Had my first, and hopefully last, squib yesterday

[Riomouse911]

I’ve been reloading revolver ammo since 1995 and until yesterday I have produced thousands of rounds that have all gone bang.

Yesterday I was shooting my GP 100 in .44 Spl. using an Eggleston 200 gr RNFP over 7.2 gr Unique. I used mixed cases and Federal LPP. I shot the first five at 10 yds, forgetting this load shoots high. I saw the high hits, brought it down and started hitting the blue.

At shot 14, I heard a pop, saw burning powder flecks spit in a weird pattern out of the muzzle and had zero recoil. I stopped, cleared the cylinder and checked the bore. It was full if what looked like powder debris but it was clear of the bullet. I double checked the four fired cases, the suspect case was sooty around the mouth and had some burnt powder debris inside. I then loaded the last round, it fired as expected and I pulled in my target.

The target had the expected high hits as I walked it down to a 6o’clock hold, then I saw a rip way down low where the squib load bullet hit sideways.



I don’t use a progressive press, I go from powder dispenser straight to loading the case on a single stage. Its slow, but it keeps me from worrying about a bum load on a fast moving progressive. While it certainly is possible that I undercharged the case, with all the burning flakes ejected from the muzzle along with the amount of powder debris left in the bore and case I am thinking I may have had either a bad primer that didn’t light the powder properly or a contaminated case that affected the powder.

Obviously I may never know what the issue was. But I do know I’m going to be double sure I check case cleanliness and powder levels again and again and again. I don’t want to ever have another one of those!

Stay safe.

 

[MEHavey]

How do you (or do you?) clean your cases?

NOTE:
For what it's worth, I load all cases into a block so I can look down (or put a marked dowel down into) every one of them before seating the bullets.
1st check: Powder Measure drop quick-look into the case before placing in block
2nd check: All cases at once
3rd check: As I pick up each case moving to Press and bullet seat
(No, I'm not paranoid . . . much)

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I think of squib as one that stays in the barrel, but see your point; it wasn't a valid load.

Bad case maybe? Given what you say of your load plan I think a case may have cracked if they were old.

 

[KY DAN]

Well......... you may have messed up

Other factors come into play like how you cleaned the brass, oil contmation, Mr. Murphy etc.

I never load a "target" ie reduced velocity round, if my powder does not fill up the case its time to rethink the combination.

At least no damage was done

 

[Walkalong]

Did you by chance have the muzzle down before that shot? Is it a real light load? Some powders don’t play well with light loads and the powder forward away from the primer

 

[cfullgraf]

On the plus side, you caught the "off performance" round before trying to send another down range.

After years of reloading, I find squib loads happen to me when my process gets interrupted and I do not stop and pull the possible offending cases/rounds.

I had a rash of squibs when I transitioned to a progressive press until I learned to automatically clear out the shell plate of cases and start over. There is an awful lot of stuff going on when loading on a progressive.

For single stage loading, I do similar checking the powder charges as MEHavey.

 

[dcarr]

One squib, it was in a blackhawk, no powder, primer had enough umph to push the bullet out into the throat and jam the cylinder. I had no desire to fire a bullet into a plugged barrel anyway. I'd like to think i learned something about reloading and distractions.

 

[Hartkopf]

Any chance the bullet jumped the crimp but not so far the cylinder couldn’t rotate? When fired, that shot would have way less pressure because of all the extra space in the case and no crimp.

 

[Riomouse911]

How do you (or do you?) clean your cases?

NOTE:
For what it's worth, I load all cases into a block so I can look down (or put a marked dowel down into) every one of them before seating the bullets.
1st check: Powder Measure drop quick-look into the case before placing in block
2nd check: All cases at once
3rd check: As I pick up each case moving to Press and bullet seat
(No, I'm not paranoid . . . much)

Vibratory cleaner after each use. I don’t often lube cases since I’m using carbide dies, but once in a while I will use a spritz of Dillon case lube on them.

Stay safe.

