Man, that hurts just looking at it.
Saw my dad do the exact same thing when I was a kid. He's lucky to be able to tell about it. It looked like something straight out of an Elmer Fudd cartoon.I did that once with a shotgun. Me and my buddy were crawling up on a pond and the barrel went into the mud......
I agree i would make it so it would never fire again.Then send it back to the owner.It would go over the loading bench as a reminder - I wouldn't rebuild it.
I have a blown up Smith M10 over my bench now.
Lucky to have all his body parts intact after that!