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Thread: Browning Citori blew up!

  1. #81
    Boolit Grand Master



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    The video in post 50 is very interesting but it is hardly conclusive of all 20/12 situations. I witnessed a O/U blow up about twenty years ago. A buddy and I were shooting five stand and he found a unfired twenty gauge shell and he put it his shooting vest. About an hour later he blew his O/U up and the 20 gauge shell was no longer in his vest. We both believe that missing 20 gauge shot shell was the cause. Either that or space aliens beamed the shell out of his vest.
    Last edited by M-Tecs; 06-18-2020 at 09:48 PM.

  2. #82
    Boolit Mold
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    We had a similar incident at our club about 2 years ago. A Grandson was shooting Grandpa's reloads. Our best guess was failure to change bushings or powder when changing gauges on a PW press.
    The kid was not hurt but the gun still hangs in the trap house pieces that were found are wired to a board.

  3. #83
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    [QUOTE=Hamish;3897239]"Harter66-"In shotguning the switch from a W209 to a Fed 209A will jump pressures 10,000psi , take a top load at 14,500 and it's 23,000 before you pull the trigger . Add a charge bar cut for 1oz of large steel shot and drop a charge of #8 or 9 lead and viola' now you 1 1/4-5/16 oz of shot sitting on 18 gr of Red Dot and a nice safe 12,000 LUP 1 oz trap loads is a 30k grenade right at the top of CIP proof loads maybe higher .""



    Harter66, I'm with Blood Trail on this one,

    In perusing a couple of IMR load books I cannot find any loads that exceed 400 PSI difference between Winchester and Federal 209 primers, with the the Federals on the high side. Almost all were within 100 to 200 PSI.

    I believe you are mistakenly substituting the fact that substituting WADS in a given load can drastically alter pressures.

    I do not ever remember reading that the brisance of Federal shotgun primers was that much higher than Winchesters.

    If you have any hard info concerning this I would be interested in reading it sir.[/QUOTE

    I think you are right about the effect of different shotgun primers. While it surely varies to some extent with the powder used, that much of a change in pressure from primers alone is surely something the manufacturers would issue much sterner warniings about than they in fact do.

  4. #84
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rkelley View Post
    We had a similar incident at our club about 2 years ago. A Grandson was shooting Grandpa's reloads. Our best guess was failure to change bushings or powder when changing gauges on a PW press.
    The kid was not hurt but the gun still hangs in the trap house pieces that were found are wired to a board.
    It is amazing how high a proportion of shotgun blow-ups (and indeed rifle blow-ups) happen without significant injury. But it can happen. I wonder just what proportion of shotgun cartridges fired are reloaded ones? Not high, I imagine, and I think it becomes quite a bit higher with guns which have blown up.

    I still think 12 on top of 20 (or even worse, 16) is a distinct possibility here, but so is an overload. It isn't easy to overload a cartridge shotgun with shot, but lead to the volume that was right for steel is a possibility.

    The difference between a powder overload by double charge, shaky hand, bridging in the measure etc., and an overload by an incorrectly set measure, would be that the latter would necessarily apply to the rest of the cartridges too. Nobody was hurt in the incident described by the OP, and no cartridge company could be held liable, so there was no need for expert evidence. But if there had been, the unfired cartridges would have come in for immediate examination.
    to

  5. #85
    Boolit Grand Master
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    No. Closer to a half ounce of lead more, Harter. Further, you have to explain how he made a single bad shell in the middle of a bunch of good ones. Your supposition is impossible.

  6. #86
    Boolit Grand Master Harter66's Avatar
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    Was it the first round in a box? What happened to the rest of the box ? Did the user just top off a box in the goose press instead of the trap press ?

    I can see 18.0 of of RD making a mess under an 1 3/8-1/2 even easier .

    Are only a few possible ways to have this happen .
    You have a gun failure after 1000s maybe 10s of 1000s of rounds .
    You get a chamber obstruction such as a smaller ga shell .
    You screwed up on the bench .
    You got a bad factory load . I have had FC stick cases and RP peel strips of the case right out sides from factory ammo .
    In the time of darkest defeat,our victory may be nearest. Wm. McKinley.

