On a slightly more serious note, anyone know if there has been any studies on the relative rate of injury to gun owners from burst barrels in countries with and without proof houses?
A. This type study would require numerous separate classifications, I doubt any such real world documentation exists
country by country, with or without: 1.)....Altered barrels that have been butchered and had barrel steel removed anywhere....
a. including shortening.....
2.)....Factory barrels that have NEVER had any steel alterations....
3.)....Bursts from OPERATOR ERROR....
a. plugged bores during firing....
b. wrong ammunition, size or length or load....
c. misuse, i.e.-old rusted deteriorated junk guns with zero maintenance being fired with modern ammo....
4.)....Bursts from metal fatigue alone under
normal pressures and conditions in well maintained guns....
5.)....European Proof House "OVERSTRESS" metal fatigue FIRINGS which fail shortly thereafter....
a. such as in Ballistix999's case with his old Clarke hammer 20 bore which was "re-proofed" with maximum nitro loads and failed I think on the sixth (6th) shot afterwards......
As you can see Doverham, the list could go on and on and the bean counters/data compiler's would have a field day with this one.......and a few million dollars later, ultimately no agreement or conclusion.....
The stupidity factor (operator error) would LOOM LARGE in this type of a study as operator error probably accounts for the majority of bursts in any country I believe.......
