doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com BOOM...busted stock

Well, a bit of a disaster on the weekend. Shooting my 28, first station first shot...BIG bang as the gun doubled, but all the observed damage was to the stock! (Pix hopefully below)
Action and chambers/barrels seem to be fine. Recovered shells intact. No personal damage. I have sent my broken stock/receiver to my stock guru for examination. But I am still puzzled as to how this particular damage occurred.

I tried double loading powder in a blank 28 (Longshot 15.2gr). It takes up too much room to get the wad/shot in and still crimp close the shell, so I don't think that was the issue. But even if that happened somehow, surely all the additional pressure would be in the chamber and first part of the barrel? Why would it blow the side off the stock unless most of the force was directed backward? Also my trigger finger was sooty, maybe indicating gases blowing out of the action. I am wondering if the gun was not fully in battery and the top lever not closed properly so that most of the force was directed backwards. But the recovered shells looked fine. It is not an experiment I wish to repeat to see whether that would be the problem!

Has anyone any insight as to how this might have occurred?

https://www.jpgbox.com/page/75268/
https://www.jpgbox.com/page/75270/

I am sure you will care to show us the actual pictures of the two fired shotshells... side and bottom.

Appears to be incorrect grain orientation in the stock.

I should add that I have fired thousands of rounds at clays and birds through this gun over a period of 15 years.

I would presume that the extra recoil of firing both chambers at the same time is what split the stock along with, perhaps, the accumulated wear and tear of many years of use.

The bigger question is, why did it double? Operator error or mechanical error? I think that's what I'd be looking at first anyway.

This does not appear to be a gas issue. The gun doubled, and the recoil was too much for the wood.

The action acted like a wedge, and the wood failed along the grain line. Note the piece missing at the stock head on the left.

It was strong enough right up until it wasn't.

IMO, the gun's stock busted because it doubled, and the wood grain was not right when the stock was made, and/or the stock/action relationship had loosened. It doubled, most likely, because the second barrel sear engagement had worn over the years to the point that, when the first trigger was pulled and that barrel fired, the recoil from it dislodged the sear engagement on the second barrel and it fired, ALMOST simultaneously.

The stock can be repaired if you're willing to wait for the right person to do the job. If that right person does it you will not be able to see the repair.

And primer that vented

He said the recovered shells looked fine, Mike.

It’s hard to tell from the single picture, but, the grain of the wood at the break seems to snake up and then down right in the wrist. Maybe it would have been just fine if the gun had never doubled, or, maybe it would have been fine if the grain ran dead straight at 90 degrees to the angle of the back of the action.

What kind of gun is it? Is there a chance of simply replacing the broken stock out of the parts department? I did that once, on my brothers Savage model BSE, long after the guns were out of production. He then broke that stock, but, I glued it up and got truly lucky, as the repair is invisible, to this day.

Best of luck with that.

Ted

Longshot powder I know from experience has been a contributing factor in stock breakage over the last 15 years. You can feel the recoil with longshot. Sure, it gives high velocity but that comes with a price.

It is a 28 bore by a well known Italian manufacturer. The model is still made and I have contacted the company to see if they can provide a replacement stock that can be fitted to the receiver. Thanks for the suggestion.

That is an interesting statement. I use Longshot for 32, 28, 24 and 16 reloads. Do you have any further details on its role in stock breakage that you can share, please?

The "sooty trigger finger" is also an indicator of gas venting. I believe gas venting caused the break and the line (s) of the break follows the grain. As always, I can be wrong.
Mike

That break looks exactly like what happened on my RBL 12ga. I was using reloads with Cheddite primers. I had noticed that these primers were prone to piercing but didn't think much of it since I never had any negative misshapes from previous pierced primers of any make. At the shot I heard a pop on the right side of my face and saw something fly. The pierce primer dumped enough gas into the box lock stock space to blow the check of the stock off. Certain guns are prone to piercing primers and certain primers are prone to piercing. When the two meet up things can happen. I am careful what I use Cheddites in now. After unsuccessfully trying to glue the check back on, I did a butt transplant. I preserved the nice piece of walnut CSMC put on the gun and have an improved checkering pattern to hide the seem.

