Federal Champion does jump crimp in LCR 9mm
OK, I bit and picked one of these up the other day. I didn't have time to really test it yet, but was curious about the crimp jump issues.
I loaded up 3 clips of Federal Champion (115 gr). Shoot 4 and look, sure enough there's no bullet in the 5th round. Fresh clip, shoot 3. Now there's no bullet in either of the last two rounds. Hmmm. Fresh clip, shoot one and look. No noticeable bullet jump (note I'm shooting just after dark as it's deer season and I didn't want to molest anybody's hunt, but it looked ok). Reinsert this clip, shoot off the second one, and the remaining three bullets have slid out about 1/8th of an inch. This is the round that the guy in the video had trouble with. I wonder if my 4th bullet had already pulled out before I fired that round on my first clip, but it didn't really feel any different. I expected to have to go through most of a box to see this, not for it to happen every single time. Wow.
Repeat with some Winchester white box, also 115 gr. No noticeable bullet movement after 4 rounds in each of 2 different clips. Unfortunately I had blown all of the spilled powder off of the gun and wiped it down before noticing a forgotten box of Fiocchi 115 grainers. I'll have to test that and some other rounds on another day.
Some have said the gun is very accurate while others have complained about the front sight blade being too tall. I can't really address that at this time. I was shooting from about 20 feet away at the end of a 6 inch diameter log out on my backyard range (no targets). Not sure exactly where the rounds went, but I couldn't see any of them in that log in the dark. It was right up against the berm, but there has been snow and the ground is wet so I didn't observe any bullet strikes in the poor light. This doesn't mean the gun is not accurate --I'm not a snubbie expert by any means, the light was bad, and I was really more worried about testing the crimp-jump issue.
I can post more details, more accurate measurents, and pics of the jumped bullets later if people care. I just wanted to get word out that the crimp-jump is an issue with at least one type of ammo, but also that there is readily available ammo that appears to work.
BTW, unburned powder really sticks to those Hogue grips!