Photos from Dan's GH 20
 

Dan asked me to post these photos from the aftermath of his accident. He feels they will definitely stir up some lively "conversation". There will be a second thread with photos following this.

Second batch of photos-

Sorry, two more photos.

GH 20
 

Shocking and unnerving. M

I'm so glad that Dans recovery is going well. I guess I'll start the inevitable questions. Is the pictured shell the one that caused the barrel to burst? Were the barrel wall thicknesses measured at any time prior to the this accident. How about the area just forward of the forcing cones? Was it a factory load or handload that caused this, and lastly, did the prior shot fired from this barrel sound a little "off" to Dan.

WOW that is an incredible catastrophic failure, it appear there was an almost complete blockage just in front of the chamber to do that kind of damage to wood and barrel steel. That is the worst example of a blown up gun I have ever seen.

Multiple people have indicated that the shape of “failure “ is an unmistakable indication of a blockage. This barrel was fired just seconds before at the preceding target. The shot, report and recoil were unremarkable and the 30(+-) yard crossing target cleanly broken. I’m personally sufficiently convinced that the base wad of the prior shell came out and lodged in the barrel. Note the shell photo of the actual shell fired when the “failure” occurred. There is no base wad in place. I was shooting a mix of factory and older reloads and unfortunately not saving them. I plan to send the barrels off for a detailed analysis and will certainly will share them. Going forward I implore my friends and fellow lovers of shooting vintage shotguns to take 2-5 seconds and check your barrel after every shot. It may save injury and the beautiful piece of history we are holding in our hands.

I am curious, I have never shot any of those Winchester promo shells but I have seen them around my club. Do they have a fiber base wad? Do they have a plastic base wad? It would be interesting to compare the hull in the picture with another one.

If that is the Winchester "Super Target" loading they advertise it uses a one piece hinged wad (whatever that is). It makes me wonder if the wad could have broken at the hinge, shot cup and shot exiting normally but lower part of wad, the gas seal stuck in the bore????????? I would not think so but obviously something out of the norm happened.

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

A little further thought. If the base wad separated wouldn't much more of the primer be protruding into the hull and thus more visible when looking inside the hull? If the base wad separated might we see some of the shiny silver metal of the inside portion of the steel head looking down into the hull? I don't have answers just thinking out loud.

Pete if you search Shotgun World reloading forum -Winchester base wad coming loose- you will find a lot of discussion of this. Some is reasonable and some useless but it seems as though it is a '' thing''. I was taking the payment at my club's clay fields about a year ago and a trap shooter trying out a new Gaurini single was enraged over a ring bulge in the barrel and was using Winchester promo shells with the white plastic base wad. He blamed the barrel and maker, i thought differently having read the discussion. Do not know the outcome of his calling the maker.

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.
Attachment 108314

Attachment 108315

Attachment 108316

Attachment 108317

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.

I am truly blessed Andy.

Thanks Edgar for posting a macro pic. I had the same observation when I first saw the pic but didn't get around to doing a macro. That's still a question mark for me.

I took some more photos for your review. I will post in bunches.
Attachment 108323

Attachment 108324

Attachment 108325

Attachment 108326

Attachment 108327

More photos
Attachment 108328

Attachment 108329

Attachment 108330

Attachment 108331

I wiped the inside of the barrel with Hoppe's (does anything in the world smell better than Hoppe's #9?) and took a few more. BTW, The inside of the barrel feels a smooth as a baby's butt.
Attachment 108332

Attachment 108333

Attachment 108334

Attachment 108335

Attachment 108336

I've forgotten more than I remember in years of testing metallurgy, but the first thing I was taught was to only let the science do the talking. However, that said, the 3rd and 4th pictures of post #25 are very telling.
Eyeballs are no replacement for a scanning electron microscope, but I think it's safe to say the rupture shows great ductility of the steel and I "feel" there was no issue with the steel, and it's heat treatment. The tear at the breach end of the rupture keeps telling me there was a solid obstruction at, or just fwd of the rupture. Damn, but those striations................

Letting the science do the talking, those “striations” could be simply the result of lateral stretching of the metal.





.

Dan, can you or any witness say if the break at the wrist of the stock happened at the instant of the barrel rupture, or was it the result of the gun being dropped or flung from your hands?

I can't say for sure Dave. I've discussed it with the guys I was with because I was a bit dissapointed I didn't lay the gun down instead of just droppping it. There is a pretty good sized mark on the top of the heal that indicates it hit the concrete there and if so it's likely it would have broken the stock.

