I had a similar experience with a 1910 GHE 16ga 20 years ago while shooting clays, although I believe it was a bad reload (using a friend's--never again). The recoil and sound were greater than normal so I knew something was wrong, and the gun would not open past the primer. Nothing hit me, fortunately, but a piece of the top left cheek wood blew out and sailed past my face, and I had some mild powder residue on my right cheek. I called it quits for the day. I sent it to Turnbull who made it all right, and he sent the fired shell back with it. Obviously the primer was pierced, but the only other anomaly was that the unfolded edge of the plastic shell--a remington--was very feathered as if torn by the wad entering the forcing cone. I measured the empty shell and a few other 16s of various manufacture, and found that the Remingtons tended to be about 1/16" longer than most others. Doesn't seem like this would have caused the large overpressure that occurred, though.
The only other pierced primer issue I have ever had was my 10 gauge lifter shooting new RST Bismuth loads in the red Cheddite hulls. Even after rounding off the cone shaped firing pins, the primers would still pierce more than three times out of four. No damage, no excessive recoil, just a pierced primer and some black soot around the primer and into the firing pin hole. Not what you want to see. When I changed to some of the old RST Bismuth 10 ga loads, using brown Federal hulls, the piercing problem was gone completely. I called RST about it and the lady on the phone said they couldn't get Federal hulls anymore and had had several reports about thin primers on the Cheddites. Apparently they buy primed hulls from the source.
My personal takeaway from all this is: 1. Don't use anybody elses reloads, 2. The pierced primer problem is usually with the shells, not the gun, 3. There is no gas escape mechanism on Parker shotguns other than through the firing pin holes and out the back. Too late at this point (about 80 years or so, 25 for the repro's) to do anything about it, so we all assume the risk of bad shells, including bad factory shells.
Thanks for the post. Glad to know its not just me.
Last edited by Mike Poindexter; 04-19-2018 at 11:58 AM..
Reason: Clarification
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