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  7. #87
    Boolit Master 35 Whelen's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 35remington View Post
    I doubt very much a clay bird shooter had a 1 ounce steel shot bar mistakenly loaded with lead shot dispensing his load. Suggesting massive boosts in pressure from primer switching combined with inserting steel shot bars smack in the middle of a lead shot loading session make it appear whoever posits such weirdly impossible events has not thought about it much before posting. I remind that bars cut for 1 ounce of steel are based on volume, and the volume of such a load when lead shot is substituted is way, way more than a one ounce lead wad will accept and obtain a crimp. Shells simply buckle under such conditions when a crimp is attempted and it is very obvious something is wrong. The ratio is on the order of one ounce of steel being closer to an ounce and a half of lead....1 to 1.44. Sorry, won't fit.

    The more improbable something sounds as a cause, the more improbable it actually is. How is it someone could load a single bad shell by overstuffing it with shot when the rest were OK? How can any semblance of a normal shell be produced when nearly fifty percent more shot than is intended is loaded?
    My sentiments exactly. It's funny how the most unlikely theories float to the top.

    As a kid, I loaded my own 20 ga. shotgun shells for duck hunting and a primer was a primer was a primer. If it fit, or could be made to fit (remember the old Remington *57 and *97 primers?) I'd use it. I never sorted hulls by brand and if I could find a way to get a little more Herco or a little more #4 shot into the shell, I'd do it. I used whatever wad held the most shot. So in my quest to have the most powerful duck loads possible, I did some really, really stupid things, yet I and my cheap little Spanish SxS survived. Point is, I think it'd be really difficult to destroy a high quality shotgun with an oh-oh reloading accident.

    35W
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  8. #88
    Boolit Grand Master Harter66's Avatar
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    I give . It could only possibly be that what happened happened in the most likely possible way due to nothing more than a completely random failure that could happen to anybody anywhere at any time based on the elemental structure of the raw materials and has no possibility of any human error occuring.
    AKA a random accident of unknown reasons.
    In the time of darkest defeat,our victory may be nearest. Wm. McKinley.

    I was young and stupid then I'm older now. Me 1992 .

    Richard Lee Hart 6/29/39-7/25/18


    Without trial we cannot learn and grow . It is through our stuggles that we become stronger .
    Brother I'm going to be Pythagerus , DiVinci , and Atlas all rolled into one soon .

  9. #89
    Boolit Master Ola's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by 35 Whelen View Post
    Point is, I think it'd be really difficult to destroy a high quality shotgun with an oh-oh reloading accident.
    35W
    A Finnish hunting rag made an article some years ago. They tested what a 12/70 can endure. It was a Soviet-era single shot Baikal (yes, the barrel walls are quite thick). They tried everything like shooting a 20g stuck in the forcing cone out with a 12/89!! They tried all kinds of combinations but virtually no damages (they had to cut the barrel after shooting 6" of clay out -> the barrel bent and ruptured but the action was still fine).

    As a final stage they wanted to explode the gun. They made round with some 50 grams of shot (typical 12/76 weight) and used the fastest Vihtavuori powder N310. They did not tell the charge but obviously it was " way too much". After they shot that round the gun looked like the one in OP's post.

    It seems it takes more than one mistake, one oh-oh reloading accident is probably not enough.
    Last edited by Ola; 01-04-2017 at 12:11 PM.
    --------
    SISU

  10. #90
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    The made the same to Mosin Nagant in gunsmithing school.. been there done that.

    S

  11. #91
    Boolit Master Ola's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by seppos View Post
    The made the same to Mosin Nagant in gunsmithing school.. been there done that.

    S
    What did it take? TNT?
    --------
    SISU

  12. #92
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    http://www.shotgunlife.com/shotguns/...pressures.html

