Photos from Dan's GH 20

[Phil C]

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.