870 Accident

[BullSprig]

We had a scary thing happen last week on a dove shoot in TN. My buddy shoots one of those 870 express magnums (or whatever they are called). A group of birds came over and he shot once killing one, and when he went to eject the shell, the new loaded shell exploded in the reciever and blew it apart. LUCKILY he had taken the gun off of his shoulder and away from his face and had the gun away from his body. He was not hurt, but it sure scared the shit out of him and the rest of us. It sure makes you think twice.

Anybody ever had problems like that with the 870 before?

[HUNTINDUCS]

That is very supriseing. It would be hard to tell if it was the guns fought. There are far more learned people than I hopefully they can explain it.

[USMCsilver]

Originally posted by BullSprig:
Anybody ever had problems like that with the 870 before?

I've had ~18,000 shells through my 870 and have never had a problem. I know many, many other 870 shooters and I've never heard of stuch a thing. I did see a Mossberg 500 blow up once, but it was the end of the barrel that took the damage and not the receiver.

It sounds to me that the firing pin got dropped somehow before the shell was fully in the chamber. Hence, it exploded when the bolt was going forward. Glad your buddy is okay. I hope Remington gives him a new gun...

[Carla Dee]

On a related note, I had my citori fire when closing the breach due to a stuck firing pin... not a fun experience. Completely confused as to what happened, I very carefully loaded the gun and proceeded to have it fire again...

Glad that your friend, nor anyone else was hurt.

[Sasha and Abby]

This should remind ALL of us to have our muzzles pointed away from others... and our dogs too!!!!!!!

[-Johnson Small-]

#1 firearm safety rule?


ALWAYS KEEP THE MUZLE POINTED IN A SAFE DIRECTION!!!!

#2 firearm safety rule?


KEEP THE SAFETY ON AT ALL TIMES UNTIL YOU ARE READY AND ABOUT TO PULL THE TRIGGER!!!!!

[mirroman]

Ammo defect??? [img]graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Fish]

Originally posted by Carla Dee:
Completely confused as to what happened...

[img]graemlins/lol.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/rofl.gif[/img] You Dork!

Originally posted by USMCsilver: It sounds to me that the firing pin got dropped somehow before the shell was fully in the chamber. Hence, it exploded when the bolt was going forward.

That sounds like a plausible explanation to me. Shells usually don't spontaniously explode.

[*Crippler*]

When i used a 870 never had a miss fire or a jam

[BullSprig]

Yea, it really suprised me. I know there are a lot of 870 shooters out there, and was just curious. My buddy already made arrangements with Rem for a new gun. I know that he was shooting some pretty cheap shells but either way, we are all lucky

[tradorion]

My 870 Super Mag did a similar trick on me... but it was an ammo issue... I didn't realize some camphophenique i had in my pocket came open, got on some shells and later i loaded one (it was coated around the primer with campho i LATER noticed)... doe jumped up, i swung and CLICK... as i am ejecting the "dud" it goes Ka-BOOM turning the shell almost inside out... and scattering the side of my face with burning powder flecks... left all shells in my pocket in a stumphole RIGHT THERE and bummed a few for the next drive...

VERY SCARY... but not the gun in my case!

R

[Carla Dee]

Good point about pointing the muzzle in a safe direction. It could have been deadly in my case if I had been careless.

Also, it was not a "keep the gun on safety" issue. The safety was on both times that the gun fired. Upon examination, the firing pin was literaly stuck in the firing position.

[Swamp Rat]

From what I read, the round that detonated was the one that had just fed from the magazine tube into the action. That is actually an event that can occur more often than people realize.

I haven't looked into the action of my 870 to check, but it may, like many guns, have a projecting piece of metal in there. If the shell from the magazine ejects from the magazine tube onto the follower, there is the potential that the primer can impact on a projection of some sort and fire the shell outside the chamber.

This is more common with semiautomatic pistols. The usual culprit is the ejector, and is why we have been trained NOT to put our hands over the ejection port to catch live cartridges that we remove from the chamber by stripping the action.

My guess would be a projecting part or sharp corner + perhaps a protruding primer (which would be another factor).