Pure honesty, 9mm in a .40

Riomouse911 said:

.308 in a .270/.280 Rem, .44 mag in .45 Colt can be disastrous. . .

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Interesting. I would have expected the .429 44 Mag bullet to rattle out the end of the .458 groove diameter bore without significant pressure because it couldn't possibly obturate to seal.

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edwardware said:

Interesting. I would have expected the .429 44 Mag bullet to rattle out the end of the .458 groove diameter bore without significant pressure because it couldn't possibly obturate to seal.

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Putting a full power 36,000 psi 44 mag into a SAA .45 Colt designed for 14,000 psi chamber pressure will certainly cause damage to the gun, and possibly the shooter as well. The one time I saw this occur the case split and shot a fireball of gasses all over. In this case, fortunately, it was an old model Vaquero so the gun could take it. A SAA or clone would have probably burst the cylinder.

edwardware said:

Interesting. I would have expected the .429 44 Mag bullet to rattle out the end of the .458 groove diameter bore without significant pressure because it couldn't possibly obturate to seal.

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with the new standard .451, and lead bullets, I bet a 429 could balloon to 451 and build some pressure.

Riomouse911 said:

Putting a full power 36,000 psi 44 mag into a SAA .45 Colt designed for 14,000 psi chamber pressure will certainly cause damage to the gun, and possibly the shooter as well. The one time I saw this occur the case split and shot a fireball of gasses all over. In this case, fortunately, it was an old model Vaquero so the gun could take it. A SAA or clone would have probably burst the cylinder.

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watched a 40 shot out of a 45acp. Twice the pressure potential, but that 40 didn't make it more than 50 feet, because the pressure went around the bullet. I would absolutely not say that would happen with a lead 44 mag in a Colt. I would count on the base of the bullet expanding and still making it most of the way to its peak.

This happened at a local impromptu shoot... I had my M1A and a buddy had his 1903A1 Springfield... .308 and .30-06... Somehow a .308 made it into the chamber of the 06... When Buck touched off the Springfield it sounded unusual compared to the 06's and "felt funny".. when he ejected the case it looked almost like a .45-70, ballooned out almost to the tip of the casing, just a hair of the case neck had been in the chamber neck. No harm was done to either rifle, shooter, or bystanders, thankfully. It could have been disasterous, and everyone there received a lesson in paying more attention to what we were stuffing into our firearms.

Count me in I have fired a 9 through a 40 once , learned from it and no damage to the firearm

mjsdwash said:

watched a 40 shot out of a 45acp. Twice the pressure potential, but that 40 didn't make it more than 50 feet, because the pressure went around the bullet. I would absolutely not say that would happen with a lead 44 mag in a Colt. I would count on the base of the bullet expanding and still making it most of the way to its peak.

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Ya, I recall it was a reload of a fairly stout .44 mag with a hard cast 240 gr lead bullet. My buddy liked H110 for stout loads, but I can't recall what the exact recipe was. We never found the bullet so no way to check if it did expand the additional .025 to fully fill the barrel or not.

He did pop the case out with a bit of extra pressure on the ejector rod. It was stuck pretty tightly in the chamber. The case was swollen and split lengthwise from mouth to just above the web of the case, with soot burns the entire length and around the head. I will hazard a guess that some of the gasses blew out and around the case through the front and back of the cylinder making the big flash that we saw.

A lesson was learned, no one and no gun were harmed, and since this event I haven't seen it repeated.

My friend accidentally fired a 380 round out of his 9mm pistol. No harm was done, but it jammed so badly that he had to take it home to get the brass case out.

I usually take six handguns to the range, but I only have one caliber of ammo at a time out. The rest stays in my ammo case.

My question is would you continue to fire this firearm as normal?

Yes.

Do I need to have a gun smith check it?

No.

I realize this was a horrible mistake.

Lighten up on yourself. It was not that big of a mistake. Working at a indoor shooting range I regularly found brass cases that had been shot in oversize barrel...32 acp in 380, 380 in 9mm, 41 Magnum in 44 Magnum, 44 Magnum in 45 Colt.

FYI 380 generally will shoot and function fine in a 9mm semi-auto.

I used different colors of 50 round plastic snap lid cartridge containers such as MTM for keeping things separate. For example my 9mm ammunition is kept in smoke gray boxes, 44 Magnum in red, etc.

