Whoops!

Once in a while you come across one of these....a gun that suffered from negligence or perhaps shoddy manufacturing.

I am not sure which bucket this gun falls into...

This revolver was brought to me by a friend whom I have worked on several projects with before. He bought it in the hopes it may be able to be re-barreled and made functional again.
The gun is a Herter's .44 Magnum copy of the Colt Single Action Army. It was made in West Germany by J.P Sauer & Sohn (before they merged with Sig Arms). This is identical to the Hawes Western Marshal line of revolvers (made in the same factory).

Here is what it looked like when he brought it to me:

you can see the remnants of the bullet jacket still lodged in the barrel 

 You can see the bulge went down, up and out

We had to remove the barrel to see if the frame suffered any damage, and it was pretty obvious that the hole was no longer round...it is now elliptical. Further proof of frame damage came from the cylinder base pin, it was VERY difficult to remove (we had to pound it out with a punch from the rear). Both the pin and the frame had been bent downwards.

The barrel's breech end actually retained its shape after removal....

 unfortunately this one is just a parts gun now