Had a chance to get to the range Friday and had it all to myself. Had a great time shooting different loads with my G19 and 3913.

Had a pack of (6) 9mm, 115 gr Bayou coated LRN loaded with 5.3gr of Power Pistol. From the 3913 shot the first five an on the 6th I noticed the slide didn't lock back but didn't pick up on anything else. Racked the slide and ejected the empty case noticing it was a bit black. Loaded up another mag and the round wouldn't chamber. Tried another, no chamber and the duh moment hit, and I looked and noticed no light coming through the barrel. A squib?!

When I got home and broke it down the bullet was just out of the chamber in the barrel preventing the other rounds from chambering. Had it been further down the barrel I would most assuredly fired the next round and who knows what would have happened.

Talk about feeling stupid and not recognizing what had happened but also feeling VERY fortunate nothing bad happened. The obvious takeaways to me were 1) when something isn't right, STOP and do a THROROUGH check, not the "that was odd the slide didn't lock back" and back to shooting. 2) another reminder why not to let others shoot your reloads. 3) pay attention and double check everything when loading. I feel I'm very careful and load on a SS and visually check all loads in the loading block. I just stumps me this got by me.

These loads had been loaded a while back so I can't remember anything about that session. Does this sound like a complete lack of powder or an under charge? Would just the primer firing move the bullet out of the case or would it take some powder?

I guess this post is more for me to get it off my chest and admit I screwed up than anything, although is still bugs the **** out of me!

I had that exact thing happen to me several years ago with a Taurus PT-99, same exact symptoms as you describe. The bullet also lodged just in the throat of the barrel and wouldn't let another cartridge chamber. Once I saw it wouldn't chamber the next round, I immediately checked for an obstruction though. Like you, I haven't a clue if it was missing powder or 1 that didn't ignite the powder for some reason. I was able to clear it easily by tapping the bullet out with a cleaning rod with no problem. And it also made me pay more attention to my loading habits since then too.

I made two 38 specials several years ago that were squibs ,the other 98 were fine.The primer was enough to fire the bullet into the forcing cone,but enough was left in the chamber to keep the cylinder from turning.I always look for the powder charge before seating a bullet,but I missed those two.It happens.

A GOOD lighting system and new or clean brass will help in seeing the powder in the case.

Old, used, dull, dark brass, is hard to see powder some times.

That is another reason I like my loads with at least 40% case volume....
so it is easier to see, than a touch of fast ball or Bullseye powder.

Glad you caught that bad boy.

My lighting system is pretty good. Bought my wife a very nice florescent floor lamp for sewing years ago she quit using so I recruited it for my loading area. I use it for checking cases.

As for using clean cases I never thought about that effecting seeing powder but it makes a lot of sense.

Close one! When you think about it, the powder drop is the ONE BIGGEST safety critical step in the whole process. Too little and you risk a Kaboom. Too much and you risk a Kaboom. (Other reloading foul ups will usually just get you an unusable round. ) That's why I now do all my reloading on a (Lee Classic Turret) press with one station . It's much easier to stay focused on what's going on when there is only one operation at a time to watch.

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Dave

My guess is only a primer as well. My concern would be is there a double charge in another shell from that batch?

Larry

Fortunately I shot the 6 loads of that powder and bullet combo so the 2x charge would have shown up.

Now, I did dig deep in the memory banks and here's what I came up with...absolutely nothing! But after thinking about my loading process, since there were only 6 of these rounds, I would have weighed each loaded by hand and filled with the funnel. I must have moved the funnel off a case before putting the powder in thinking I had charged it. Even with this process I still visually check the cases but somehow I missed this one. As Nevada Ed pointed "Old, used, dull, dark brass is hard to see powder sometimes". I have read were some turn the cases upside down in the block when hand charging and turn over when charging. I'm certainly going to change my procedure when loading a few test rounds.

Normally when loading 10+ cases I'm using my Uniflow, grab a case, fill it, put in loading block, check cases for powder level, seat bullet and crimp. No chance of a double charge or and empty case. I like this procedure much better but when only loading a few rounds by the time I set up the powder measure I can have 5 rounds charged and done.

Even though I got away with it, it is still VERY unsettling.

I changed my routine to dropping the powder,eyeballing it and then seating a bullet before setting it down again

Glad to hear that your warning didn't become a more serious event! So it was the almost the last round in the mag? Perhaps some bullet movement under recoil of the others? By chance it wasn't one of those 9mm stepped cases was it? Any chance there was a split in the lower part of the case that you did not see?