 

[lordpaxman]

Glad to hear it exited the barrel at least.
You can have the best reloading processes in the world, and still, Stuff Happens. There’s a greater than zero probability for a squib, and that includes factory ammunition. It may or may not be caused by the CBLF.
We had a guy shooting revolver in our PPC (practical pistol club) and every round had a different noise - ping, bang, boom, pop, pip. There was a scurry to hide behind someone else, and we pulled him aside and had him explain his reloading. While we didn’t identify the exact issue, he re-evaluated his powder charge process and thankfully his rounds improved.

 

[Riomouse911]

I think of squib as one that stays in the barrel, but see your point; it wasn't a valid load.

Bad case maybe? Given what you say of your load plan I think a case may have cracked if they were old.

Case wasn’t cracked or split on my first exam, but ill double check when I clean this batch. (It was sooty from not sealing pretty good.)

Any chance the bullet jumped the crimp but not so far the cylinder couldn’t rotate? When fired, that shot would have way less pressure because of all the extra space in the case and no crimp.

That certainly could be the reason, too. I’m a roll-crimper by nature but I sure may have missed one.

Stay safe.,

 

[MEHavey]

Vibratory cleaner after each use.

Perchance do you size/de-prime before cleaning ?
(... or after?)


.

 

[N555]

I would say bad primer. I have loaded 44spl with 2.5gr of unique and a 240gr bullet still cleared a 18'' 44mag rifle.

How do you (or do you?) clean your cases?

NOTE:
For what it's worth, I load all cases into a block so I can look down (or put a marked dowel down into) every one of them before seating the bullets.
1st check: Powder Measure drop quick-look into the case before placing in block
2nd check: All cases at once
3rd check: As I pick up each case moving to Press and bullet seat
(No, I'm not paranoid . . . much)

That's about how I do it.
The only squib I have had was when I intentionally loaded one just to see what a squib was like.

 

[Starter52]

As a long time reloader, (getting close to fifty years now), I had to smile when you said "hopefully my last squib".

Last squib. Haha.

 

[Riomouse911]

Perchance do you size/de-prime before cleaning ?
(... or after?)


.

After. Ive seen the walnut kernels stuck in the flash hole more than once.

Stay safe.

 

[cfullgraf]

After. Ive seen the walnut kernels stuck in the flash hole more than once.

Stay safe.

Part of my tumbling process is I stick a piece of piano wire through the flash hole of every case that comes out of the tumbler, actually, the media separator. Once you get going, it does not take very long and it provides another opportunity to see other problems with the case.

Sometimes I get a real packing of the media in the primer pocket that takes a bit more time to clear out.

 

[Metal God]

I loaded my first potential squib the other day . I say potential because I caught what I did pretty much right away but it was put into the box as a finished round . This was the first round loaded in a session . When I went to grab the pan to weigh the next charge , the pan already had powder in it . That's odd I thought "did I not put powder in that first round " ? Pulled the bullet on that first round and sure enough no powder . So glad I still weigh out my first 10 loads individually to be sure they are throwing correctly .

I'm glad my process caught the empty charge but I don't really know why or what I did that caused me to not charge the case and that scares me a little . Making mistakes if caught and you know what you did wrong is not a big deal because you know what you did wrong and can correct it . In this case it appears it was simply a brain fart and those aren't so easy to correct . Next session I'm going to pay extra attention like I did when I first started because this although caught bothers me A LOT !

 

[Zygodactyl]

I've been reloading on a progressive press since 1986 and never had a squib until last month. I reload in an outbuilding on my property. I clean, deprime and store my brass in coffee cans with plastic lids. While I'm reloading I stop and weigh my charges several times during the session to make sure the automatic dispenser hasn't changed. I started getting short charges, but on further examination the case still held some powder after I dumped it. I then looked at my brass, it was all sweating in the can. We had had a cold snap a couple of days before. The day I was reloading was the first warm day. The can was stored sealed under the bench and when I opened it the cold brass started getting condensation on it. I separated all the ammo I had reloaded and marked it for practice. Out of 50 or so rounds I had 2 squibs, 10 very light rounds and 20 duds.
So I'm going to remember to let the brass acclimate before I start reloading.