Bruce,
A barrel wall thickness of .008 was an accident waiting to happen! The British proof houses like .020" minimum in the forward portion of the barrels. I like .030" or more. Every collector of vintage guns should have access to a high quality barrel thickness gauge and use it! My Hosford Barrel Wall Thickness Gauge provides data as to what loads/shot size my guns should be safe to shoot. My Hosford gauge also saved one of our well know Parker guys from wasting $4000 on a 16 gauge Parker with thin barrel walls. After measuring he informed the seller and sent the gun back. The seller promptly relisted the gun with NO mention of thin barel walls. In fact, later we saw the gun on the seller's table at the UP shoot!
The gas jet does the cutting to weaken the wall. To be considered "plasma" the gas must be ionized by an electric charge. A charge MAY be induced during firing but I have no information to confirm this. Maybe if the gas jet were ionized a very clean cut would be evident on the bore side of a split in a barrel?
The gas jet may be more like a water jet cutter which uses high pressure water mixed with an abrasive substance to cut. Certainly any of the residuals from shooting that we regularly need to remove from our shotgun bores would serve as the abrasive.
This subject makes me appreciate the importance of a wad with a very good gas seal. Ballistics Products Inc. (BPI) sells a gas seal for 10 gauges called the X10X. Some loading data requires its use between the powder and the wad. When I select my loading data for BB size shot, I will opt for one that requires the X10X or similar high quality gas seal.
The wad design is likely the solution to the problems with shooting steel shot in doubles!
Mark
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