    Shotshell pressures seem to be a worrisome area for many shotgunners, especially reloaders. They worry that if they shoot excessive pressure loads that their shotgun could well “blow up.” They’ve heard that from their buddies, but they really don’t have any solid scientific evidence to support those assertions.
    The first question, of course, is: Is there a problem? I would have to say by and large excessive shotshell pressures are not a problem to worry about insofar as shotguns blowing up. This assumes we are talking about non-Damascus shotgun barrels, and shotshells loaded with smokeless, not black powders.
    Modern shotgun barrels are built to withstand pressures many times above the maximum service load pressures developed by the shotshell loads – factory or reloaded – expected to be fired in such barrels. In this regard the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers’ Institute (SAAMI) establishes and publishes voluntary standards for the pressure levels of shotshell service loads insofar as U.S. manufacturers are concerned. The same standards apply to reloads. The pressures SAAMI is concerned with are exclusively chamber, not down-barrel pressures. The accompanying table outlines SAAMI’s current pressure standards.
    The current method adopted by SAAMI for shotshell pressure measurement is to use the piezoelectric transducer system and then to express pressures so measured in pounds per square inch (psi). The old way was to use the lead crusher system and express pressures in lead units of pressure (LUP). While today all data regarding factory load shotshell pressures are measured and reported in psi, there is still some shotshell reloading data kicking around in which pressures are measured and expressed in LUP. Worry not. Both systems are valid.
    The SAAMI load-pressure chart for shotshells.
    Note in the table that as the gauge of shotshell loads decreases in diameter, higher pressures are permitted. This is simply an accommodation to the fact that as the square inches of the area in a shotshell decrease, the amount of pressure developed by a given powder charge to push a given shot charge weight to a desired velocity level goes up. Simply put: as the square of inches of area decreases, the pounds of pressure developed increases. Can’t get around it. So barrel manufacturers construct their barrels increasingly stronger the smaller the gauge shells to be fired in them in expectation that the pressures of such smaller gauge loads will be higher. The only exception are barrels chambered for 3½-inch, 12-gauge shells where SAAMI members elected to allow 14,000 psi max pressures 3½-inch, 12-gauge shells.
    Now back to the worry that excessive pressures are going to cause shotgun barrels to blow up. While this can happen, it is rare. I once embarked under contract to Remington on a destructive testing regimen to determine how much pressure had to be developed in a Remington Model 870 12-gauge barrels chambered for 3-inch shells before they would explode.
    SAAMI tells us that whether using 2¾-inch or 3-inch 12-gauge loads, the maximum allowable pressure level of such shells is 11,500 psi. In this gauge and shell lengths, by the way, SAAMI provides for a mean average of 19,800 psi proof loads for proofing such barrels. So, I started by firing loads which developed 20,000 psi in the test Remington 870 barrels. Nothing happened. I increased the pressure level to 25,000 psi; nothing happened. I continued increasing the pressure by 5,000 psi. Nothing happened even when the pressure level of the destructive testing load reached 50,000 psi! Finally, when I got to 55,000 psi I could get Remington 870 barrels chambered for 3-inch 12-gauge shells to blow up. And they would blow up spectacularly, banana-peeling into multiple segments forward of the chamber. Up until 55,000 psi the barrels wouldn’t even bulge. So we can conclude, at least, that’s how smart Remington is in building super-strong shotgun barrels to withstand excessive pressure levels.
    Now let me make it clear that none of the above reporting is to encourage or to foster a blasé attitude about excessive shotshell pressures. It’s just to report that it takes a heckuva lot of pressure before a shotgun barrel will actually blow up from the pressure developed by the shotshell load itself. The vast majority of shotgun barrel blow-ups are caused not by the pressures developed by the shotshell load, but rather by obstructions in the barrel. Obstructions can take the form of lodged wads, plugs of snow or mud, etc., and are notorious for causing barrel bursts if they are not cleared before a following fresh round is fired.
    Where excessive shotshell pressures generally occur is in improperly put together reloads. But these are generally mild excess pressure situations, not giantic ones involving double and triple charges of powder. However, keep in mind that mildly excessive reload pressures are continuously stressing the gun and contribute to high recoil levels. This in turn tends to eventually crack wood and begin to break little parts within the action and trigger group. So, it is never wise or safe – and nothing positive is ever accomplished – by firing modestly excessive pressure loads in any shotgun.
    Copyright 2014 by Tom Roster. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
    Tom Roster is an independent ballistics consultant and author specializing in the design and testing of shotshell loads for U.S. shotshell and reloading components manufacturers. He is a court-recognized shotshell/shotgun expert witness. Tom was formerly the Ballistics Research Director at Oregon Institute of Technology and then served as a Ballistics Specialist for the Dept. of the Interior. In these capacities he designed and administered the world’s six most extensive lead versus nontoxic shot duck, goose, pheasant and dove shooting tests ever conducted. He then co-authored their peer-reviewed scientific reports. Roster spends about 100 days afield each year testing lead and nontoxic hunting and target shotshell loads, then traveling worldwide reporting on his findings to industry and wildlife professionals, hunters and shooters, and in his writings for various shotgunning magazines. Contact him in Oregon at (541) 884-2974,tomroster@charter.net.

  13. #93
    Boolit Master
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    Dynamite. Even a case full of N310 did not distroy the weapon but the brass was toasted.

    S

  14. #94
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    Harter, that wasn't the point. The point was to look for likely human causes, and what you are positing was far more impossible than likely.
    Last edited by 35remington; 01-04-2017 at 07:16 PM.

