In April last year I was shooting some Eurasian dove and pigeons. Birds were coming in at a feverous pace. I had taken along a bunch of vintage shells to shoot up.
My Forgeron has ejectors. I just finished shooting two birds, one with each barrel. I popped the gun open to not miss an opportunity of another flight of birds coming in.
Everything seemed normal, shells ejected out.
I Slapped two more rounds into the barrels, one did not want to go in the last 1/4 inch. I figured the shell had swelled and all I needed to do would be to push it in harder. It moved but I could not get the gun to close.
I Removed the shells and Loaded another. Same thing. Looked down the bores and noticed something I didn’t recognize at first. Then I realized the paper shell had separated.
I put the gun away and when I arrived home I removed what was left of the paper hull. I was very fortunate that when it separated it stopped just short of clearing the forcing cone area. I’m sure that things could have been very serous had I been able to chamber a round.
I am also pretty sure if things had went to hell I would have sworn everything had been normal when it blew up.

Dean Romig and Art Shaffer came up with the explanation for the burst of my Remington 3200 lower barrel. Stuck wad, inertial effect of the approaching load, extremely fast pressure rise behind the stuck wad. I can make this determination because I knew there was a stuck wad, forgot about it, and later loaded the gun and shot it. The GHE 20 in question seems to have had the same problem at the same place in the barrel. However, in the excitement of the injury to the shooter, a separated hull would have a similar result, and the two parts of the hull may not have been found.

There hasn’t been any metal testing at this point but several knowledge people have indicated that the shape “ring bulge” is overwhelming evidence of a blockage. I’m hoping to get the testing initiated soon. My hand continues to heal at an amazing pace. The power of prayer is indisputable and my Holy Spirit is working overtime. The broken bones have healed and the pins have been removed. The size of the wound is shrinking and the decision to continue with the woundvac or do a skin graft to close the wound is only about 10 days out. My thumb is doing well but will have limited utility. My hope is that I will be able to strengthen it sufficiently that it will be able to provide enough resistance to allow me to grip things between it and my fingers.
The pins were removed last Tuesday and I’ve been working on range of motion in the fingers and wrist and it is going well. I have no doubt that I will be able to shoot in a controlled environment (target shooting) but I honestly don’t know yet if the thumb will regain enough function to allow me to safely control my muzzle in a hunting environment. Thanks for asking.

You will Dan.





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Quote: "...but I honestly don’t know yet if the thumb will regain enough function..."

I will continue to pray to the Lord Almighty for a full restoration of that function.

Thank you so much. The power of prayer has been amazing.