Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Heads up on Kent Fasteel 2.0 Precision Plated Steel defects

Since last Friday three of our duck hunting group have had their barrels explode shooting these shells.
These two shot out of the same box. Winchester SXP and SX3 both running factory modified chokes. I don't have photos of the SB3 that blew up yet.
Kent rep is coming up to inspect. If you bought some then just hang on to them awhile, its unknown if it is just a few boxes or a whole lot # that are bad.
The only time I ever used Kent Fasteel I had three miss fires out of one box. Never used them again.

Damn that stinks.

UPPDATE!
One more report of a SB3 blowing up! That makes four

My buddy had problems with Kent Faststeel several years ago and since then he won’t touch them. We were talking about it the other night and he was willing to give them another try but thanks to your post neither of us will be tempting fate. There are a lot of options out there but for us Kent won’t be one of them.

Good luck to you guys! I hope you get a satisfactory resolution to your expensive predicament. Thankfully none of you were hurt and it’s only the shotgun that needs repair. I hope you’ll keep us posted on your situation and how Kent responds and resolves the problem.

Good luck to you guys. 👍

Are the blowups happening on first shots or subsequent shots. That looks like a barrel obstruction rupture there. A recall is coming I am sure.

DAYUM!!!

I'd go for PTSD,

Morgan and Morgan

Where are you in MN, Whackem'? I am in MN too and wondering if there was a particular retailer that may have had these or something? Thankfully, I bought Rem Hypersteel because it was on sale at Mills Fleet Farm. Thanks for the heads-up, and I will let hunting buddies know as well.

This would be the pertinent question. It appears that the wads from the previous shots are sticking in the barrels, then blowing up on the next firing.

Tag

To answer some of the questions,
I too first thought that a stuck wad caused the problem but that has not been the case.
The guns in the photos happened on the first shot of the day. Same box two different guns same time. The first guy with the SBE was first shot too.
Not sure yet on the other SBE.
Another guy has reported that on his first shot out of a new box the gun shot flames eight feet out of the barrel and almost kicked him out of the boat. His buddy said it looked like a giant roman candle going off. It ejected the old shell and chambered the next. He emptied the gun of the other shells and said that the action didn't feel right and is bringing his gun to a smith to have inspected. His gun was a Remington, not sure if ti was a Versa Max or a V3.
Notherner, Most of the reported shells have come from metro Cabelas, not the same store. One said he got his at the St. Cloud Sheels.

I called one of my sons because I know that he likes to use Kent because he gets them cheap. He said he just picked up five boxes of them. I told him to set them aside and not use them until we find out what is going on. He's pissed, said that having to buy more ammo is going to eat up his weekend beer money. I told him to swing by the house and I will trade him the Kent's for some Federal Blue box 3" #3's. I mainly shoot 3 1/2". I keep the 3" for back up and to lend to friends that can't shoot and burn through all their shells to fast.

They need to rename those things "Fast Banana Peel"! I wonder if some sort of fast pistol powder found its way into the loading machines?
Jerry

Dang that sucks. I love Kent's.

Man, and I was about to buy some of that stuff. Hope they get it straightened out without anybody getting hurt. To verify: Nobody got hurt, correct, or I assume the OP would have mentioned it?

I'll be very interested to see what caused these, as it looks from the two pics that the ruptures were nowhere near the muzzle/chokes.

whackem,

any chance of you posting a pic of the label on the box that shows lot #?

And any reports of it happening in other than the 3" size?


I'm passing a link to this thread on to a duck hunting fool of a friend as I seem to recall this is a brand he likes, but I think he sticks with 2 /34" for ducks.

Geno

I have used a lot of their lead loads for upland shooting, and really love them. I hope they can isolate this issue down and close the loop.

I shoot a lot of Kent and have been very happy. That is spooky!

The primers arent even close to flattened, no engraving of the extractor on the rim. No signs of overpressure on the shell. If it were a side by side I'd say for sure it was a stuck wad obstruction at mid barrel, but I'm not familiar with the pressure curve on these semi-autos. Are they gas operated? Keep us posted.

If you want the better-than-Kent replacement, just go get some:

Fiocchi steel 1 1/5 ounce, 3" 1550fps loads in whatever size you want. They are consistently faster, round equal-size pellets that are zinc-plated, have full payloads, and kill well. AND, they are much cheaper. Size #2 is my favorite.

Pretty sure the problem is the wad getting hung up from a previous shot.
There have been recalls for this type of thing before, one was a warning not to shoot a specific shell in below freezing temps because it caused problems with the wad.
I have a box of those shells somewhere, and think it was Fasteel.

To me it’s interesting where the blowout happened. Almost the same place in both barrels. If it’s 100% not the previous wad, I’d love to run a micrometer down a similar barrel and see what it’s doing there. And also it look s like they are using a new wad...maybe between the plating and the wad the shot column is not squeezing down. The camo barrel looks like it has a distinct plastic smudge right at the blowout.