Don (resqcapt) taught me this one:
The sockets may be causing excessive heat at the base of the bulb due to poor connection due to arcing (carbon build-up), corrosion, or fatigue. This in turn can get hot enough at the contact point to actually melt the solder on the bulb, releasing the inert gas (or "vacuum", as it was) and causing the bulb to expire prematurely.
Neat, huhn?!
![[Linked Image]](https://www.electrical-contractor.net/ubb/biggrin.gif)
It is also my experience that 130V bulbs can cure the blowout problem in new fixtures that aren't suspect to the above description.
