Pay Attention, Be Careful

Geezer

Geezer

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The last few weeks we have a few instances of bullets not making it out of the barrel on some handguns.

@garvin had what was first thought to be a failure to eject on his Glock 43. After working the slide to eject the round, the slide would not return to battery. A closer look showed that instead of a failure to eject, he had fired a squib load. The bullet was in the barrel but had not gone far enough to allow the next round to chamber. Had the next round chambered, there would have been a big Kaboom. We got the bullet out and proceeded to continue shooting.

Yesterday, Charlie was shooting and one just "didn't sound right". Stripping the gun down he found a bullet lodged in the barrel. In this case, the next round would have chambered. The round was cleared and shooting resumed. Being observant prevented a problem.

Also, yesterday, @Etruett had a new 22 Magnum revolver he was trying out. As is the case with rimfire ammo, he had a couple that didn't fire. He let me shoot it and I had one that didn't fire. I tried it again, no fire. I rotated the bullet in the cylinder so the firing pin would hit it in a different place. After the 3rd time, it fired but sounded like a hang fire and sounded weak. You guessed it, another bullet lodged in a barrel. It was cleared and all was good again.

So, if it doesn't "sound right" or if you have a problem to chamber a round or a failure to eject in a gun that has never failed to eject, STOP and check it out. @garvin was saved because his gun wouldn't chamber the next round. The others could have fired the next round causing damage to the gun, the shooter, and people around the shooter.
 
Any of the offending rounds a reload?? I've seen more than my share of squib reloads AND some in factory loads.

If I'm shooting with someone and their shooting reloads and they aren't consistent I stop shooting with them. I've had it happen more on a skeet field than anywhere else. There are 3 guys that show up on the skeet field that I won't shoot with, 2 are because of their reloads and the other one is because of his mouth, he can't keep it shut......
 
Bailey Boat said:
Any of the offending rounds a reload?? I've seen more than my share of squib reloads AND some in factory loads.

If I'm shooting with someone and their shooting reloads and they aren't consistent I stop shooting with them. I've had it happen more on a skeet field than anywhere else. There are 3 guys that show up on the skeet field that I won't shoot with, 2 are because of their reloads and the other one is because of his mouth, he can't keep it shut......
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Yes, reloads, except for the 22 Magnum round, obviously.
 
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You know, the only time I've had a squib load was at Battery Oaks (wife's gun)

And....it was a factory load (Federal / Independence 9mm JHP)

hmmmmm might be in the swamp air down there ;)
 
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Ikarus1 said:
You know, the only time I've had a squib load was at Battery Oaks (wife's gun)

And....it was a factory load (Federal / Independence 9mm JHP)

hmmmmm might be in the swamp air down there ;)
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I was gunna say, thousands of rounds out of my guns, thousands more out of friends and those around me and not a single squib with a bullet in the barrel. Three at Battery Oaks in a couple weeks!? The odds!
 
I've quit loading pistol rounds, too much bad luck with squibs. Probably operator error but I don't like the bad juju.
 
Out of tens of thousands of rounds I have had maybe three squibs. All of which were in hand gun reloads not rifle. I also of am the mind if it does not sound or feel right check it out.

Glad to hear no one got hurt. Bad things can happen with squibs.
 
I don't trust reloads unless it's someone I know that does it well. Seen too many squibs and one in particular was very hard to get out of a 586.
 
Learned from my first one early on and changed my habits. Been good to go until this weekend. I was pulling a batch of 308 that I loaded and found an empty case!!? Another lucky break I guess.

But I've had far more incidents involving factory ammo and I shoot a lot less of it.
flipped primers
bad primers
missing primers
crushed cases
split cases
cartridges coming apart in the gun
terrible leading

Never had a squib from a factory load... yet.
 
On active duty, shooting in Iraq, my buddy had a squib round. He was lucky that he felt "something wasn't right" and he didn't fire another round. He dropped it and drew his secondary.

Upon further inspection, later, we found a bullet half way down the barrel. Armorer knocked it out with a dowel rod and my buddy's Mk18 was back in business. He kept the bullet and taped it onto his dog tag as a reminder...
 
