Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark Ouellette
Austin,
A good friend and member of this board made the classic mistake of loading shells with PB instead of the black powder which he thought was in the MEC powder bottle. PB looks like black powder. His barrel blew on the 4th shot. He later had the remainder of those shells tested. They were all far above 20,000 PSI and one was somewhere around 34,000 PSI. After that my friend now keeps all black powder loading equipment in a seperate room from his smokeless loaders and supplies. In life things happen... Then the rumors start which are always much, much worse than the actual event. Oh, my friend's blown gun is pictured in "Shooting Flying" by Murdelack (SP?).
I believe in moderation to preserve and only push to the limit when necessary!
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Paul Harm's ruptured Remington is in Ed's book at p. 119 and is accurately reported as the result of a substitution of smokeless for black. Other authors may not be so constrained and may have reported it only as what happens when you put a smokeless powder load in a damascus gun.
Maybe the point I have been trying to make, maybe somewhat inartfully, is that Parker damascus barrels are stout and if a person wants to know what he can shoot in one, detailed information is available and goes far beyond " you have to use low pressure shells and you get them from RST." You don't have to use low pressure loads, and you can buy shells from local sources that meet the Parker load requirements for the gun, if he wants to find out for himself. But I shoot moderate to low pressure loads at clays because I like to be easy on my shoulder and the gun. If a person hears that he can only use low pressure loads, seems to me that he may think that the gun is somehow weak, or inferior, or not as good as others and maybe I'm trying to put that notion to rest.