I think I had a real close call today...

[ny32182]

..scold me as needed.

Here is what happened:

I have been loading 9mm for a short while now, and all has gone well. I dropped the first couple hundred sized cases into my chamber, no issues. Checked neck tension with a vigorous "press check", no issues... Slowly worked up a load till I found one that seemed to be a very close approximation of WWB, and been shooting it in IDPA ever since.

So, today I took out my first batch of .40 loads to shoot. I went through all the same steps I did with 9mm. With one exception: I had one individual case that, when dropped into my chamber during "sizing QC", required just a little bit of a tap with my finger to get to seat all the way. I thought, "well, when it is chambered by the slide it is going to be getting knocked into the chamber a whole lot harder than that.... it will be fine."

So, cut back to halfway through my shooting session today. Part way through a mag I got a click instead of a bang. I ejected the round, guessing it was a bad primer or something. What I found was a light, very off center primer strike.

My only guess is/was that this got stuck *just barely* out of battery, and didn't get hit hard enough/centered enough to fire. When the slide just starts to unlock, what is the first thing that happens? The chamber starts to dip downward. I think this can explain the light, way off center primer strike: the slide being ever so slightly back, and the chamber not centered up to the breachface.

I think if this round had fired, it might have been a pretty bad day. After that mag was done, I loaded that round in, made sure the slide was completely in battery, and fired it without incident. The off center light strike was still visible apart from the normal strike on the ejected case.

All other rounds fired without incident.

My only guess at this point is that the case that took a slight finger tap to seat when I was checking is the one affected above. Unfortunately I did not observe the exact position of the slide close enough to know if this was the problem prior to ejecting the round.

I have not dropped my last few hundred 9mm's into the chamber prior to firing them. This incident makes me want to check size on every pistol cartride I handload, like I currently do for rifle cartridges... what do you think?

 

[JimKirk]

Could have been Glocked brass? Look at the very end of the base of the case and you'll see a slight ring just a few thousandths high, usually it is just on one side of the case. The ring may be from your brass not being sized base, you may have to take a few thousandths off the shell holder or do like I did get a Redding G-Rx die and shove the brass all the way through the die.

Jimmy K

 

[ny32182]

It is possible the brass could have been in a Glock, but I don't know if that specific case had been. Plenty of that batch of brass was through a Glock at least once (I remember this from during my sizing of that brass). But all of it seemed to seat fine to me. If there is a "bulge" to be seen, it looks to me as though it is high enough to get sized by the regular Hornady die I am using.

 

[1SOW]

The title of your thread sounds like you learned something.

Those of us reading the thread, may have learned something too.

Glad bad things didn't happen.

 

[ny32182]

That is the thing, I'm not sure I have... What I would really like to know is how to keep this from happening. I can check every round since I am not a high volume shooter, but my money is on most people not doing this.

 

[JimKirk]

Please reread what I said ..a die will remove the "bulge" but will leave a ring about .002-.004 high near the base of the case. Unless your case is going far enough into the die to remove the ring. I had the same thing that is happening to you happen to me with the 357 SIG which use a "sort of necked down 40 S&W case". I had to tap - push the cases into the chamber and it did not take much force at all, but I would still get hangups just like you. Take your thumb nail and run it down the case and see if you feel the ring...it looks like a sizing line, but you will feel it.
If not you have something else going on.

Jimmy K

 

[WatongaJim]

Reminds me of a similar scary experience. I had purchased a box of .40 S&W ammo from PCI (they sell reloads) with lead bullets. Pulled the trigger on the first round, getting only a click. I had an off centered and light primer strike and after inspection I realized that the bullets were not seated quite deeply enough so the bullets were into the barrel rifling upon chambering, not allowing the case to headspace on the mouth, therefore, it almost fired out of battery. I reload most of my ammo, so I later picked up the dies for the .40 and seated these bullets correctly. A happy ending but it's still the most scary thing I've experienced and it was caused by "factory" reloads.

 

[twofifty]

Advice I got from someone who's been reloading HG for +20 years is to always put each round through a chambering test die before it goes in your match ammo stash.

All it takes is a simple burr and a round does not fully chamber.

 

[fireman 9731]

My question would be why your gun could fire if it was not fully in battery. That is what worries me.

 

[ny32182]

Thanks Jimmy, I will look for that on the next batch.

My primary concern is that this came very close to KBing my gun. The match angle would not be good, but would have only added a fraction of a second if it happened in a match, as it was cleared with a simple slide rack.

 

[Ohio Gun Guy]

I had a squib round last year..... it went bang, but the recoil and bang werent like the previous...... New pistol with new ammo 3rd shot of the first magazine. I thought about continuing shooting but stopped.......

The Bulllet logged in the middle of the barrel. Looking back, some of it was luck; If I was shooting double taps, I think it would have been hard to stop in time to think about it OR if someone else in the range was firing I may not have noticed. However, some of it was knowing these things do happen and can happen to you!

I Cleared it & checked the barrel....... and went home! Figured I wasnt going to press my luck.

Live and learn!

