysis would be the previous shell that could have caused the obstruction. Those new style Winchester shells are known for the base wad separating and lodging in the barrel. I've had factory paper hulls have the paper body separate from the brass head. Had that happen at the Southern this year in the 16g Challenge. Not cool Baxter. :nono:

I have been involved with 3 " shoot offs" in which the plastic casing lodged in the barrel. The first an 870 20 ga., i saw the brass eject but no hull and stopped the shooter. About 6 inches in the hull took a hammer and metal rod to get out, would have been disastrous. Next an 1100 12 ga. on the second shot on doubles exploded seriously injuring the shooter. We found the casing on the ground and the brass from the first shell Gun was destroyed, no part of the fore arm was recognizable. Third a 410 would not close when loading. Shooter was trying to force it closed when i asked to take the pump down and found the plastic blocking the barrel. If he had managed to close the action it would have been ugly.
Only the 12 was a reload the others 2 different makes of factory ammo.
I always check the barrels no matter what and will try to get a photo of the 1100 in that one of the members mounted all the recovered parts on a board and hung it in the club house.

I can remember in the 70's when I started trapshooting a lot of the shooters complaining about double A's separating. I had two come off in an 870 TC I shot at the time. Saw both begore anything happened. This was not uncommon. It seemed to me that a lot of them occured in guns with larger chambers or generous headspace. With trapshooters, these were almost always reloads. In those days there was a huge financial advantage to this. Seems a good reason to try for minimium resizing.

good thing I learned about looking down the barrel after a shot....I ve had several base wads come loose in my 8 ga parker and lodge 2/3 rds down the barrel...had a 10 ga Ithaca magnum the brass was thrown out but the plastic hung up in the barrel and another shell would not load all the way....then when I hunted squirls on a rainey day my paper hull shells a 12 ga they would shoot but I noticed I got to were I could not hit any thing....lhappen to look down and seen the brass end of the shell but no paper...them shells were so wet and soaked they would shoot but they were just like cut shells or ringed shells...I guess I was lucky I was shooting a imp..cly barrel in amodel 11 Remington... while dove hunting or fast shooting a person will not usally look down the barrel after every shot esp.if its a pump or auto...charlie

ok...this is why i joined. i learned enough in this one thread to make it more than worth my time . as a complete newbe to old shotguns i've got a lot to learn. thank you! i sincerely hope for the best for the injured party..