Barrel Explodes?

He is either stupid or really stupid. The main reason for your shotgun barrel exploding is 1. 20 ga shell got mixed into your 12 ga shells. 2. dirt or debris in the barrel causing the barrel to be come blocked. If your worried about your barrel getting rain in it grad a rubber at the store when you stop for refreshments and tape it to the muzzle with black tape. It is only good for one shot though.

The first one is the one I hear most often when hearing of exploded shotgun barrels.

No bullet or shot cup provides 100% seal with the barrel there for if you had tiny droplets of water in side your barrel they will be either 1) blown out of the barrel or 2) vaporized by the hot gases escaping around the wad.

Now I have no idea how hard it rains in NZ because I have never been there. So if you get tropical rains that tend to rain 12+" in an hour or two that might be a problem carrying a shotgun with the unprotected muzzle pointed up. In that case I would do as I said before and get some rubbers and black tape.

 

A shotgun barrel will explode if it's blocked but I don't think having a few rain drops in it will hurt anything. Our safety man at the rock quarry brought in an 870 barrel that exploded on him one time. I guess he dropped it and didn't realize that it hit the ground barrel down. When he fired it, the barrel ruptured and he said the shotgun kicked like a mule.

Mythbusters tried to get a shotgun barrel to explode on one of their episodes but couldn't get it to really do anything except blow out the plug or cause the rib vent to curl up. I think they even welded an aluminum plug in the barrel.

However I know for a fact that it can happen, I've seen it before.

It's a good safety thing to check your barrel for obstrutions but it's also a way for Remington to cover thier own asses. If they don't put that in the manual then some idiot would have the problem and then try to sue them, therefore they put it in thier so they can say it's not our fault, we warned you.

 

Remington got sued over their barrels several years ago. Reportedly the would blow up when obstructed. Winchester makes a MUCH better barrel (IMHO), at least they did before they went Tango Uniform. I imagine FN shotties are up to the old Winchester standards.

 

I have honestly never seen it happen, or seen one that it happened to. I have seen some DUMB SH!T come through the shop in my time, but I have never seen someone explode a shotgun barrel.

As for carrying the weapon barrel up: How big of a hole and in what kind of weather are you hunting in? If you had an old school blunderbuss and you were walking in a tsunami, yeah, maybe.

I live in the Pacific Northwest. It rains here, just about, everday from about October thru about Feb. Some form of rain, from heavy to light. It's always raining during hunting season. Never seen a barrel cracked or exploded due to rainy conditions.

I am going to go with cpttango's assessment on your instructor.

JD

 

I've seen a shotgun barrel that blew up but never actually watched it happen .

This was in my younger days when I use to go to Turkey Shoots in the late 70's and early 80's and they had money shoots and people cheated by having their barrels heated up and reduced the bore diameter for tighter patterns they called it "Sweating or Swaging" the barrel here .

The barrel looked rather odd as it had a perfect rectangle cut into the side of it about 3 inches from the bore itself .

As far as rain , well I hunter rabbit many times in snow storms and never had a problem with my Mossberg's .

 

I love it when I see stuff like this. Well, in my opinion, Remington uses much higher quality steel than Winchester in their barrels. My statement is as fact based as yours, which is to say it ain't. As I recall, Browning recommended against shooting any steel shot in any Belgium made (read FN) shotguns, but the Japanese made ones should be fine with modifed and more open chokes. How does that impact the definition of better? Note, I am not saying there was anything wrong with the Belgian barrels, They were softer than the Japanese barrels, but with lead shot it was a non issue.
Remington did have a batch of barrels that were apparently not up to snuff in some regard. That does not apply to all barrels by a mile. I seriously doubt the Remington 700's downright legendary accuracy is the result of inferior barrels.

 

I would report the instructor to whatever organization provides oversight for the training programs. He is obviously a numbnut.

As far as barrels exploding, my granddad has 4 or 5 shotgun barrels in his shop that are blown to hell. Some of them have the rib peeled back, others have a big, split bulge in the barrel. They were all caused by having the barrel stuck down into the dirt.

 

Some of the old winchester 97's (with certain barrel designs) can blow up with today's hotter ammo. But, a bit of water won't do more than start some rust if left in for a while...

 

barrel blow

I just went out duck hunting opening day with my brand new 12 guage Winchester Sx3 shotgun with a Briley EXR choke. I was shooting a 3 in. #2 steel and about 40 min. into the hunt (as you may have seen my profile picture) my barrel blew up. I know that all of the preveous replies were about dropping your gun and getting mud into the barrel but this gun is never left my hands. Has anybody heard about Briley chokes and their restrictions that they may have for the # of shot to us? And if gun barrels may blow due to the size of choke used?

 

OK, Here we go. I participated in a controlled test using a Remington 870 18"bbl Police shotgun and a Winchester defender 18" bbl. Both had cylinder bore barrels. 870 went first. 2 cleaning patches in barrel, half way down, fired 12 ga 2 3/4" slug. No problem. Next cut open slug and force slug halfway down the barrel, fired slug behind it. Barrel blown from breech to muzzle. Lateral split all the way down the barrel.
Defender was next. Patches-slug, no problem. Slug-slug, no problem. Two holes in target. Cut open two slugs and forced both halfway down barrel, fired slug behind them. Three holes in target. Barrel split about 1 1/2" from muzzle back, front sight bead gone. The gun still worked and was still safe to fire even though it patterned poorly afterward.