 

[WatongaJim]

My experience may not be meet the technical definition of "out of battery" but I found out that it can be bad if the bolt on an auto loader doesn't return to it's full forward position, even by 1/16" (maybe less) with the round headspaced on the bullet contacting the rifling. Had it fired, it might have resulted in a case rupture and possible damage to the firearm, if not to myself due to the pressures directed back from the breech area.

 

[ny32182]

That Redding push through die sounds like it might be the ticket.

 

[Victor1Echo]

Could have been Glocked brass
What does this mean? DO Glocks shread cases? I ask becasue I have one and wanted to start reloading for it. Sorry to be off topic.

 

[JimKirk]

Victor
Some Glocks have an unsupported chamber on the bottom bolt end of the chamber. The chamber does not fully surround the case. When fired the case bulges out where the chamber is not supported. Thus you get "Glocked Brass". When sizing the case in the sizing die, you must get the case as far up into the die as possible. Because some shell holders are thicker than others, the case does not get up into the die. Some dies have a beveled entrance into the die and they do not size far enough down.The solution is to use a Redding G-Rx die($30) or one of the roller systems($$$). The G-Rx die solves the problem by pushing the case all the way through the die and out the top, then the "glocked" brass will feed. Some think that brass fixed like this is not really safe, but lots of folks are doing it.

Jimmy K

 

[fourdollarbill]

My reloading friend calls it the "de-glocker" die and swears by it for the same reasons you had. Two times through an unsupported chamber and it looks like a pot bellied pig. This die will fix it.

 

[rfwobbly]

NY

What I would really like to know is how to keep this from happening?

Twofifty

Advice I got... is to always put each round through a chambering test die before it goes in your match ammo stash.

That's the lesson I learned too. For competition, it simply doesn't make any sense not to drop each round into a "cartridge gauge". You can easily buy full cartridge gauges at Midway, Dillon, and other dealers for about $12.

What a cartridge gauge does is help you quickly measure about 5 critical dimensions on the round. If your cartridge will drop into the gauge, then you're good to go.

 

[ny32182]

For rifles those seem common and I use them... for pistols my searching so far has turned up only "case length" gauges that don't seem to really measure the size/headspace type dimensions properly. Therefore I have been using the chamber. If you are using fully functional size gauges for pistol rounds... what make and model are they? Thanks,

 

[ny32182]

Well I took a look at the G-Rx die after JimKirk's recommendation, and have one on the way this week.

It is not in my hands yet, so these questions may be answered in the documentation or whatnot, but just out of curiosity:

1) Which way do you push the case through? mouth first or casehead first?

2) In the reviews, the people say that they have to lube and run through the steel push through die first, then run it through a regular sizing die; I assume primarily to decap at that point? What are the chances of a viable process being to run through a carbide regular sizer first, and then, running it through theh push through die second (possibly eliminating the need to lube)?

Thanks,

 

[Walkalong]

I have started using a case gauge on all my sized 9MM brass. If it fails the gauge, I toss it in the scrap bin. I don't care if another sizer etc will get it back to being usable. It has been over stressed as far as I am concerned. Too much free 9MM range brass to worry with those. Only about 10% or less range brass fails the gauge usually.

L.E. Wilson 9MM Case Gauge

 

[RDA 226sig]

The G-Rx die is set up for the case to be pushed through mouth first.

Run it through the G-Rx die first and then go through the same procedure you are using now.

It works great. I have a sig that choked on reloads until I started using the G-Rx and it has not missed a beat since.

 

[Marlin 45 carbine]

would like to know what HS brass is and times fired?
don't load for the .40 but have had an issue or 2 with 9mm and .45acp brass that had that 'knurled' ring around the brass. would'nt chamber right after handloading, a couple close calls like this.

 

[ny32182]

Well I just sized my first batch of cases using the G-Rx die; I believe all went smoothly... Waiting for them to come out of the tumbler now, and then I will gage them.

I've got a couple questions for guys that use this die regularly...

1) Do you run all your cases through it, or do you size the bulk of them normally, gage them, and then just base-size the ones that don't gage right? It seems like using the latter approach would save a lot of lubing?

2) There is no problem with getting lube in a carbide sizer right? I just ran them through the base sizer and then through the regular sizer with no tumble in between.

They sure went throught the regular sizer a lot easier than normal; I guess that is a result of having lube on there and also having the bases already sized...

 

[rodregier]

+1 in the L.E. Wilson case gage. It's tighter than any chamber I've encountered so far. That's a good thing when looking for over-dimension loaded cartridges.

 

[JimKirk]

Maybe some photos to help...

The brass with the lines, are Glocked brass not going far enough into the die.

The photo with the barrels show what cause "Glocked brass"

I would not want to use brass with that much bulge, as I feel there may have been too much brass stress for safety.

The 357 SIG brass that I have encountered have so little bulge that it is hard to see, but when I run it up in the die, the fine line appears. It will catch on a finger nail, but is nowhere as pronounced as in the photo. The G-Rx die takes care of it.

Jimmy K