There's a Hole in My Barrel, Dear Liza

[Chromaflage]

Well, it's taken me a year to muster the courage to go public with this story. Last duck season, I was hunting Mud Lake on Sauvie's Island with a friend of mine (An NRA instructor) and my 2nd oldest boy. This wa my 3rd trip with my new Benelli Nova. We were all sitting in the blind, not more than two feet away from each other with me in the middle. A flight of birds came in, we all started shooting...I fired once...puff! Jacked another round in and touch off again - ka POW!!! It sounded about 10 times louder than a normal shot....my eyes were burning and i felt like my face was hit with a sand blaster.

As I was trying to assess what just happened, my son took a shot at a duck that was on the water just beyond our decoy spread....I don't allow him to sleuce birds, but he said that he thought it was a cripple from the flock that had just come in.

Just then, I realized I had a hole in my barrel....take a look at this.



While we all were admiring the new anti-recoil feature on my Benelli, we had sort of forgotten about that bird my son shot at. A guy from the next blind down from us was walking toward us with a bird in his hand...I thought, wow, what a nice guy..he must be bring me Zach's bird. Oh, he was bringing me the bird alright...he threw the bird at us and cussed us out for being unsportsman like - sleucing birds that were out of range, etc. We all just stared at the guy like he was crazy - still in shock about my gun.

Back to the gun - it was only by the grace of God that no one in our hunting party was hit by a single pellet when my barrel exploded.

So, what happened? Best guess - wet shell (dud), stuck wad and a weak spot in the barrel. I sent the gun to Benelli, they replaced the barrel and sent it back to me - no charge. [img]graemlins/applause.gif[/img]

Morals of this story:

1. If you shoot a dud, don't shoot again until you check and clear your barrel.
2. If you go hammer someone else about their hunting, make sure you have the whole story
3. Miracles do happen - only injury was some permaanent hearing loss in my left ear.

ORS

[ 01-02-2004, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: OregonRedside ]

[Get Bit]

ORS,

That's great lesson. Glad you or your boy were not hurt. I've got a Nova also.Have nothing but good things to say about it. If you don't mind me asking, what brand of shells were you using?

Get Bit

[Chromaflage]

Get Bit, Rem Nitro Steel 3" #2. It must have been wet, because I have been using these for years and have NEVER had a misfire.

ORS

I had a drop of rain freeze in my barrel of my trapping 22 and the barrel cracked when I shot a muskrat with it.

[jokester]

WOW!!! :shocked:

-jokester

[ORoutdoorsman]

That is a good lesson. I meet alot of people that shoot and have no idea how big of an impact debris in their barrel can have. I am also glad to see that the story ended with no one being seriously injured. And look on the bright side, with a bum ear, you can pretend not to hear the wife if she is naggin you But its great no one was hurt, and I would not doubt remingtons ammo, any ammo can get wet and have that happen.It happened to my buddy last trip. But as for the gun who brought you the duck, all I can say is that is why I try not to hunt sauvies anymore. Good luck.

[Bait Bucket]

When I was on the shooting tournament circuit I saw three guns blow over a 17 year span. The most expensive was a high grade K80 in PA. Last spring a friend of mine back in Virginia had a trap gun blow in his hands and it took a few fingers with it. His family made him give up target shooting.

You are lucky.

[salmurai]

You are all very lucky, in more ways than one. Welcome to the "huh" crowd.......

[crabbait]

Huh?

I have seen this type of thing before. My buddy took a shot at a crossing bird and I heard puff instead of BOOM and saw his shot hit the water less than 30' in front of the gun. He jacked another shell in and was traking the bird as I yelled DON'T SHOOT! He didn't and sure enough, the wad was still in the barrel. It can happen with any brand of ammo but tends to be prevalant in reloads.

In an autoloader, the action will not have cycled. This is a big hint that things need a good visual inspection before the gun goes back into battery.

[KingFisher85]

That's real nice
Yep, something had to get jammed in your barrel for that to happen.

I have heard people having problem with Remington Shot.

[SLEDDER]

I was out lion hunting this last week in Idaho. Lion was treed. Something told me to check the barrel on my 223. Sure enough it was full of snow. I opened the bolt and sucked the snow out. Snow and wd-40 yummy. Cat is now no longer with us. I wonder what would have happened had I not checked the barrel. Glad nobody was injured with your incident.

Put a rubber or a finger protector over your barrel and it will keep the snow out. You can shoot through it.

[kamloops]

It used to happen to me quite freqently, and yes
the shells were Remington. I was always luckey enough to clear the wad out of my barrels before firing a perhaps fatal round. My Duck Hunting jacket did a great job of holding water in my shell pocket.

Last month while hunting in eastern Washington
we decided to throw a few clay targets. My little brother with his new 20gu Benelli had a mis-fire on a round. His old gun, an o/u red dot 12gu, he would not have had a chance to fire another round in the barrel, but he was preparing to sqeeze another round off when I yelled at him to stop and unload his gun. Luckily he did stop and was surprised to find a empty wad in his barrel.My brother has hunted with me for 35 years, and I concider him as safe of an upland bird hunter as there is.
The bad thing about the incident was he was using my reloads. [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img] :blush:
Don't be afraid to yell out at the top of your lungs when you suspect a mis-fire, it might save someones life.

[ 01-03-2004, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: kamloops ]

Kamloops,
Switch to dbl barrels and you can always look before droping another shell in.

[kamloops]

Lee,

As posted above that was the case, a o/u to a auto. He always checks his barrels before a reload at least that what he said at the time.

He was getting tired of lugging that o/u around and came over to the "lite zone" like I did 4 years ago.

I would like to get one of those 28gu Dbl barrel
Stogers though for myself. $375.00 list on the web
site.

[ORoutdoorsman]

Dont feel bad for blowing your gun up, Jerry R. said someone blew his gun up at Sauvies yesterday. Everybody can have accidents happen. We all just try and be as safe as possible, but sometimes things happen that can be out of our control.