I had a squib once, my fault, made a dummy round setting up dies and accidentally used a case with a live primer then accidentally got it into the loaded rounds. No powder, fired it and the bullet never left the case.
 
I've had a couple with my reloads. A couple weeks ago, I was doing some quick controlled pairs with my Roni. Low and behold, the first of a pair felt/sounded a little different. Thing is, I acknowledged it in my mind, but my trigger finger was faster. Bullet was far enough down, because the next shot blew the squib out. It bulged the heck out of the end of the barrel, so much it took a four pound hammer to knock it out of the slide. Found one of the bullets on the ground in front of me. It didn't tear up anything else. Put another barrel in this past weekend, and gun ran with no problems. Yeah, the sun shines on a dogs behind every now and then, lol.

Sent from my LM-Q710.FG using Tapatalk
 
Have had two squibs, both in my new G-19 and both were reloads. That was the first and last time I ever bought those and threw the rest away.
 
Amps 13 said:
Have had two squibs, both in my new G-19 and both were reloads. That was the first and last time I ever bought those and threw the rest away.
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There are a lot of people on this forum that swear by reloads, but I just can't do it... I bought a bag of .45acp reloads once at a range. I had about 10 malfunctions within the first 20 rounds. I complained and they gave me a refund. I've never bought any reloads again. Im sure it's just luck of the draw... But, I don't trust them...
 
The only squib I’ve gotten has been from a factory 9mm round. Fortunately it was the very last round in my magazine AND the last round of the day (planned and unplanned). This was lucky because while the report sounded correct, it didn’t “feel” right...not as much muzzle flip or something.

The 147gr bullet was lodged in the absolute middle of the barrel and was very hard to drive out
 
Geezer said:
The last few weeks we have a few instances of bullets not making it out of the barrel on some handguns.

@garvin had what was first thought to be a failure to eject on his Glock 43. After working the slide to eject the round, the slide would not return to battery. A closer look showed that instead of a failure to eject, he had fired a squib load. The bullet was in the barrel but had not gone far enough to allow the next round to chamber. Had the next round chambered, there would have been a big Kaboom. We got the bullet out and proceeded to continue shooting.

Yesterday, Charlie was shooting and one just "didn't sound right". Stripping the gun down he found a bullet lodged in the barrel. In this case, the next round would have chambered. The round was cleared and shooting resumed. Being observant prevented a problem.

Also, yesterday, @Etruett had a new 22 Magnum revolver he was trying out. As is the case with rimfire ammo, he had a couple that didn't fire. He let me shoot it and I had one that didn't fire. I tried it again, no fire. I rotated the bullet in the cylinder so the firing pin would hit it in a different place. After the 3rd time, it fired but sounded like a hang fire and sounded weak. You guessed it, another bullet lodged in a barrel. It was cleared and all was good again.

So, if it doesn't "sound right" or if you have a problem to chamber a round or a failure to eject in a gun that has never failed to eject, STOP and check it out. @garvin was saved because his gun wouldn't chamber the next round. The others could have fired the next round causing damage to the gun, the shooter, and people around the shooter.
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The upside is...I'm getting good at knockin em out!
 
I had two squibs in last couple months. Last couple thousand of first batch of reloads we did.

I haven't loaded one since I got a Dillon square deal and I changed my MO a bit. Which is tens of thousands now.
 
I had a squib a while back and it scared me bad. It was factory made Monarch ammo, I haven't shot any of that brand since. Went back to Winchester and Federal, not saying it can't happen with them too.
 
Thankfully I haven't had one yet. *I HOPE I didn't jinx meself!*

When shooting suppressed subsonic 300BLK I paying more attention to how each round sounds/feels.
 
I squibbed one in the best shooting 1911 I’ve ever shot. Reloads that I apparently missed powdering one. It didn’t seem any different and I sent the next one right behind it. The next one didn’t fire and when I looked the slide was kinda locked back and part of the chamber was sticking up through the the ejection port. I took it up to the loading bench and put it in the vice, tapped off the slide and the barrel fell out in 5 long shards. Putting them together again you could see the bulge in the middle of the barrel. I was lucky that the slide contained it all. I rebarreled it but it never shot as well as before.
 
