Plugged gun barrel can be explosive situation
The Chesapeake Bay retriever was halfway back with the first of three ducks tumbled by a volley of shots, and the four waterfowlers in the blind on a Texas midcoast bay were reloading and not so gently ribbing each other about who missed and who connected when the swarm of redheads had barreled headlong into the decoys.
As one of the hunters stuffed shotshells into his semi-automatic 12-gauge, he casually admitted that he had missed his bird. But, he added, he had a good reason.
“Something was wrong with the shell,” he said. “When I pulled the trigger, it popped instead of banged. I could actually see the pellets in the air, they were going so slow. Guess it was just a bad shell …”
One of the other hunters and I looked at each other, our eyes widening with a shock of recognition at what this meant.
“Uh … you need to check your barrel,” I said to the hunter who had finished reloading, settled back onto the blind’s bench and was waiting for his next opportunity. “Why?” “So you don’t blow up your gun and maybe seriously hurt yourself or one of us,” I said. “Your barrel’s probably plugged.”
The guy had an incredulous look on his face, almost like I’d just insulted him.
“Really. Don’t shoot again without checking your barrel. I bet the wad’s stuck in there.” Never say never
You could see the gears turning in his head. The guy was an experienced waterfowler. It took only a couple of seconds for him to realize the danger into which his lapse of awareness had placed him and his blindmates.
“You’re right,” he said, shucking the shell from the shotgun’s chamber, clearing the magazine, leaving the breach open and turning the gun to look down the barrel.
He found what we immediately suspected. The barrel was plugged, and the plastic shotcup/ wad that holds and protects pellets as the load travels down the barrel and seals the round’s propelling gases behind it was jammed tight in the choke tube screwed into the terminal end of a steel barrel.
Had he fired another round down the plugged barrel, the result would have been catastrophic for the $1,500 shotgun and perhaps for the shooter or those around him. The barrel would have exploded — violently peeling apart — as the 10,000 pounds-per-square-inch pressure produced by the burning propellents exponentially mushroomed behind the barrel obstruction.
It happens. Not often, thankfully. But it happens often enough that all hunters using firearms should be aware of causes of barrel obstructions and take precautions to avoid them.
All hunters carrying forearms afield face the risk of barrel obstructions. But waterfowl hunters are perhaps at highest risk of seeing barrel obstructions — a function of the wet, often muddy environment in which they operate.
Mud or grass or other obstructions can find their way into shotgun barrels with amazing frequency, caused by a brief moment of inattention, a shotgun that slips off a blind bench or clump of grass or gets knocked over by a retriever in the dark.
When transporting shotguns into the field, they should, if at all possible, be in a soft case. Barrels should be checked before loading the first rounds of the day, any time a shotgun has been out of the shooter’s hands or unattended for even a few moments and certainly if the hunter has stumbled or carried the gun through thick cover. Paranoia is your friend here.
While mud or other foreign objects are the cause of some barrel obstructions (and the resulting ugliness if a shot if fired down that clogged barrel), shotshells themselves most often are the culprits.
There are cases of blown barrels caused by shooters inadvertently placing a shotshell of the wrong gauge in a shotgun. Invariably, it involves a 20-gauge shotshell in a 12-gauge shotgun; the smaller 20-gauge shell slips down the 12-gauge barrel far enough that a 12-gauge round can be chambered behind it without the shooter knowing the barrel is plugged.
Such cases are rare, though. Simply paying attention when loading prevents using the wrong gauge shells. The difference in size is pretty obvious since 20-gauge shotshells are the only ones with yellow cases. Unfunny ‘bloopers’
Malfunctioning shotshells — shells that do not perform as designed, producing low-energy “bloopers” or “squibs” that don’t yield enough power to drive the shotcup/wad downrange — are the main culprits in plugged barrels.
Most of these “blooper” rounds are the result of moisture-related damage to the shells caused by how hunters often handle their ammunition.
Waterfowling occurs in wet environments. Shotshells almost invariably get wet. That moisture can seep into the shell through the crimps at the top, wicking down to the gunpowder, deteriorating or weakening it. Moisture also can affect shotshells from their base, entering around the primer, corroding the primer and seeping into to the shells’ power charge.
Many waterfowlers’ use of a “water-proof” sealable plastic bag — ZipLocs and the sort — to hold shotshells while afield can add to the problem if the shells are left in the bag for any length of time. Those bags seal water out but also seal it in. Damp shells left in a sealed ZipLoc basically marinate in moisture. Over time, that can corrode primers and degrade the round’s gunpowder propellant.
The result can be a much-underpowered “blooper” round when that shell is fired — a round that can leave the tight-fitting shotcup/ wad stuck in the barrel. If a follow-up shot is fired down that plugged barrel, the result is a blown barrel.
That was the scenario at play on the morning in the bay blind mentioned above. The hunter was using shells that had been sitting in a sealed plastic bag since the previous waterfowl season. The “brass” at their base was coated with a rusty patina, and the primers showed the green or corrosion from the salty moisture that had been trapped in the bag. That moisture had worked its way into the shells, diluting the gunpowder’s effectiveness.
Some brands of shotshells — particularly those with “loose” crimping that doesn’t create a good seal — appear more prone to the deleterious effects of moisture than others. Waterfowlers should take that into consideration when they purchase ammunition and certainly take care in how they handle shells while afield and how they store them at home.
Most importantly, shotgunners should be alert for any “different” sound or recoil when they fire a shotshell. If something sounds or feels wrong, it is. Stop. Don’t fire another round until clearing the gun and checking the barrel.
Almost invariably, a stuck shotcup/wad will be wedged in the barrel’s choke tube, where the barrel constricts to create the “choke” determining the degree and rate of pellet spread downrange. It is a simple thing to unscrew the choke tube and punch the plastic obstruction from the barrel.
In some of the more modern semi-automatic shotguns that have gas ports located about halfway down the barrel, the shotcup/wad in a “blooper” load often will come to a stop just beyond those gas ports used to bleed off gas to operate the shotgun’s self-loading action. In those cases, removing the barrel and using something (usually, a long, slim piece of cane or similar rod-like object) to dislodge the obstruction is necessary. Obstructions are rare
Truth is, it is relatively rare for a shotgun to get its barrel plugged by an errant clump of mud or a malfunctioning shotshell. And it is even more rare for shooters to have a barrel explode because of an obstruction. But it certainly does happen. I’ve seen it three times — twice from shotcup/wads left by “blooper” rounds and once when a barrel became plugged by mud when the owner placed it, barrel down, on the muddy floorboard of a truck.
Happily, none of those incidents resulted in injuries to the shooter or others. But the guns were wrecked, as were the nerves and pocketbook of the gun’s owner. It could have been worse. Much worse. And that is something every shotgunner would be well served to keep in the back of their mind at all times.