Shell mishap

Blake K

Blake K

Active member
This happened to me yesterday and feel very, very fortunate I didn't blow
up my gun in my face. Shot a beautiful mallard drake and my gun jammed.
The cause of the jam was that the casing separated from the brass.
Fortunately two things happened that kept this potential disaster from
occurring-1) the brass was caught in the receiver/ejector which
obviously alerted me of trouble. I removed it out and looked down the
barrel for any obstructions and didn't see any. Then I decided to reload
and this occurred 2) The shell would not load all the way into the
receiver and I again looked down the barrel and couldn't see any issues.
However this time I stuck my finger up into the receiver and felt the
separated casing which was stuck slightly up in the barrel in a position
not able to be seen when looking down the barrel. It was very difficult to
pull out, but was able to. I know I was very fortunate that the casing
didn't get stuck farther up the barrel in a situation, which when I
reload the gun, that the shell would have loaded correctly. I have
never encountered this in my 37+ years of waterfowl hunting.
 
That has happened before for me with 22 LR...getting case/head separation. This same practice would probably work on a shotshell if you weren't able to remove it with your hands. To get the 22 cc body out, I used an oversized brass bore cleaner (30 caliber bore brush I believe) and shoved it in at the chamber end, twisted it around a little and then pulled it out. that bore brush wasn't usable as a brush anymore though because I ended up bending it so that I could pull it out with a wrench, but it's a decent tool for when it happens in the future.


Glad nothing bad happened to you. Were these reloads or factory loads? Old shells?
 
Bill, I've shot high speed for years and never had an issue with them. The one time I did , it was with reloads using 20 ga. Fiocci hulls and heavy shot. Been shooting cases of Kent Fasteel, 20ga, 3" without any problems.
 
Ive been seeing more and more freaky stuff with these new rounds.... my benellis rolling bolt has a tendency once in a while to rip the lip of a shell apart when it ejects cause of the brassized steel case causing it to get stuck in the chamber. I have to pry out with a knife in the field. I also shoot kent fasteel 2s 1-1/4oz 3" religiously.. been more and more common issus
 
Curious. Were the loads 3or3.5" 1500 fps . I am suspicious of the very high speed loads.

Federal Red Box(not black cloud) 10 ga. 3.5" #2's Not certain of the fps as I dont have the box in front of me.
Click to expand...
 
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I still have a fully intact wad from a squib load sitting on my office shelf as a souvenir from a hunt last season . I shoot a benelli. It was a 3" Federal shell. I've had misfires before but never had one pffffft and leave the intact wad jammed in the barrel. The shot basically just dribbled out of the gun.

I had to disassemble the gun to figure out how to get it out. Thankfully I had a piece of 1/2" cpvc from my homemade jerk string rig to shove the stuck wad back out. Freak thing, I still shoot plenty of Federal shells without any trouble.
 
I have had a number of squib loads over the years and in each case I can attribute it to getting using shells that had gotten wet from a previous hunt. If you hear a soft report do not shoot again until you unload and do a thorough inspection.
 
I had the same problem with their 10ga. steel shot shells years ago. On some the brass was split after the shot. Many of the shells were out of round also. Now I check each shell in the box prior to use. They are the only factory loads I ever had problems with. I'll take Winchester factory ammo any day for the 10ga.
 
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