I decided to give plated bullets a try a couple of years ago. Tried some Berry's and Ranier. I didn't know at the time because of the plating and extra friction that the velocity was reduced. I had some HBWC from Berrys that I loaded with 2.7gr of Bullseye just like I had done on thousands of lead bullets. Had several that didn't make it out of the barrel on a 8 3/8" Model 686. Thought I had loader problems but just so happened to read somewhere about the reduced velocity of plated bullets and I figured it out what my problem was. It was weird as the ones that didn't exit the barrel had a different sound when I fired them and thankfully it caught by attention before I fired another behind them. Sounded very weak. I'm guessing the bullet not leaving the barrel muffled the muzzle blast? I've since switched to coated lead and won't ever use plated again. Not because of this problem, but coated lead shoots just as clean and accurate and are a lot cheaper than plated.
 
Goofyfoot2001 said:
I was gunna say, thousands of rounds out of my guns, thousands more out of friends and those around me and not a single squib with a bullet in the barrel. Three at Battery Oaks in a couple weeks!? The odds!
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Because he knows y’all will get cold feet with the gun and offload it on here in like-new condition for 1/4 the price of retail.
 
Good thread here guys and quite a bit of experience is being shared so that all can practice safety measures with your firearms. Thank you @Geezer for starting this one sir.

I'm sure that I'm not the only one who is reading this as a wake up call to safety while shooting.
 
If you have been shooting for any length of time especially around other people, you going to experience a stuck bullet. It might be yours or someone elses ? That's why you always want to pay attention to the person that's shooting because you might have to intervene someday. The term " If you hear a pop then stop" fits well but If your focused on shooting and usually in a competition, you might just cycle the gun and try again.When ever some one is shooting, no matter their skill level, pay attention and if you see or hear something unusual? Feel free to call Cease fire as loudly as you can . Years ago when I used to work an indoor gun range, we had a poster that was sent to us from Dan Wessson arms. It was a barrel of one of their 357, that was cut away down the middle and its showed 5 bullets stuck in the barrel. That's a tough gun..
 
JimB said:
I had a squib once, my fault, made a dummy round setting up dies and accidentally used a case with a live primer then accidentally got it into the loaded rounds. No powder, fired it and the bullet never left the case.
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Then the primer wasn't LIVE and that would be referred to as a DUD, not a squib....
 
Had an instance this weekend, not with a squib, but an underpowered round. I always use Remington 115grn target loads for practice because I have found it to be the most accurate and close to the way my carry ammo shoots out of my pistol. I probably shot close to 150 rounds Saturday. On my last box of ammo I notice something bounce or fly off the 7/16 plywood that I use as a backer board for my targets. Being curious I wanted to see what it was. On the ground in front of the plywood I found a non-deformed fmj 9mm round. The round had enough power to make it out of the barrel but bounce off the plywood. Needless to say I made sure the rest of the rounds in the box were making it out of the barrel, and put holes in the paper.
 
Bailey Boat said:
Then the primer wasn't LIVE and that would be referred to as a DUD, not a squib....
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Maybe I have the wrong words.

The primer detonated when the firing pin struck it, so wasn’t it a live primer?

I get that if it doesn’t get into the barrel it’s a dud rather than a squib, hadn’t considered that.
 
The only squib I've ever had was factory ammo. Remington thunderbolt .22. I'll never buy or shoot that crap again.

The most important rule of reloading is pay attention. Then pay more attention than that. If you've had more than one squib with reloads (ie, you didn't learn from the first screw up) , it may be time to sell the reloading equipment.... just sayin.
 
JimB said:
Maybe I have the wrong words.

The primer detonated when the firing pin struck it, so wasn’t it a live primer?

I get that if it doesn’t get into the barrel it’s a dud rather than a squib, hadn’t considered that.
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If the primer was detonated when struck by the firing pin the force of the primer would have moved the bullet forward from the case into the rifling. A primer is a more powerful explosive than most people give them credit for. The only way for the bullet to remain in the case would have been for the primer to be already dead.
 
I’ve only had one squib load, and it was factory Remington 357 magnum. No computers back then, but a call to Remington took care of it. Dropped remainder of the box off at a local gun shop, and they replaced it.
 
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