dmurphy - I can agree to that and your testing. I personally wonder in the cases where a rifle barrel did rupture, what really happened? That's why it is such a shame we never really get the (as Paul Harvey says,) the rest of the story.

Its one thing for the person holding the broken rifle or with injuries to say, the rifle just blew up. Or if they say, well I goofed up, double charged it or short started it. I have always wondered how many times these incidents would be attributed to operator error.

Still to live on the side of caution is good advise when dealing with these rifles, simply because there always is that one chance something could happen and you're playing with explosives in many cases.