Picture this Joe,
I should point out it isn't a perfect illustration, but it is pretty current theory.
You have a round wire bird cage with a parakeet sitting in it on it's swing. You nail the floor of the cage to a plank, and affix a bar to the top hanger. Now you twist the bird cage (with the bird inside) clockwise or counter, it's your choice. You will see the cage get smaller in height. The wires will be getting closer together, and the flapping bird ever more cramped.
You would confirm via the birds failure to keep singing, and very likely to begin squawking, that the state of the birdcage is an undesireable condition. And, you would find out apon letting go of the top bar, that the cage (and bird) wish to return to their prior state.
This holiday analogue is approximately the way a steel matrix (the cage) and the carbon atoms within it's confines (the parakeet)wish life to be.
They can exist under perpetual stress, but they don't like it.
Firing millions of rounds are kinda like tapping, or beating on the top of the twisted cage. It might take a long time, but sooner or later, a wire is going to break. One wire probably makes no difference to the retension of the parakeet. Half the wires? and the twist of the cage either frees, or kills the parakeet.
But to steal a line from Tolkein, "it takes a loooong time".
This twisted cage idea comes from thin film chemistry and metallurgy. It's one explanation for how the structure of molecules can attain ( atomic level)stackings that cannot be explained via group theory models.
I have no doubt that my theoretical chemistry interests are umm, a little ways away from the mainstream of doublegun ownership.
But just to say I'm just like everyone else, I want my shotguns to go bang everytime I want them to, and I want it to occur safely. And of course for everyone else as well.
I think I'm gonna turn off the nerd switch now, and eat some poorly prepared northern barbecue, and drink a great deal of very cold cheap beer.
Happy Memorial Day everyone.
