Home Forums Birds & Dogs Shotguns If you own more than one shotgun gauge...

I wrote this post on another thread on the main 'Fire board. Thought I might share it here.

True story: I got out of the truck one morning about 10 minutes before sunrise in the pheasant country northwest of Brooks, Alberta. I opened the rear door, slid my SXS 12-gauge out of its case and broke it open, reached into the pocket of my vest and pulled out a couple of shells, dropped them in. Gun still broken, I opened the kennel and let my dog out. As usual, he'd been going ape-sch!tt in his box since the tires left pavement, so needless to say his Tasmanian Devil dance upon exit was truly impressive. Distracted me for several minutes; I was confident there were plenty of birds in this swampy little hollow, and I needed to get Brit to settle down a tad in a hurry.

Within about half a minute the dawg's nose hit the ground and he started to snuffle pheasant pheet. I glanced down at my shotgun as I closed it, which is my usual habit. Something didn't look right. Broke the gun open, and sonofabitch if the I/C chamber was empty!

Weird. So I pulled another shell out of the loops of my vest and dropped it in, closed the shotgun. Took about 3 steps before my Spidey-Sense started shrieking. I'd loaded that shotgun 20,000 times before, and I'd NEVER dropped only one shell into the gun. I broke the shotgun and pulled out both shiny hi-brass #5 shells, and looked down the breech.

Sonofab!tch, there was a 20-gauge shell nestled in the leade of the I/C barrel. As I stood there goggling at that death's-head-snake in my trusted shotgun, ol' Brit dove into a clump of weeds just inside the barb wire fence, and a cock pheasant exploded out of it. I damn near passed out as I realized I had been 3 seconds from blowing my face off.

Damn if I know where that 20-gauge shell came from. At the time, I didn't own anything but 12-gauge guns, and didn't own a single 20-ga shotgun shell. But I had been hunting with a guy a couple weeks before who was shooting a Beretta 20-ga autoloader, and you know how easily different guys' gear gets mixed up when you're chasing birds and running a couple of dogs.

Live and learn, gentlemen.

That could have been a once in a lifetime event!

RS

A friend loaned me his loaded M-94 to sit a stand for the morning hunt. Had no luck. As I left the stand I unloaded the rifle. Out came four 30-30 rounds and one 303 Savage cartridge.

Nether he nor anyone at the camp owns(or even heard of) a 303 savage. No idea where it came from.

I help out on field day for youth firearms safety on the "field walk portion" and they carry single shot shotguns with dummy shells. I take great joy in handing a kid 20 gauge shell for a 12 ga shotgun and embarrass them if they load it.

Its embarrassing, but they will know better.

Had a guy come in the OR about 3 years ago with his left forearm torn open. He'd been shooting skeet at the local gun club and his gun had exploded on him. It was an over/under. Browning (Citori, I presume). Reason I know it was Browning, is because the 2 inch chunk of metal the surgeon pulled out of his arm clearly said "Browning". It was a piece near the chamber.

I figure it's pretty hard to double-charge a shotgun reload (my MEC loaders have an interlock that makes it virtually impossible) and even then, I don't know if you could create the kind of pressure to blow a chamber apart. I always figured he did exactly what you described, dropped in a 20 GA, thought the chamber was empty, then put a 12 GA shell on top of it...

A guy's an idiot that has both a .338 and a 7 mag


fortunately never mixed them up in a magazine


but old eyes don't like headstamps without cheater glasses.

A 28ga shell with do the same in a 16ga as a 20ga in 12ga. I have 16 & 12ga shotguns. I tried for years to keep only green Remington or purple Federal shells for the 16ga and red Winchester or Federal red shells for the 12s. I was given several shotguns and ammo and that plan is not valid now.

I shoot five gauges. you gotta be careful.
Usually I am shooting the 310,28, and 20 at doves but only have one gun and size of shell on my possession.
And I use a 12 and 16 for pheasants and follow same policy.

I'd LOVE to see that .310...

They had a sale on them at walleyworld.

28ga will also do the same in a 20.

I've heard from a witness about 20ga in a 12ga deal once.

It was a Beretta SO5, so fancy competition shotgun.
International Skeet medalist teaching his son, and delivering 20ga shells to his son from the same vest he held his 12ga ones.
Short tempered about his son's performance said, "this is how you do it", loads, and blows the 20ga primer with the 12ga payload. Out came in order, 20ga payload, 20ga spent case and the 12ga payload.

Didn't injury him or anythin, gun got a bulge in the barrel. I heard he had it sent to Italy where the barrel got replaced easily by unscrewing it from the frame.

Have a friend that had his barrel blow up in his hand doing quite a bit of damage to the palm of his left hand because he didn't clean out his vest after shooting a 20ga skeet event then going over and shooting 12ga. One and done after dropping a 12ga round over the top of the 20ga load.

He healed up fine but it scared everyone around him half to death.

You have to pay attention.

Can't imagine it just bulging the barrel. I've seen several guns in the past where a 20 was stuck in a 12 or a 28 in a 20. It was always catastrophic.

so far, I have never mixed up my 20 and 12 GA shells, but I'll be particularly careful after reading this, and thinking about the consequences.