"Jam" Question

[Dark Painter]

i own a Mossberg 183T .410 Full choke. a friend borrowed it for some weekend fun and returned it with the words "sorry, i ****ed it up"

i was mad as all hell as this was my fathers gun, and a favorite of mine.
i guess he spent either a .45 Auto or .45LC through it (he wouldnt say, he ran off rather quickly and sheepishly) and now compatible ammo will not load. it allows itself about... a 5th of the way into the chamber and abruptly stops. will not fully load a round. i dont see any brass and am quite puzzled as to why i cannot get compatible ammo to chamber. any advice or information would be greatly appreciated as i work what seems like more hours than there are in the day and dont currently have time to take it anywhere or even properly examine it. i barely had time to post this.

thank you all in advance.

[Dark Painter]

would be nice if i had atleast one reply... 19 views and still no reply........

[Maxem0815]

Check the chamber and see if there is a ring about 1 inch or more into the chamber. If he put a .45 through it it may have a lead or carbon ring in the chamber.
Try using a 410 mop put some valve grinding compound on it and spin it around the chamber this should polish up the chamber and remove the fouling.Carefull this stuff cuts quickly, then the standard 410 should slide in.

Mace

[Dark Painter]

HMM. best flashlight i own suggests no such thing but i could be mistaken. pretty much all options involve money huh? thats what i was afraid of. i havnt much except for a cleaning kit due the the fact i shoot so very often. there does appear to be something unusual about very slightly past the chamber, but i honestly cant say for sure. may just be where the barrel starts to choke. i have never experienced something this irritating... atleast my m4a1 was of less maintenance. peice of **** mossbergs....

[Mike Irwin]

"peice of **** mossbergs...."

First off, please keep your language to a dull roar. This is a family oriented site. Bypassing the language filters isn't acceptable.

Secondly, why are you blaming Mossberg for what you've already said was your "friend" ABUSING your property?

Would you blame Ford if your friend were to borrow your Mustang 5.8 and burn out the clutch by driving it in an abusive and stupid manner?

The fix might very well involve money, but it should involve your "friend's" money, not yours.

[Dark Painter]

my bad mike, i apologize. havnt used a forum in many years, also had no idea we were such a family site. pardon my ignorance, and limited vocab.

curious to see what other suggestions arise. thanks guys.

[TheKlawMan]

I don't pretend to understand all of this, but it makes a big difference if it was .45 auto or .45 long colt. From what I see, the barrel pressure from firing a .45lc is dangerous in a .410. The Taurus is designed to take it.

If it was a .45 auto then you have another problem, from what I have read and assuming it to be correct, which is that the cartridge is rimless in the sense that the rim is the same size as the case and it will fit too deep into the chamber. In fact, it may fit so deep that the primer isn't ignited by the firing pin.

Then I wonder if your buddie was shooting .45 acp with a moon clip and if that would even work in a .410 chamber.

Take a look at http://smith-wessonforum.com/ammo/95...5lc-45acp.html .

These guys on TFL will know much better, but I would hesitate to do anything and certainly not shoot that .410 until you find out what was being fired through it and the loads. The barrel may have been damaged from too high a pressure.

[the rifleer]

Take the barrel off and try to put a shell in the chamber. If it fits then you know there is something wrong with the action, not the chamber.

[Dark Painter]

i have disassembled it and attempted to load a round but to no avail. the shell will not load but as previously mentioned only loads a small amount of the way leaving the bolt 3/4 open, it no longer closes. it will close without a round but not with. it acts like it is constricted or smaller diameter then the standard load.

also judging by the other firearms i know he owns i guesstimate it was either a federal .45 auto 230 grain fmj rn or a blazer .45 colt 200 gr jhp he attempted to pass through it. thanks again guys.

[TheKlawMan]

I think you need to "know" what it was and not guestimate. He may have fired something that he doesn't usually shoot. Also you say he attempted to pass it through. You need to know if he shot the .45 ammo. Are there any signs of barrel bulge?

[the rifleer]

I think you need to consult your friend as to what you are going to do about this.

[Dark Painter]

barrel looks intact. it looks like it should work but when you go to load it doesnt. very frustrating.

[Dark Painter]

phone call confirms it was indeed the blazer .45 LC 200 Grain Jacket Hollow Point. he said it fired, the bullet left, but he was never able to repeat nor load the same round or a 3" .410 round.

he tried to get pissy with me going on about how his day at the range was ruined, fees and boxes of ammo wasted... all i could do was laugh. i only wish this was his weapon so that he would have to deal with it himself

oh well, im kinda having fun trying to figure this out anyways

[Hardcase]

I would bet dollars to donuts that there's a ring of lead and maybe a little copper at the end of the chamber where that .452 bullet met the .410 barrel. I'd start scrubbing. No, I'd have my buddy start scrubbing.

You might also want to measure your choke to see if it's still full.

[hogdogs]

Yeah he did what everyone else knows is not a possible practice and did some of the damage everyone says will happen if you shoot .45 stuff in a .410...