Is that fact based enough for you? Probably not.

Maybe Remington barrels are better than Winchester barrels but apparently THAT Remington barrel was not better than THAT Winchester barrel.

Knowingly shooting any firearm with a bore obstruction is a very bad idea. I would not worry about a few drops of rain in a barrel especially a shotgun barrel. More than a few drops in the barrel of a high velocity rifle MAY be an entirely different thing.

Belgian barrels and steel shot? I would not shoot steel shot through any shotgun barrel that was not specifically rated for it. Older Belgian barrels that were not made for steel shot should not be used for steel shot.

 

I have a friend that had an old Ithaca M37 that use to reload rock salt for dogs and skunks that were messin' with the chickens. One day (and he was a teenager at that time), he didn't have any rock salt so he tried loading some table salt. When he shot it, it banana-peeled his barrel from the muzzle to the site bead, taking the choke constriction out completely. He cut the end of the barrel off just behind the split and put another site bead on his now "choke-free" 12ga. He had the barrel tested for other problems resulting from that insane act, and it tested/measured out fine. It made for a great gun for skeet, doves, ducks over dekes, and close pheasant gun, but didn't pattern very well out beyond about 25 yards.

On another note, I have seen rifle barrels blow up after a slug has gotten stuck in the barrel due to powder failure. Fire another shot while it is plugged and you'll be lucky to come out of it with your eyesight and all your fingers intact. The reasons it can be done with shotguns is because there is much more give with the multiple projectiles (pellets) than there is with a single slug in a rifled barrel. I believe the pressure is also much greater in a rifle barrel than it is in a shotgun.

 

I posted a similar comment about this on page one but, I found out that our safety supervisor at the rock quarry had taken his shotgun (870) to have the scope boresighted for last year's deer season. It was done at the local gunstore. After he got home he decided to fire it to see how close it was hitting. The guy at the gunstore left an o-ring from the arbor on the boresighter in his barrel. When the slug hit the o-ring, that was enough to cause the barrel to explode. He said the recoil was incredible and it knocked his 200 lbs body to the ground and completely knocked his earmuffs off his head.

 

Ammo today for older cartridges are not any hotter than older ammo. Unless it is made that way IE Hornady Light Mag. If you reload and look at today's loadings and ones from 30 or 40 years ago the loads are much lighter.

Ammo is loaded to the same SAAMI specs as it was years ago.

You can't shoot modern ammo in some old shotguns as they were made with damascus barrels (Twisted steel).

 

finally an answere

I finally received a letter from Winchester Ammo about how without the spent cartridge they were unable to accept responsibility of the blown barrel. They did on the other hand say that they sent the barrel to Winchester Arms and they said the same as Winchester Ammo. The letter said that the quote for a new barrel was $600 and they would pay half and if I wished to pay the other $300 they would send a new barrel. I told myself that I will not pay anything for my barrel and that I will get it for free some way or another. I called up Winchester Ammo and I finally was able to speak to one of the managers. I told him my sob story and that I don’t have the money and that I will not be able to cover the cost of getting a new barrel. About 2 hours latter the manager/boss called me and said that I must be living right and that the price that Winchester Arms quoted them was wrong. The total cost of getting a new barrel was $350 not the $600. He said that since I was nice over the phone and that I didn’t use harsh language, like all the other people, he would cover all costs and ship out the barrel to me for free. It’s been 2 weeks since he said that so I hope I get it soon and not after the duck season.

 

You are right, that is not good enuf proof. Define better. So that is better how? What were the barrel alloys? What were the thicknesses? How tight was the slug in one barrel versus the other? I don't shoot with barrel obstructions, and don't own any 18" barrels, so if the Winny barrel was thicker to allow that, to me that is a negative, not a positive. I am not saying the Winchester barrel was inferior, I am saying without quantitative answers to the questions one cannot tell which barrel is "better". Truth be known, they are likely made out of the same alloy.

 

Ok, you are absolutely right. I did not personally mic the thickness of each barel prior to testing. I did not measure the force used to drive the slugs into each barrel. I did not chemically test the steel to determine the exact alloy of each. I did not have an elecrton microscope handy at the time to examine the grain sructure of each barrel. Nothing I can say will convince you otherwise so you must be right, Virginian, Remington barrels are definately better than ANY OTHER barrels ever made.
I would NEVER deliberately shoot ANY of my own shotguns with any barrel obstruction, I am too fond of them to risk damage.

To say they are both made of the "same alloy" is ignorant. 4140 steel sounds about the same as 4150 steel, but they are VERY different alloys with VERY different properties ( and cost).

 

Absolutely 100% correct to say such, without knowing for sure. That is why I did not say that.

 

i have had a mossburg maverick model 88 barrel explode on me. it was a simular story that dargunovsks talked about. a piece of shrapnel came back and hit me in the arm.