Joe, it could indeed have just "let go" . . . but what's left of the hull is an odd bit of evidence, IMO. If you read Sherman Bell's article, in which he and Tom Armbrust blew up a Damascus Parker (with a load that generated in excess of 30,000 psi), the hulls did not begin to show any real abnormalities until they'd started using rounds developing 25,000 psi--which is about 40% above the SAAMI level for PROOF loads. Thus, blown hulls like that in the photo are typically due to a whole lot of pressure. And the two common ways you get a whole lot of pressure are that you either have some sort of obstruction, or else--like in the case of Bell's tests--you have shells that are grossly over pressure standards.
In the above photos, we don't see the piece (or, more likely, pieces) that blew out. However, there's nothing in what remains that's bent inwards. In fact, if you look carefully, it looks as if the blown part of the hull extends back towards the breech, where the barrel isn't blown. That leads me to believe that it's very possible that excessive pressure was involved, not just a weak spot in the barrel exposed to normal pressure.
Last edited by L. Brown; 07/26/10 11:55 AM.