Blew up a fine heirloom shotgun that in my hands, my father's hand me down .410 bolt with adjustable choke held a cash value of $1,000 minimum!

Brent

[oneounceload]

If not lead or similar, I'm inclined to think a piece of the casing is inside

[overkill0084]

If this a friend, I don't want to hear about your enemes.
If continued poking and prodding doesn't help, take to a smith and let him figure it out. You need to know if it's toast anyway.
Your "friend" needs to man up and pay for his stupidity. With a real friend with integrity, you shouldn't even need to ask. He would have brought it back to you fixed already. What kind of person does this stuff? I was raised "You broke it. You bought it."

[LynnTX]

This has to be one of the strangest threads by the OP I have seen.
With "friends" like this you don't need any enemies.

Is your "friend" so destitute he would not take responsibility to have the shotgun repaired? Returning a damaged, non-operating gun to a friend is frankly unacceptable.

If it is really a hand me down from your father, you need to take it to a gunsmith and have the problem solved. Until then, you will continue to stew about this. I suspect the repair will not be very expensive if it is a matter of "clearing"-reaming, something from the barrel.

[TheKlawMan]

Did you tell this guy he could shoot .45 through it or did he just do it without telling you what he planned?

[Old Grump]

I own the same gun and if anybody did that to mine he would be getting a bill directly from the gunsmith for repairs or a bill from me covering the cost of a replacement gun. Unless you are a gunsmith and it doesn't sound like it you should get that gun checked out by one toute suite instead of trying to chamber a round. If you did manage it and was tempted to fire it you might end up wearing parts of that gun and that would be a shame. Especially since they stopped making them 40 years ago.

[Dark Painter]

i agree. we are no longer friends. this made me that mad.

no i did not tell him it was compatible, this was his idiocy.

i was raised the same way overkill0084. i do everything the right way, no matter what anyone else does which is usually the wrong way and watch them get away with it. when i try to do something wrong i never get away with it, it just doesnt work for me...

i am wondering if you are right Hardcase. i would have loved to be there and recovered the bullet to have atleast some kind of additional understanding because from what i can see i dont believe there is a case lodged anywhere. thats what leads me to believe you may have something there. you say some kind of hardcore cleaner? also is it practical to purchase a tool for choke measurement for this one-time deal or can i pull an "autozone" and temporarily rent one somewhere? just curious. i dont have a lot of free time so i dont go places and hense wouldnt know these things =\

you have all been very helpful and i am very grateful for your previous and continued responses. thanks tfl. yall are awesome.

[TheKlawMan]

Dark Painter. I have a current thread about measuring the choke. Unless you have the tool, which is cost prohibitive, you can take your gun to have a smith mesure the choke or you can check the choke at the patterning board. If you are going to take your gun to a smith, anyway, then have him measure the choke. A smith charges by the hour and checking your gun and the choke may take no more than his minimum time; assuming there is a minimum.

[Dark Painter]

thanks klaw, i was familiar with the 'smith charging/hr but had little idea on measuring choke or what the process entails. obviously never had to mess with choke on an m4'

what a headache this has all become. one day everythings fine, i do a so-called friend a favor expecting him to be intelligent and this is what i get. handful of headaches. **bangs head against the wall**

every time something goes wrong from me being nice i wonder if i should ever do something nice for someone again, but i guess im a glutton for punishment. i just keep on giving, and keep on getting crap back.

so thats pretty much it then huh? cant see a shell, so we believe it "coated" or "layered" my barrel with the exterior layer of the last traveling round huh. i can think of few crappier things to have happened to such a beautiful treasure

anyone know if this thing was rifled? hope if it was or something similar, it didnt screw that up. but chances are since it screwed up the inside anyways (that was determined when i found out what happened) how should i go about repairing it. undoubtedly it scraped up the inside pretty good anyways. just curious.

[KenL]

My guess, based on your description of the .410 cartridge only going in part way is that there is a significant ring of lead in the chamber that was the result of him firing the 45LC round. My guess also is that the .410 goes in about the length of the 45 case and stops.

My suggestion then, would be to disassemble the barrel from the action and go to work with some Shooter's Choice or other gun cleaning stuff that works on lead and scrub the chamber. For this part you'll only need to work on the last 3" of the barrel, just the chamber portion. It'll take a lot of soaking and scrubbing, maybe also putting a bore brush in there and spinning it around in the chamber after it's been soaked with the cleaning stuff. It may take a while but you should be able to get all the lead out of the chamber with some elbow grease.

The other component is to determine if the choke is ruined. One option is just to pattern it and see if it's acceptable; the other is to take it to a gunsmith and have it measured.

Good luck.

[Dark Painter]

will do. priceless advice for a priceless relic.

worst case choke IS ruined... what are my options

that seems like... no... is, bad -- bad news.
i think i fear that most. thats my next problem if scrubbing allows a shell to chamber.

well, a-cleaning here i go.