  15. #95
    Boolit Grand Master Harter66's Avatar
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    Rem , you've told me that it's improbable to have a closed case over an over charge of shot and/or powder . It's improbable to have had component pressure stacking . It's improbable to have had a partial or complete tube separation and get a pinch stack obstruction . By several references and video validation it's improbable that the barrel block would fail due to a case/cartridge obstruction especially in a modern firearm with long throating and back bored barrels .

    Therefore we must conclude that this was the result of a complex mechanical failure or an extraordinary chain of improbable events .

    Improbable events are out because it's simply impossible to have that many unnoticed loading mistakes and the demonstrative video shows that a single event is improbable to have done what was done .

    It must be a metal failure . It may have been helped along by any number of other things over a period of time ,but the single most probable cause is that the barrel block and chamber wall just simply failed . It is not the shooters fault not the fault of the ammunition because those are simply to improbable . The fault obviously lays on the QC at Browning for allowing a faulty firearm reach the public .

    I get it . I got it .
    In the time of darkest defeat,our victory may be nearest. Wm. McKinley.

    I was young and stupid then I'm older now. Me 1992 .

    Richard Lee Hart 6/29/39-7/25/18


    Without trial we cannot learn and grow . It is through our stuggles that we become stronger .
    Brother I'm going to be Pythagerus , DiVinci , and Atlas all rolled into one soon .

  16. #96
    Boolit Master
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    That is an extremely valuable appreciation from M-Tecs. I never did think something like this was simply due to over-optimistic handloading, but this puts it a bit further into the background. If a loading error was involved - possibly in conjunction with other factors - it would probably be something more extreme.

    That is an amazing performance - though I believe it - from the Remington 870. But we aren't quite comparing like with like. You can make a pump-gun or semiauto barrel of any steel you like, and heat-treat it for the sole purpose of withstanding pressure. The Browning barrels, being monobloc, most likely aren't annealed by silver soldering or perhaps "burned" by brazing. They don't have to be of steel as hard as the locking surfaces on the lumps or underlugs of chopper-lump barrels, where these are integral with the tubes. But they are likely to be smaller in diameter than the 870 barrel, and probably have adjoining flats in front of the monobloc. The greatest strength is in something which is, like the schoolboy definition of a circle, "round all round".

    The best book I know on shotgun failures is the three-volume "The Modern Shotgun" by Sir Gerald Burrard, who in the course of his personal, legal and forensic work investigated over 500 of them. Only four caused significant injury, none fatal, although a good many more were lucky escapes. People aren't any better put together than those wooden range structures in the OP's pictures.

    In particular he illustrates microphotography of barrel and receiver steels in their proper state, and after impairment by excessive temperature. Monobloc construction was invented to provide a way out of brazing, though, and I doubt if Browning even silver-solder it. What I would expect from a monobloc gun of dubious quality would be a poor fit of barrels to monobloc, although Browning's reputation much reduces the likelihood. M-tecs makes it plain that this is likely to withstand ordinary proof. But repeated heavy pressure can still strain a barrel, or the effect of a really serious overload or obstruction would be added to that weakness.

  17. #97
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    it might not have even been that shot that done the damage it could have been stressed earlier.
    and this was just the round that done the final blow.

  18. #98
    Boolit Grand Master

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    Some useful info on primer substitutions here:

    http://www.armbrust.acf2.org/primersubs.htm

    Also take a look at how much crimp depth can raise pressures. Combine the two and the pressure increase can be quite dramatic.

    As M-Tecs points out, this may not bring pressure up to point of rupture in many modern shotguns but it is nothing to ignore either.

    Also, as I said in my post about my shotgun blowup, there is no way I double charged because there simply isn't room for double the powder. It wasn't wrong powder because i only had one powder on hand ~ Dupont PB.

    I am pretty well convinced that the slug expanded in the chamber then hit the forcing cone and could not swage down in time to avoid a catastrophic pressure spike so essentially a bore obstruction. Whatever the reason my barrel looked very much like this one with the top half or more of the chamber gone. It can happen and it does happen.

    Longbow

  19. #99
    Boolit Master

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    ​Was it a low serial number Citori?
    More "This is what happened when I,,,,," and less "What would happen if I,,,,"

    Last of the original Group Buy Honcho's.

    "Dueling should have never been made illegal in this country. It settled lots of issues between folks."- Char-Gar

  20. #100
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    Longbow, thanks for posting this data, I am absolutely amazed at the difference the crimp depth makes!!
    "We take a thousand moments for granted thinking there will be a thousand more to come. Each day, each breath, each beat of your heart is a gift. Live with love & joy, tomorrow is not promised to anyone......"

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check