jOE, Same gun. As I mentioned, this gun was in beautiful condition. Metal with no issues whatsoever. No indication of barrel honing or tampering. Original all the way. Factory chokes. No evidence of pitting anywhere. Looked over the damaged area with a Schneider 4X loupe closely to see if any indication of flaws,pitting or fractures. Nothing. My son is a metalurgical engineer BS,MS MI.Tech, and did the same to see if he could see anything suspicious in the fracture or torn area. He felt nothing was indicating failure metal wise. Points to pressure??? Anyone have a thought on the straight line metal failure at the point closest to the breech? This appears to be where it gave way first and tore its way off further up the barrel. It seems to follow the contour of the damascus pattern. Might by chance it was not properly welded there and that gave the high pressure a weak point to blow. I'm willing to assume blame for reloader error, but can't figure out how to duplicate the error. On purpose or by carelessness. Randy
