Blowing Up Guns

[3macs1]

You believe altering shells is dangerous. Fine. Don't do it.

I, on the other hand, enjoy testing such alterations, to learn what the dangers might be. If I find a danger, I will know there is a danger, rather than just believe there is a danger. I prefer knowing over believing.

Your picture demonstrates that a barrel obstruction near the muzzle will sometimes cause the barrel to burst. When I see that picture, I think to myself "make sure the barrel is clear before shooting - and especially after stumbling or tripping while in the field."

I also think (thought) "I wonder why we don't see many burst barrels near the chamber?" and proceeded to run tests with barrel obstructions near the chamber, and then progressively further down the barrel.

I know know (as opposed to believe) that the risk of a burst is much greater when the obstruction is more than half way down the barrel. Closer than that, the damage is often a bulge or ring as opposed to a burst.

The last gun I blew up was a 12 ga Cooey single shot. It did not blow on the first 3 attempts. Finally, we stuck a big lag bolt in the muzzle and then pinched barrel flat in a vice. Even then, the damage was not significant. We can cut 6" off the barrel and put the gun back into service.

If you prefer to recognize danger and stay away, good for you. A reasonable attitude.

I don't believe anything I have ever done has been any more dangerous that the usual vagaries of loading and shooting.

Thank you for understanding my position and like I said to each their own

But here is where we differ on the example you give
Generally on shotguns the material thickness of the barrel is greater as one approaches the chamber so yes the risk of a barrel actually fully bursting there is indeed less not from any testing but just do to the barrel design and material. No tests needed to prove that IMO

That being said and I am sorry for the blurry picture but if you indeed are as old as you indicate you would clearly remember theses
Yes sir the old RED 20ga hulls. The ones that caused more barrel bursts and damaged fingers/ faces back in the day just down from the chamber than any obstruction has ever caused
I witnessed two on a skeet range and have never seen anything since like it and hope I never will

So much so manufacturer's finally after Federal started it agreed to change the color of the hulls to the orange/ yellow we now know today vs RED 12ga and red 20ga
For all the testing you did at CIL I would be shocked if that was not on the top of the list since that one situation was blowing up a ton of barrels and all back in the chamber areas

Unfortunately pics of such blown barrels are rare since we were not talking pics of everything back then as they do today
Some would wonder how that would happen. Not hard when shooting skeet as an example in those years with four different 1100's say in four different gauges all in the same few hours. Not hard for a red 20ga round to get mixed in your pocket with a 12ga red round

Cheers

Secondly back in the years you seem to have been doing your tests hulls were paper

Thus it was common for them to get wet ,swelled ,dried ,and had the felt and/or paper and cards swell and stick maybe even pull paper from a slumped case . If that case was exposed over and over to higher temps where the wax would sweat out of the case . Add a little shot corrosion and a rewaxed crimp . Now you have a really hard odd shaped slug to slam into chamber shoulder
So it opens and has to push 3/4 inch of hard board wads and hard felt through a forcing cone that is choked down. Now we are looking at a nice safe 12,000 LUP 1 1/8 oz load in a paper case that is up around 25,000 psi and hasn't burned all the powder yet
Likely chamber failure

Of course if it were a plastic case all of the above is not applicable.

Did you test paper or plastic hulls


I also know that Remington as an example today uses a 5 to 1 factor of safety on their barrel designs in the 870 over saam1 standards to try to prevent barrel chamber ruptures. I have no idea but it must be much lower back in the day on vintage gun designs

 

[Ganderite]

When I was doing R & D for CIL we were producing plastic hulls and were introducing plastic wad columns. Remington had a patent on the gas cup shape on the bottom of the wad, so were were making and testing designs that did not use a cup shape.

I don't recall when the 20 gauge shells changed colour. A 20 ga would fall through a 12 ga chamber and stick in the choke. the next shot would blow the muzzle off.

I started shooting with paper hulls and still have some in my bunker, but by the time I started with CIL, we were making plastic shells under an agreement with Remington.

Our testing included cooking the shells before shooting them and freezing them at -30 for 3 days before shooting. I would fire the round, noting the chamber pressure and velocity and take a picture of the shot column, wad separation a foot or so in front of the muzzle.

Sometimes we would fire a pallet or two of a new designs in a hundred different guns (we had a "library" of guns) to make sure it worked in everything. In the case of shotguns, I would be almost knee deep in empties. Shot from the hip. No way I could take the recoil all day from the shoulder.

Most testing was boring, unless it involved testing 45ACP in a Thompson...

More recently I tested ammo for my son's ammo company. The military would have added requirements beyond just accuracy, like muzzle flash and special requirements for the bullet (more or less penetration). Navy boarding parties, for example, do not want penetration, for fear of hitting a friendly in the next compartment.

Other than the 50 cal sniper rifle ammo testing, this is all boring stuff, too.

 

[3macs1]

When I was doing R & D for CIL we were producing plastic hulls and were introducing plastic wad columns. Remington had a patent on the gas cup shape on the bottom of the wad, so were were making and testing designs that did not use a cup shape.

I don't recall when the 20 gauge shells changed colour. A 20 ga would fall through a 12 ga chamber and stick in the choke. the next shot would blow the muzzle off.

I started shooting with paper hulls and still have some in my bunker, but by the time I started with CIL, we were making plastic shells under an agreement with Remington.

Our testing included cooking the shells before shooting them and freezing them at -30 for 3 days before shooting. I would fire the round, noting the chamber pressure and velocity and take a picture of the shot column, wad separation a foot or so in front of the muzzle.

Sometimes we would fire a pallet or two of a new designs in a hundred different guns (we had a "library" of guns) to make sure it worked in everything. In the case of shotguns, I would be almost knew deep in empties. Shot from the hip. No way I could take the recoil all day from the shoulder.

Most testing was boring, unless it involved testing 45ACP in a Thompson...

More recently I tested ammo for my son's ammo company. The military would have added requirements beyond just accuracy, like muzzle flash and special requirements for the bullet (more or less penetration). Navy boarding parties, for example, do not want penetration, for fear of hitting a friendly in the next compartment.

Other than the 50 cal sniper rifle ammo testing, this is all boring stuff, too.

My experience in this matter is 100% shotgun nothing else
All the 20ga blow ups I have read about and the two I seen in 1100's were back just in front of the chamber area never at the muzzle
One such case here

It was reported the shooter lost his right hand/right eye, left hand only had the thumb and two fingers left.
The left eye has some problems but most of the vision was still there.
The right side of his face/jaw area was pretty mess up by what we were told.
The shotgun was a 1100 but frankly I could not tell what brand of gun it was, other then it was a shotgun.................it was that bad of shape.

Remington started playing with the plastic hulls in 62 and by 1963 introduced the new "power piston wad " and in 63 full production of the new design began
Originally they were still stamped Peters until 1970 when remington opened new factories and closed the bridge port conn plant ending the Peters stamp
410 and 28ga also stayed paper until late 69 early 70 and also the best hull they ever made the RXP started to show until it was ended in 1978

In 1964 winchester came out with the new winchester western plastic hull however there was a pile of problems with the straight wall Reifenhauser design and base wad separation and total break down if wet was very common
In fact I still have a few 1000 of the original rejects in my stash. Not once fired but brand new pulled from an assembly line

Happy Holidays