How about Larry Browns proposed SAAMI 18,000-19,000 PSI pressure test idea....what a pile of b.s....how many pre-1945 gun owners would want to jump in that line.......
Just haul your collection down and have it over-stressed for no reason whatsoever.......what a joke.......
Doug, you ought to be in the business of writing fairy tales, because you do a great job of inventing things, and a very poor job of dealing with reality. But then anyone who'd debate REAL experts like MAJ Burrard and Gough Thomas on the question of long shells (loaded to appropriate pressures) in short chambers . . . what more should we expect?
I neither proposed nor invented the current SAAMI proof standards. SAAMI did that. Those are the proofs for currently-manufactured guns. Here's what that means, for Doug and others that might have trouble understanding the concept: If you are going to fire modern American factory ammo which falls under modern SAAMI service pressure standards, then yes indeed, your gun ought to be proofed at that level--because you're shooting the same loads that are being shot in a new Ruger, Remington, Mossberg, you name it. So if someone took the pre-1945 sxs you now own, which originally had short chambers, and lengthened those chambers to 2 3/4", then your gun ought to be able to pass that level of proof IF you're going to shoot modern ammo in it. However . . . back before WWII, when American gunmakers were making guns with different chamber lengths, they proofed those guns accordingly. A 2 5/8" 12ga, 2 9/16" 16ga, or 2 1/2" 20ga was subjected to lower pressure proof loads than were those same guns with 2 3/4" chambers. And you could go to the local sporting goods or hardware store, and you could buy shells appropriate--in both length and pressure--to your short-chambered gun. So if you have a pre-1945 shotgun with short chambers, then there's no reason to proof it at 18-19,000 psi, AS LONG AS YOU USE AMMUNITION WHICH DEVELOPS PRESSURES APPROPRIATE FOR THOSE GUNS--which are lower than the current SAAMI service pressure standards. And you can do that easily enough either by reloading standard American 2 3/4" hulls to pressures well below SAAMI standards, or by buying shells made for use in "standard proof" CIP (Brit/European) guns, or from people like RST in this country.
And Doug, I do have information--from period articles in The American Rifleman--backing up the above explanation about different levels of proof for American short-chambered vs 2 3/4" guns, back in the 1930's. If you hang around here long enough, you'll actually learn stuff like that. I have, and I'm sure you can . . . if you can keep an open mind.
