Damp squib leaves hard wad in barrel...

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CharlesP

CharlesP

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Joined
Feb 23, 2014
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557
Location
Hamworthy, Poole
Out at Purbeck this morning, having a pleasant practice round, enjoying some new targets, and my chum is in the stand. He's using fibre wads.

More like a "FSSST" than a "bang", and we could see the wad and shot emerge from the muzzle. Naturally the clay remained intact. After a decent interval he opened the gun, and ejected the empty case, which was a bit sooty.

On inspecting the bore, he found a hard wad, a few mm thick, wedged just in front of the chamber. It wasn't going to drop out, so a return to the club house to shift it with a cleaning rod was in order. It took a little effort, but was soon removed, the bore cleaned, and we continued our wander round. The wad is a hard one (more hardboard consistency) which sits directly on top of the propellant.

How often does this sort of thing occur? It's never happened to me at all (I started shooting with a shotgun in the early sixties). Surely this could be dangerous if the obstruction in the bore isn't discovered and removed?

There's no hint of any malfunction with the gun (a Browning B325)

We have all been using the same cartridge recently - it's the fibre version of Sportsman Gun Centre's Super Smoker. We have all experienced "confetti" shots where the report is accompanied by a shower of light coloured fragments, and we have experienced "flamethrower" shots where an impressive orange jet of flame is seen. But this one has worried us rather

What does the panel think?
.

 
Out at Purbeck this morning, having a pleasant practice round, enjoying some new targets, and my chum is in the stand. He's using fibre wads.

More like a "FSSST" than a "bang", and we could see the wad and shot emerge from the muzzle. Naturally the clay remained intact. After a decent interval he opened the gun, and ejected the empty case, which was a bit sooty.

On inspecting the bore, he found a hard wad, a few mm thick, wedged just in front of the chamber. It wasn't going to drop out, so a return to the club house to shift it with a cleaning rod was in order. It took a little effort, but was soon removed, the bore cleaned, and we continued our wander round. The wad is a hard one (more hardboard consistency) which sits directly on top of the propellant.

How often does this sort of thing occur? It's never happened to me at all (I started shooting with a shotgun in the early sixties). Surely this could be dangerous if the obstruction in the bore isn't discovered and removed?

There's no hint of any malfunction with the gun (a Browning B325)

We have all been using the same cartridge recently - it's the fibre version of Sportsman Gun Centre's Super Smoker. We have all experienced "confetti" shots where the report is accompanied by a shower of light coloured fragments, and we have experienced "flamethrower" shots where an impressive orange jet of flame is seen. But this one has worried us rather

What does the panel think?
.
Click to expand...
used some old cartridges recently and had similar things happen some where it was obvious only the primer went off and i watched the shot roll out the barrel when i tilted the gun.

in my case i think they probably got a bit damp at some point (before i had them).

was there a lot of powder flakes left in the barrel?

 
Not really, there was debris but it didn't look like unburnt propellant. I think it all actually burned, just not so quickly as to work properly. I should perhaps say that these cartridges aren't old by any means - they were only introduced recently.

 
Seems that a step into the 21stCentury might be in order - or carry a cleaning rod with you and use it every shot JIC.  I'm not sure why shooting junk carts and possibly endangering yourself, onlookers, or even the gun might be considered a good idea?

but that might just be me, eh?

 
I for one had no idea that I would be endangering myself, I naively thought that the downside may be poor patterns, or something of that ilk.

Having said that I won't be using them any more. Nor will the chap in question, I suspect.

 
I have had this happen a couple of times the bit that was left in the barrel was the over powder card (normally about 4 mm thick ) as said its normally damp powder or no powder that causes it .I had a couple that found there way in to the washing machine once,  the girlfriend at the time  put them back in my skeet jacket !

 
Seems that a step into the 21stCentury might be in order - or carry a cleaning rod with you and use it every shot JIC.  I'm not sure why shooting junk carts and possibly endangering yourself, onlookers, or even the gun might be considered a good idea?

but that might just be me, eh?
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Happenend to me once exppress super comp fibre would'nt have thought they should be classed as junk cartridges. Luckely the problem is usually accompaned with an off sounding report so be aware if something dos'nt sound right proceed with caution and  always check barrels for obstructions.

 
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Having witnessed an English S x S 'explode' taking a large proportion of the users left hand with it (Eley, loaded in France just after their explosion) and a brand new Beretta 'banana peel' at the muzzle (due to plug of polystyrene from the packaging). I do not think that you can check your barrels too often and should be routine before shooting at EVERY stand,  and certainly if the the shot sounds 'different'. I do not think the price of the cartridge matters a jot, ANY machine is capable of malfunction at any stage in cartridge loading. A couple of years ago I had several cartridges in a box of Hull behave oddly, there was a hangfire effect between bang and break. They were returned and replaced with interest by my supplier, by order of Hull. For obvious reasons, the users of semi auto's should be extra vigilant too.

 
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