A couple more pics of something I hadn't noticed before. This appears to be a split initiated from the outside and is not percetible by sight or touch on the inside.
Attachment 108337

Attachment 108338

Attachment 108339

Please keep us posted on the scientific findings.

That seems logical as the metal expanded the radius on the out side being greater than the inside would tear first,

Every time i pick up my GHE 20 or any other shotgun i will check the bores before and after each shot! Bobby

I am not engineer and have no experience or training in the physics and engineering involved with a barrel burst. What I find counterintuitive as a layman is the amount of pressure required to burst a fluid steel barrel is around 30,000 psi per Sherman Bell's destructive tests. How is it that a shot charge and wad being pushed by a force between 11,000 and less than 30,000 psi wouldn't dislodge and send a thin plastic base wad stuck in the bore out the muzzle before it reached a level of barrel burst pressure? Serious question looking for an answer. Perhaps the answer is the pressure builds faster than the ejecta moves but I don't know that.

Inertia will do it every time when it meets a fixed object regardless if that object is “stuck” in position.





.

The term for "streching" is Elongation; one of the four basic maesurements obtained in a destructive test bar. Tensile, sometimes expressed as UTS, Ultimate Tensile Strength, Yield Strength; the point at which the specimen will no longer relax to it's original length (2") RA, Elongation, as a percentage of the pre-measure 2" measured length, and lastly, Reduction of Area, the amount the specimen reduced at the point of failure. The area at the failure of the test bar has a somewhat different appearance, dependent on the alloy, but looks nothing like those 'striations', which, in my opinion, are on the surface. I also doubt there was any linear stretching, simply because the failure area reach (1st) Yield, then UTS and elongation.
A properly heat treated specimen fails in a very predictable, and repeatable manner; the numbers only varying because of the percentage of individual alloying elements.
On average, we produced between 25 to 30 individual heats (Furnaces batches of steel) per week, and it's safe to say we would break between 6 and 20 tensile specimens per heat (not to mention creep strength tests, Charpy (V notch)Impact tests, and weld bend tests)

You are quite correct. The area of the failed tube is the CxOD minus the CxID.

Bell's burst tests were on unobstructed tubes, and, I think This tube was obstructed, and in pretty close proximity to the charge. The spike was (obviously) catastrophic. The pressures rise initially, after firing, and decrease the further down the bore they are measures. Within a few inches of the forcing cone, they're going up fast, but with no bore to go down.

I remember some work done by a Proof House, that took deliberately sealed tubes of various lengths, and measured the resulting failures. I found it while in the library at Leeds University, no doubt waiting for the pubs to open on a Sunday evening. That was an exchange year from RPI, and despite learning a lot, found the pubs dramatically more interesting than the labs.

Interesting Comment Regarding Win Wads
 

I was explaining the burst barrel using Win factory loads. One guy said he purchased some older Win 20 ga wads. When loading them something did not feel right so he took the shell apart where he discovered the wad crush leaves had snapped at the hinge. He took several wads and manually crushed them and all snapped at the hinge. In the trash they went. Not sure if this is germane to this burst barrel but it could be.

I, too, trashed several bags of the older, white AA 12ga wads. The petals would break off at the base.

Remember that smokeless powder has a pressure/burning rate curve. As mentioned, Bells bursts were open tubes. If a wad is stuck a couple of inches in front of the chamber, it is at the normal max pressure point anyway. If the obstruction holds even for a short time, the burning rate can go extremely higher and reach catastrophic levels before the wad even has time to move. Dean's inertia effect. It likely did move down the barrel quickly, just not as quickly as the pressure increased. It's the fatal flaw of a progressive powder; rate of pressure increase is dependent on the pressure.

A number of years ago I got my 20 Ga. Reproduction out of the safe to go grouse hunting. I had the gun stored with plastic snap caps, the kind that have a translucent housing that you can see a coiled spring inside it. When breaking the gun open the electors shot the caps out on the floor, but I couldn't find one of them. I searched all around the floor under all the furniture till it frustrated me. Here, when the ejector popped the snap cap out, it sheared the rim clean off and the body of the cap, slide down the barrel and lodged in the choke. I purchased the snap caps from Dillon Precision and decided to contact them and let them know the potential danger of that type of cap. They thanked me and quite offering on the web site.
Ever since that day I have have always looked down the barrel for day light before chambering a round.