My first squib!

[CZRyan]

I just had my first squib load the other day(reloading on a new press). I got the bullet out OK but took a lot more force than I thought it would. This was in a CZ75B 40S&W. But this got me to thinking(always a problem). Has anyone put a blank load behind a stuck bullet and just shot it out. By blank, I mean brass primer and powder but nothing else(yea, you would have to load it into the chamber with the gun pointed up, or the power would fall out). Now, don't get me wrong, I am not willing to try this myself but I wonder if anyone tried this and what were the results?

BTW, what IS the best way to hammer a stuck bullet? After I removed the barrel I hammered it back to the chamber because it was the shortest way. Does it matter?

Thanks

 

[mc223]

You did what i probably would have done as long as the barrel ie. the rifling was not damaged by whatever you used to hammer the bullet out. I imagine a blowup would happen with the blank idea. The pressures needed to move a stuck bullet from the barrel would be enormous.
What press are you using if I might ask. I use a Dillon RL550B and Knock on wood have never experianced a squib. A freind of mine loads on a lee progressive and has had a lot of squibs.

 

[Grumulkin]

I had a squib load about a year ago in a 375 H&H Magnum. A primer without powder just won't push a bullet very far. I tried the cleaning rod approach gently and couldn't budge the bullet even though it hadn't gotten very far at all. I made up a load with several grains of powder less than a maximum load and shot the bullet out; it even hit the target.

That was my experience and I'm not recommending that anyone else approach it this way; you do so at your own risk. If the bullet had been halfway down the barrel, I'm not sure I would even have tried it. I also would not have tried it in a gun with a weaker action like a pump, semiauto or lever action.

The moral of the story; I've become even more compulsive now. I recheck the case too many times to make sure powder is in it and I frequently shake the case after bullet seating to make sure it's still there (this doesn't work with compressed loads).

 

[JDGray]

You did the right thing, by driving it out. A bullet needs a little free movement before the rifling, to not build excessive pressures. Who knows, a small amount of powder may do the job, but it may KB your gun.

 

[CZRyan]

Thanks for the reply's guys. The press that I was trying was a Lee Load Master(what a POS!) brand new. Very rough operation. I sent it back and yesterday I got the letter from Midway telling me that I got %100 credit (cool). I did smash one small part...the primer arm thing. I told Midway about it and just charge me, but it appears that they let it go.

I found a used Dillon XL650, wow! what a difference. It is so smooth and much simpler to set up.

 

[RecoilRob]

I had a squib in 10mm years ago and found that it DOES take an amazing amount of force to push the bullet back out.

Actually loaded up a couple of blanks to have in the range bag just in case it happened again but reconsidered before getting the chance to use them.

And, preventing the squib in the first place seemed the better method of attacking the stuck bullet problem.

My squib was caused by Unique bridging the powder measure and throwing a very light load. I hadn't been aware of the flake powders tendency to do this and wasn't visually checking every charge before seating the bullet.

Unique is great powder for many things but I would be hesitant to use it in a progressive press unless some method of charge checking was present to prevent the occassional light charge.

 

[wally]

I wouldn't over generalize your experience with Unique. I've reloaded with Unique on a progressive press for 25+ years using the Lee Auto-Disk powder measure.

My only squibs were once when I let the powder run out while loading .45ACP (operator error!).

Second with .380 ACP using the adjustable volume slide trying to fine tune loads below 4gr -- the non-round volume of this measure definitely had the "bridging" issue you mentioned so I stopped using it. With all of these rounds the bullets exited and thus were just weak loads rather than true squibs.

And most recently when I was doing some 147gr 9mm and a few 9x18 cases worked in, usually these don't quite fit the shell holder so I notice, but I failed to notice two that fit and ran them thru the press, the 1mm shorter case fails to fully stroke the auto-measure leaving me one squib and one load that didn't cycle but exited (again operator error, twice for using the wrong case initially and second for not noticing the 1mm of extra bullet showing while loading the mags). I've since added an extra 150W of lighting to the reloading area to help compensate for my old eyeballs

--wally.