doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Another Cracked Frame

I was surfing the web and came across this interesting little double. A Remington 396, "parts" gun on Ebay. The picture doesnt do much justice, but you can definately tell there is not much of a frame left on the gun. Seller says he bought it from a guy who shot "hot" loads through it. Hah, musta been really hot to crack the entire frame in two pieces. Have a look, although something smells fishy.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Remington-396-Shotgu...1QQcmdZViewItem

I just bought Ithaca Flues from about 1919 and on the left side there is noticeble crack in ther frame originating from corner of horizontal and vertical face of the receiver protruding down diagonaly toward the back of the receiver. Guy that sold it to me on Gun Broker propably not even known of the crack but there was no option of return so I am stuck with it. I would like to hear opinion of experts if this could be something that was there thought service life of the gun. Have anyone came accross similar defect on Ithaca Flues. Beside crack gun had some deformation of top and bottom spur of the receiver. When correcting it I was astonished by softness of the metall. It was like gun was made of lead. It was so unbelievable easy to bend. I wonder about steel quality in those days.

You do not want to shoot that gun, it's toast. Hopefully you didn't pay too much but now it's a parts gun. There have been quite a few instances of older Flues cracking, usually the cause is too much cartridge, i.e. shooting an old gun with modern higher pressue ammo.

Welcome to the board, much to learn here and you're already contributing. Please post a photo of the crack, we love to see that stuff here.

Rob

Channing, it may well be that one of our regular posters here, Greg Tag, will weigh in with a request for more info. He is, I believe, doing some research on the Ithaca Flues model and the cracked frames which seem to occur with some regularity on same, particularly when used with high pressure ammunition. -- Ed

It isn't a 396. It appears to be a 3200 as noted by the barrel hanger, lack of side plates and lack of silver receiver which the 396 had. The stock also appears to be a 3200 competition type. Bulged barrels still make it worthless to me but the stock and iron are worth someting...

Welcome Kosinar:

Flues with cracked frames show up from time to time. There were perhaps 200-300 returned to the factory in the 1920-1926 era, and the embarassment led to the design of the NID.

The Flues is designed to be "light", and it apparently lends itself to damage caused by sloppy production methods - or at least that is what Im sort of drifitng to. In no way should the action be "soft", it is supposed to be case hardened. If it is soft, someone has annealed it.

I would certainly send the gun back - Gunbroker or no, a cracked frame means the gun is unfit for service, and believe me, it is. Even our late friend Russ Ruppel was never able to come up with a method to repair a cracked frame, and neither did the Ithaca Gun Company. I would send it back as "not as described".

My research is leading me to believe that the Flues cracked from a combination of too heavy shot charges , shot at high velocity from frames that had been over struck or improperly hardened.

The cracked 16g frame that sits on my desk has thin walls, and has cracks on both side, running at diagonal away from the angle between the standing breech and the water table.

Regards

GKT

Th gun pictured looks like it had an overload in the lower barrel that blew the barrel and cracked the frame.