Recently a friend of mine (I personally am not a vet) who is an x-SEAL asked me if he could borrow my 870 rifled tactical build for a funeral service for a deceased vet. Apparently it was a private affair but mixed services vets wanted to form an honor detail but needed to borrow weapons for gun salute. I said sure--as long as they knew what they were doing and used proper ammo and cleaned the weapon. His friend that was going to do the actual shooting called and when I asked him " don't be offended but I have to ask for safety's sake--are you familiar with the safe operations and maintenance of the 870?" His response was "I've been an NRA master-rated firearms instructor for twenty years and was a Marine sniper for 10." That little voice inside me said "wonder why he didn't answer straight-up 'yes sir, I know the 870 and how to properly operate and clean it.' " instead.

When my friend returned my shotgun I took a quick look in the case and noticed that there was a bit of gun oil/cleaner seeping out of the ejection port--nothing unusual about that since I assumed the weapon had just been cleaned.

My first warning came when my friend said they had trouble chambering shells and had to hand-load each shot. Hmmm--I've never had much trouble with the wide variety of shells I've fired from the mag tube.

Then, about two weeks later when I took the gun out of the safe I noticed almost the entire lower receiver and bottom of the stock was covered with a thick reddish-brown dried-on ooze that looked like blood more than anything else. It was then that I realized I was stupid for not having immediately cleaned the gun myself upon it's return to me.

I've spent over an hour sending coats of Montana copper blaster and regular cleaner down the tube and caked-on crud literally was falling out in chunks. Cleaning pads are finally coming through with only light tinting--but after over an hour of breathing in the strong ammonia fumes I had to set it aside.

I'm pretty freaked out by the degree of apparent corrosion and was wondering if anyone knows whether or not the use of inert/blank shotgun loads through a rifled barrel can ruin it?

I'm not sure it's inherently bad, but with any corrosive ammo you really need to clean it and well within a short period of time or you will see the effects.

In this case the rifling may have collected more of the bad stuff than a smooth bore.

Admittedly I'm not too familiar with blanks for shotguns so I can't offer much more than general advice.

I got a bad feeling it's wasted from all the gunk that came out. Lesson learned--I will never loan a weapon again to anyone that is not a friend I know and trust AND will be the shooter.

This is an unfortunate travesty to a great looking gun! (I noticed your post of your 870 tac in another topic)...she is sweet!!
Don't give up on it until you can hit the range and see how it performs!
Just because someone crapped in your nest does not mean that the sun still can't shine again tomorrow.
Ya gave her a good cleaning as you described....how does she shoot since then, have you had it out?

Never seen or heard of a shotgun being used for an honor guard salute...and unfortunetly I've been to quite a few.

Something is not right here!

I have thoroughly cleaned it and will shoot soon--just been very busy with work. The guys who borrowed it are all retired vets--so maybe that wasn't a standard honor guard? Old guys that just wanted to make their send-off as military as possible, I guess.

There is no damage or harm to the rifling by shooting blanks through a rifled barrel. The only difference in shooting a blank and a factory shell is the absence of a projectile and different powder. The pressure is greatly reduced so all you get is noise and flash.

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I guess a lot of that powder residue ends up in the barrel--I've never seen anything so dirty. I just got a bit worried because of all the reddish-orange ooze that came out.