I have certainly been a bit more careful since my one oopsy. At the time, I was shooting a rental SIG P229 Legion in 9 mm and comparing it side by side with my non-Legion P229 in .40S&W. I was checking to see if the Legion trigger was any better than that of my modified P229 with P-SAIT trigger and SRT kit (it was not). So I had both pistol out with their respective magazines and a box of 9 mm and .40 S&W ammo. Loaded up a .40 S&W magazine with 9 mm and did not notice anything strange at all. After the first shot from the magazine, I realized the mistake.

The worst part of being human is messing up once in a while. We all do it, so you are in good company.

The best part of being human is learning from a mistake we have made and then working hard to never repeat it

A valuable lesson learned, and life goes on.

Stay safe!

I work with a guy who has a P220 (45acp). He showed me a spent 40S&W cartridge he had fired in it. No damage done, other than to the case.

I just now remembered...

A friend and I were shooting together, trying out each other's pistols. There were handguns and ammo scattered around on a bench. I could NOT get ammo to fit into the magazine of one of his 40 caliber pistols. The reason was that 45acp is simply too big to fit in there. Doh!

edwardware said:

Imagine his surprise the first time he fired the correct caliber ammo. . .

Also, did his badge say "Fife"?

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LOL!!!

If it's any "comfort".

I was a LEO and a firearms instructor a decade back.

Went to an indoor range with about 5 handguns and different calibers for them.

Was shooting my XDS in .45acp and noticed that the case did not eject - so pulled that case out to find it has a blown open case mouth.

Now being a logical and very intelligent [ ok,start laughing now ] person,I did the next obvious thing and loaded ANOTHER ROUND of the same ammo into that same gun.

With the exact same outcome ?.

THEN ,I looked at the round and the gun to see that I had fired a S&W .40 on a .45acp pistol.

I cleared the gun and inspected it and found NO VISIBLE damage.

So I fired the pistol with the proper rounds,not the smartest thing to do = BUT the good Lord looks out for drunks & a$$holes .

So nothing happened,since then I have fired that pistol well over 100 rounds with no problems.

I am now VERY,VERY cautious to not place ANY OTHER CALIBER on the shooting bench,and yes I do believe that age plays a role here.

Firing 9mm in a .40 gun is reasonably safe, and .40 in .45 is somewhat safe, although obviously .40 S&W is more powerful than .45 ACP. But you must be very careful when shooting Spainish and Italian antiques that use 9mm cartridges that are much milder then 9mm Luger.

edwardware said:

This is why, in my opinion, 300 BO should never have been industrialized.

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AFAIK you can only drive 300BLK into a 5.56 gun by whacking the assist, and BTW it's just another reason why Eugene Stoner was very much against it on the AR-15.

Its never happened to me or around me, and why? I have no idea! Excuse me while i go knock on wood.

Ive giving it the best possible chance to happen many times in my youth. Me and a buddy would bring several diff handguns and just throw all the ammo down on our home made bench and shoot for hours. Like was said in an earlier post, The Good Lord looks out for drunks and a@@holes(and ill add ignorant people so i will qualify for mult adjectives) so i was blessed to never have an accident.

As i got older and heard more and more of having wrong cartridges fired from the wrong gun i developed a better plan of only having one caliber at a time on the bench.

I have not done what the OP did, but from what I read, it seems to be a pretty common mistake. Depending upon the caliber mix up, it can range from the pretty mild situation the OP experienced, through a quite serious problem. So, I take some precautions and have for a number of years now...

I do take different guns of different calibers to the range. I only keep one gun and the ammo for that gun out at a time. I do not have multiples of the same gun in different calibers or a conversion barrel (yet), and when I do, I will only bring it in one caliber to any one range session. Hopefully that continues to serve me well, and I try very hard to be fully aware and not to be complacent when working around loaded guns.

Glock 40 and 9mm mags look the same. Happens occasionally. I try to use one gun, one caliber on the bench at a time rule. Yakking with other shooters can cause unwanted distractions.

Had a friend (no, really) who managed to install the barrel from his Glock 23 into his Glock 19. He fired maybe half a magazine before we diagnosed the problem. No damage to the 19 or the 23 barrel.

I've posted here before of the 9 in 40, a buddy grabbed the wrong mag for my Glock 22. I grabbed what I thought to be my 9MM 1911 and proceeded to load 9MM in a 45. I've seen 380 out of 9MM. None of those resulted in any issues, just badly misformed brass.

My buddy recently told me of some friends of his that shot 300 out of 223 by mixing up the wrong mags. That was catastrophic for the rifle, but thankfully no one hurt - except for the underwear.