Scary . . . . .

JB Brook’s illustration above looks like an ill conceived design that should never have left the drawing board. It looks like “Hazardous Waste”.

Full illustration and some description from Winchester is here:

https://winchester.com/Products/Ammu...Target/TRGT207

I was at our gun club shooting trap with a group of friends a couple years ago. The guy shooting next to me is not what I call an "Avid Shooter". On one of his birds, he called pull and fired at the bird.... To me, the shot had an abviously bad "sound" to it.... He was shooting a Remington 870, and had already place another shell into the chamber... I immediately asked him to STOP!... I told him the shot did not sound right, and he needed to check his barrel... Sure enough, the wad was still in the barrel and luckily a crisis was averted. I asked him where he got the shells he was using, and he told me they were reloads given to him by his father in law..... I think on the one that failed, he must of had a seriously undercharged load in place.

Be carefull out there, pay attention to details, etc....

Reminds me, some 20+ years ago I was goose hunting with a 20 year old using an 870 and factory loads. We were laying in the decoys and we had a flock landing right on top of us. I said go and I heard his gun make the sound of a squib load. I have no idea how I had the presence of mind with birds 20 yards away and feet down to yell STOP, DONT SHOOT and he held off. The wad was stuck in his choke. The potential for a bad ending was very close at hand.

More pictures. The hulls show the remington reloads I was shooting and a factory load winchester I was also shooting. Note the constuction of the remington does not have a base wad. Also my shooting glasses with splatter (Wear your glasses. I had about 4 small pieces of metal in the right side of my forehead and a couple larger pieces in my right bicept) and the glove I was wearing. Not susurprisingly, the hole matches my hand.
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I’m just glad you are still talking to us and hope you get back to close to normal.

I am "curious" as to the origin of these linear striations. They appear to begin at about the forward portion of the rupture, and look as though something forced it's way with enough force to dig into the wall.

Damn you're a lucky man to be seeing out of that eye.

The pictures of the aftermath are disturbing, I am glad you were not hurt worse than you were Dan.

It's unfortunate none of us will ever know with 100% certainty what caused this. As I said before it could happen to any of us.

If this had been a composite barrel gun how many folks (not necessarily this group) would instantly cite that or suspect that as the cause?

When it comes right down to it, shooting a shotgun is like driving a car. Most of the time most of our life things are fine for most of us. But every now and then something really bad even life altering happens and it happens quickly without warning.

All I think any of us can do is use what we see and read here to be more diligent both in our reloading and shooting. Thankfully Dan was wearing a glove and glasses. What if this happened in the field while hunting, how many of us would have had that protection?

I hope I never see another incident like this again.

There is a lot for us to think about here.