Boulder Police Stop Using Ammo After Mishap

[flynlr]

ooops this doesn't look so good.
found online here.
http://cbs4denver.com/seenon/ammunition.defective.boulder.2.656518.html

Reporting
Shaun Boyd
BOULDER, Colo. (CBS4) ― There was a close call for a Boulder County sheriff's deputy after her gun blew apart at a firing range. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is looking into the accident, and there's concern other officers may be at risk.

Investigators said the deputy may have used defective ammunition. The ammunition is used by officers around the state. The Boulder County sheriff has shelved thousands of rounds and put out a statewide bulletin warning other agencies.

Sgt. Scot Williams with Boulder County Sheriff's Office said at this point its unclear if the rifle was to blame or the round. Either way, he said the deputy got lucky.

"It could injure a hand, a face, it's dangerous," Williams said.

The ammunition in question is Hunting Shack .223. It's used in training and it's reloaded or used ammunition. In this case, it may have been overloaded.

"We felt it was an officer safety concern of potential defective ammunition, so we sent out a message to the crime information computer in Colorado just advising other agencies that use this ammunition," Williams said.

It's not the first time law enforcement has seen the problem. Thornton police had a similar incident last August. Fortunately their officer also wasn't seriously injured. Thornton said it determined a defective round was to blame.

"I don't believe we'll be buying any more reloaded ammunition," Williams said.

Instead, they'll buy brand new brass at a cost of thousands of dollars more if they can find it. There's a huge shortage of this particular ammunition because of the war. Boulder County hopes other agencies, that use a different vendor, will help out until it can get a new shipment in.

There's no word on when the CBI investigation will be complete.

 

[Navy joe]

Just another data point in the decline of the .223. Three years ago I think I'd never heard of a blown primer cup hanging up an AR trigger. Seen it a bunch now. My 15 gallons of .223 brass and case of M855 squirreled away seem to make sense now, too much crap on the market.

 

[strat81]

used ammunition

Hmmm. All of my used ammunition just lays on the floor. Tried to get it to fire and all I got was *click*.

Anyway, this is part of the risk with reloaded ammo from any source. Of course, factory new ammo can have problems too.

 

[Sans Authoritas]

Best to steer clear of remanufactured .223 of any brand. They've got the thicker military cases, but they've usually been fired through MG's with not-so-tight specs, so it seems the cases have stretched a bit too much. I've reloaded quite a bit of ammo, and when I don't like the look of something I made, I deep-six it.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Deanimator]

They've got the thicker military cases

This can be a problem in its own right when people use max or near-max loads worked up in commercial cases without making allowances for the smaller capacity of the military cases. Despite my warnings, a friend got bit by this and blew a case in his Remington 40X.

 

[Wes Janson]

Why would a department be using remanufactured ammo anyways?

 

[sacp81170a]

Why would a department be using remanufactured ammo anyways?

It may be all they can get, or maybe some bean counter wanted to look good by saving money. Not a good place to cut corners if you ask me.

 

[Pilgrim]

Why would a department be using remanufactured ammo anyways?

Once upon a time large departments trained with reloaded ammo manufactured by jail trusties.

Pilgrim

 

[Robo_Railer]

Yep, bean-counters are usually a good example of "people for whom nothing is impossible, because they're not the ones who have to do it."

I wonder if the Colorado situation could have been that old ".223 Rem versus 5.56mm" thing again.
Some years back, I bought a goodly quantity of 5.56, complete with ammo can. Imagine my dismay when I read that warning from Winchester, and looked at the markings on my Mini-14: ".223 Rem."
Then I asked around, and learned that the Mini will digest pretty much anything. <WHEW>

 

[whitetiger7654]

A police officer using reloaded ammo is just idiotic. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they did it to save 1 million dollars a year. Well guess what...when 1 cop dies or gets mutilated by it, it will cost millions more to pay them off.

 

[MD_Willington]

My HSM .223 forms cracks on the shoulder and neck every once in a while...

Other than that it is old but it works

 

[birdshot8's]

i think this was practice ammo not duty stuff.

 

[browningguy]

It will be interesting to see what the actual outcome of the investigation is.

I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon though, I've shot thousands of rounds of Black Hills reloads through my three semiautomatic .223's with absolutely no issues of any kind. And I'm sure I will continue to do so for many years to come.

 

[chris in va]

Why would a department be using remanufactured ammo anyways?

It's Boulder, doesn't suprise me.

 

[velojym]

Depending on how much they use per year, and if they can get a bulk deal on components, it might be a good idea to retain an armorer who would be responsible primarily for reloading ammunition for the department (of course, folks smarter than myself would have to look into the economics, but if they're spending considerably more than the wage of one or two armorers, it would seem to make sense). This way there is an officer who has a very real incentive to do a good job, though the reloaded ammo may be tagged for practice use only anyway.
For liability purposes, they could use factory fresh ammo for duty loads.

 

[spwenger]

Not Only...

Why would a department be using remanufactured ammo anyways?

...are police departments affected by the same increases in ammo prices as the rest of us, they are affected by the same shortages. The shortages are particularly severe for 5.56mm/.223 ammo, due to obvious military demand. I seem to recall that an earlier administration, associated with a donkey symbol, eliminated some of our miltary's own ammunition-manufacturing capacity.

While many departments use Mil-Spec M16/M4's, where the differences between ammo specced as 5.56mm vs. .223 are not significant, as has been noted, cases previously fired in military firearms may have been fired in full-auto weapons that allow some case stretching. Many years ago I experienced a case separation in a Ruger Mini-14 while using such remanufactured ammo during a course. Fortunately, I had an M1 Carbine standing by and merely switched over until I was able to extract the forward end of the case from the chamber, by means of a cleaning brush, during one of the longer breaks.