This is the only problem these guns have...failure to eject and many many folks thought the same as your nephew, that the chamber was too tight but that's not the problem.

The problem is two part, one the machining of the ejector and the other is the lack of cleaning the machined materials out of the ejector slot.

Please understand that I'm not saying your nephew didn't clean the gun first before shooting it, He probably did, I did too. But what I found out is you have to take apart the ejector assembly and spray out the fine pieces of metal left in their from the machining process. This is a pretty tedious task to do and the only way to get all of it out. It's a shame but some guns left the factory with this crap still in them and suffered the same fate as your nephew's gun did. Hell I would have bet dollars to dough nuts my empty was super glued to the chamber it was in there so tight! The only way I could get the shell out was to stick a rod down the barrel and pop it out!

While I had mine apart I also stoned the ejector as it was rough with slight machining marks on it. Now it ejects empties across the room! It ejects in all weather conditions and no matter how many rounds I put down the barrel between cleanings. Those little shavings of metal will lock that sucker up like a bank vault!

This is a common problem with these guns (especially in recent years) and has been hashed over a thousand times to Wednesday on the internet. Most folks never figure out what it is and send their guns back to H&R. With a little digging I zeroed in on the problem and fixed my self in about an hour.

It hasn't soured me on the gun, as cheap as it is I figured there had to be some kind of short cuts taken....I can see it was in a thorough cleaning before shipment.