doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Ithaca Barrel Safety Concern

Terc, are you referring to the rib extension? Looks to me as if there's almost as much metal separating that from the chamber as there was between the hole (now plugged) for the original ejector guide pin and the chamber, and a lot more than there is between the chamber and the hole that was added.

Walt,
the hole acts as a stress concentrator which can be visualized by imagining the stresses flowing in that area compressing as they go around the hole.
The problem is that its impossible to calculate that geometry as the thin wall between the barrel ID and the hole may fail but you don't know about the chamber material.
Sleeve the barrel and sleep at night.-Dick

Larry, I meant rib extension. My AM coffee hasn't kicked in yet.
Dave

I would have the the new pin hole welded closed and the old one drilled out like it should have been done in the first repair. Send it to Merrington or Kearcher and have them evaluate it. Shipping both ways would be cheaper than you medical co-payment if it fails and then you would have all that physical therapy to do.

That broken guide pin is probably hard. You may have to EDM it out. I have a friend that has made a business out of ELOX/EDM removal of bolts and other broken things like that for the last 37 yrs.

Walt,i hope you get it fixed.The trouble is you will probably always think about the chamber when you shoot the gun! Bobby

Hi All:

If it were mine, I would have it welded to enable me to sleep at night.

The other suggestions appear to be rather suspect for future owners/shooters. I think that welding would be a safer "fix."

I remember a mentor of mine who had his fingers on his left hand removed via a blown shotgun blast. Nobody ever figured out what happened to cause the failure!

Good luck on your choice,

Franchi

The problem with this issue is that the hole will not likely clean up when either sleeving the chamber or entire barrel. More like halfway thru the hole would clean up. This may be better than what you have now, but not ideal. If you bore it out so large as to clean up the entire hole, you run the risk of thinning the barrel up front of the chamber, an issue much like lenthening chambers. A sleeved chamber or barrel gets part of it's strength from the outside of the original barrel and part from the new sleeve. Sleeving will be an improvement, but may need to go down in gauge, as Miller has alluded, to gain some additional wall to make up for the partial hole that will be leftover. As Dick can no doubt attest, this is the kind of thing structural engineers spend countless hours analyzing with tools like finite element analysis. This is a tough one. Welding isn't the do-all, end-all solution here. A weld is akin to a casting. Would you shoot a cast steel barrel?

Are NID barrels soldered together or welded? What is possiblility of replacing the damaged barrel only or finding and fitting another set of original barrels? I sure wouldn't fire that barrel any longer and would be concerned about any welding around that chamber area as well.

I agree with my friend, KyJon. Fill the new hole, redrill the old hole, reinstall an original ejector.