[zinj]

Well, the day after my .22 broke the locking tab off of a magazine I have my Auto-5 out for some mounting practice.

I've noticed lately that the barrel seems to be riding rather forward when the gun is assembled, the bolt handle is about two or three millimeters from contacting the forward edge of the ejection port. I assume this is from the fore-end wood compressing over time, so I take down the gun.

I am taking a closer look at the forend when I notice that there is a crack. Starting around that little pin that the magazine cap ratchets down on, it propagates all the way to the rear of the "bridge," for lack of a better term, between the magazine tube and barrel; the part of the fore-end that the barrel impacts as it returns to battery.

Wonderful. It isn't so obvious now, but with some more shooting I have a feeling the entire fore-end could split.

I guess I get to buy a new fore-end now ($50 from Cabelas). Luckily I still have my 870 to bust some clays tomorrow.

[gezzer]

Trust me it is repairable for less than a new one that also has to be fit and finished.

[zinj]

Along with the repair it would need some serious refinishing too. This gun is kind of a saga anyway.

You know, for all of John Browning's genious, why did he have that barrel slamming into unprotected wood? Even when I just bought the gun I wondered why there wasn't reinforcement in the fore-end. It would be such a simple thing to do and save alot of headaches.