My heart reaches out to you. I had a similar thing happen to my Fox CE grade 12ga. My problem was caused by David Yale! I had him open the chokes and he under cut the leads at the choke taper. When I shot the gun both barrels bulged at the choke lead. When I sent it back to David he said the wall thickness in this area was .015" and the gun is unsafe to shoot.
When I asked him about sleeving the barrels to save the gun he gave me his full price quote for sleeveing. This is after I paid him over $1200.00 for the barrel work he did I.E. Chokes,forceing cones,reblue,Etc. which is now flushed money due to the bulges. I asked him since he was the one that cut the barrel wall thickness down that far when he opened the chokes if he would give me a break on the sleeving price. Keep in mind factory Fox chokes are up-to four inches long and these started out at .038 and .040 constrictions originally and they bulged two inches from the muzzle. David flatly refused any discount and quoted the same full price of $2200.00 for the sleeve job.
I ended up having Briley do the sleeve job and after having to send it back to them three times they finaly got them done right. I now have a real nice Fox CE-12 that is one heck of a shooter with new barrels. Unfortunetly I'm now married to this gun, but thats OK I saved a real nice 1914 CE grade Fox from the parts bin and it shot several Pheasants the last two seasons. Part out your gun and you wont be able to say that.
If I had to do the sleeve job again I wouldn't hesitate, but I would have Kirk Merrington do the work. From what I can tell he is the best.