I wish the OP would tell us more about the reloads he was shooting & add some pictures of the spent shell cases including the primers and type of primer used. I suspect this break was caused by chamber gases building up in the stock in letting cavity most likely caused by a pierced primer.

I have recently experienced pierced Cheddite primers with two different loads in two different gauges with the most recent just yesterday shooting sporting clays. In both cases I was shooting almost new O/U target guns & didn't have any damage other than some light pitting on the firing pin nose caused by the hot gases escaping from the pierced hole in the primer. On the first gun I experienced this; I was able to pull the firing pin and polish out the defect. I then changed over to Winchester 209 primers in the same load and have not had a pierced primer since in the same gun, with the same loading, just different primers.

After yesterday's experience I had to do the same thing to the nose of the firing pin on this gun and will be changing that loading over to W-209 primers as well. This seems to be a fairly common issue with cheddite primers in some guns. When I was trying to figure out what was going on with the first gun, I went to the shotgun world website and did a search for pierced primers and found several threads with dozens of posts about pierced Cheddite primers. Most of these had a commonality of being shot in a wide range of different manufacture's guns but most were O/U's having this occur on the bottom barrel, which has been my experience as well.

The head scratcher for me has been. Why the inconsistency in having this happen? Between me & my buddies, we've shot thousands of cheddite primers and I'm the only one who's experienced this and then not on every round when this has happened. Even yesterday when this was happening in my 20ga, it was probably only on maybe seven out of one hundred rounds shot and it occurred in both barrels, not just the bottom like I experienced in my 12ga. All I know is its W-209 primers from now on going forward. Now I'll see if it's the gun or the primers being the culprit.

Seven out of 100? Pierced primers or broken stocks? Please explain.

Pierced primers Bill!

I didn't say anything about having a broken stock when I experienced pierced cheddite primers.

I've heard a lot of people mention that their firing pins get pitted from pierce primers. They claim it is from the high pressure gas blasting thru the pierced hole. I don't think shotgun pressures are high enough to do this. I believe that the pitted firing pin is pitted because the anvil inside the battery cup is too long and comes right to a sharp point. Your firring pin is coming down right on that point which is why it is getting pierced. Also, the anvil may be harder in Cheddites. I don't have any proof of this though, it is just my educated opinion. I've given this issue sum thought because of the issues I have had with these primers. Before I ever used Cheddites a friend of mine casually mentioned how sensitive they are. He has a Browning A5 that doubles on shells loaded with Cheddites and no others will do that. I had a Cheddite go off in my Ponsness Warren loader, the only make ever to do so. Like Dogon, I'm a fan of the W209. I NEVER had any problems with them and have used them the most in my reloads. Rem 209's are good but more expensive. Out of American primers I've seen the most misfires in Federal 209's. I think the rounded surface on the Federal cap may cause this or the cup is just seated too deep. Some of my Trap friends swear by them and have no issues with them at all. Fiocchi primers have been good for me, but it is my least used primer behind Cheddites. I swore off Cheddites after my RBL mishap, but it is hard not to like them when that is all that is available like during the last primer famine. That famine has not fully subsided yet and Cheddites are generally a cheap buy. Any that remain in my inventory will be used in a Remington 1100 where gas can leak out and cause no issues.

I have used Cheddites for all my loads for awhile with no problems. No one warned me.

Hey, if you have no issues, keep using them. I wish I had no issues because they are priced very good. I have some, I will use them in my repeaters.

I have shot thousands of hunting and target loads using them without a hiccup.

I have not heard they are prone to piercing, but have heard they are too big and once you use them you cannot go back to any American primer with the same hulls. That has not proven to be true either, though historically they may have had this issue.

I've considered the anvil theory as a possible culprit for the firing pin nose pitting problem myself but never came to any hard conclusion's one way or another. All I can conclusively say is that once I polished out the pitting and switched over to W-209's the problem went away.

I've now loaded a round worth of 20ga ammo with the same loading using W-209's rather than the Cheddite's and will get out to the range sometime this week to see how it goes with them in the same gun.

As far as the myth about interchangeable sizing between Cheddite and Winchester 209's I haven't found this to be an issue. I measured both of them with my calipers and found no difference in physical O.D sizes between the two. I did find that federal 209A's were slightly larger though.

The mystery to me is still the inconsistency in having piercing problems with the Cheddite's. Why only some of them and why only on some guns?