Your warning about not just accepting that something isn't right without going to the next step to see 'why' it isn't right is a good one. Thanks for sharing this story.
Karl

I STILL feel the hair on my neck stand up thinking about my first squib. 38 spl round in my 686. BANG, BANG, BANG, pop, .... Both my buddy and I looked over at each other. About 1 inch down the barrel was a squib.
Closed up shop, couldn't shoot another round, even in another pistol. Too upset.

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Reg. Magnum wants/Rossi wallet

Well I certainly won't forget this one and it will always be a reminder to pay attention when loading AND shooting. Don't get complacent.

"He who forgets his mistakes are destined to repeat them"

I was new to reloading and I was reloading 38 spl. I noticed when I was shooting some reloads that I didn't seem to be hitting the target on some but I didn't stop shooting. Then I noticed one round didn't sound right. I checked the barrel and sure enough It had a squib. Walking to the target noticed a bullet laying about 10 feet from where I was shooting and some paying on the ground near the target.

I knew I couldn't have missed charging the powder on so many rounds. I checked with a gun smith about it and he removed the bullet on three rounds and all had powder. He asked what powder I was using and I told him it was Hodgdons Clays powder. He said the powder was my problem which was that it was to slow of a burning powder for 38 spl.

I called Hodgdon and quickly got a very informative representative. He asked me a few questions which powder and what the jar of powder looked like and what it was. I told him my problem and what the gun smith said. He said the gunsmith didn't know what he was talking about because Clays is one of the fastest burning powders on the market now. He asked if I had crimped the rounds and I said no because the bullet maker said not to do a tight crimp other than just a tight fit. He said he felt that was my problem. He said the bullets could be moving forward from recoil and also from first ignition so the pressures were to low then due to the increased space in the shell. He said try crimping the rounds and see if that works.

So I went set up a Lee crimping die and crimped all the rounds I had left. When I shot these I noticed right away they had more power to them and sounded louder even. The bullets were actually fairly accurate on target now also. So the crimp or lack of was the problem. I knew I hadn't missed the charging step.

I crimp all rounds now whether bullet maker says so or not. Haven't had a weak or squib since.

If the round doesn't sound right or you couldn't see where a round hit then you might better stop and check for a squib.

When it just goes "pop", ya'll better STOP! If your semi-automatic pistol won't chamber the next round or eject the case it is time to remove the magazine and break the pistol down for a full inspection.

A total lack of powder with a revolver "usually" precludes the cylinder from rotating, but... A misload of say, a 1/3rd charge, could put a bullet halfway down the barrel and then... A KABOOM!

Sounds like a primer only load even a grain or 2 of power would have pushed it further into the barrel than that. Everyone thinks their reloading process is fullprooof until something like that happens. I find it is much easier to make mistakes when loading up various increments for testing.

I had a case split very badly in a Glock 30. In a load that generally left pristine brass, this case had a full-length split I could put my thumbnail into, and heavy scorchmarks around the split. Bullet lodged in the chamber throat area.

In review, I don't think it that a no-charge is probable, either.

Me too. But I weigh every charge , as well. I used to drop 50 charges into 50 cases, but my hand hit something as I was putting number 45 into the block so I spilled the powder into the other open cases. Now I seat the bullet right after I drop powder.

Let's all be grateful that things worked out the way that they did and you were not hurt.

I have a set of written reloading procedures designed to make sure everything is done properly. I have a checklist keyed to the procedures that is completed for each batch of cartridges. The checklist, along with a form about the load are filed in a binder so even today, I can go back and pull out the form showing on November 16, 1980, I loaded 150 rounds of 223 Remington, using:

• GI brass,
• CCI primers,
• 25.0 grains of Winchester 748 powder
• Hornady 60 grain soft point

per Hornady Handbook #4.

My written procedures provide for three opportunities to visually verify powder is in the case:

• At the time the charge is weighed and put in the case
• After all cases in the loading block have been charged, and
• Using a direct light source with the loading block held at an angle, verify the shadow cast by the case mouth on the surface of the powder.

Even with that, there is a final step to catch a squib when every loaded round is check-weighed to ensure it weighs more than the combined weight of a case, bullet and primer. Any light rounds are disassembled and inspected because a round that is 10 grains lighter than its fellows and has a full powder charge warrants investigation.

Squibs suck.

Boy did you get lucky...if that bullet had lodged just a mite deeper that next shot would have been an " incident".
Be careful and thank the Lord ....he was watching out for you that time .

Gary

I don't want you to think I'm making fun of your misfortune, but the way that photograph is shot; with the angle and the lighting, it looks like something drawn by Warner Brothers. It certainly caught my attention.

Amen to that!!

That's my SOP to the letter which is why this has me scratching my head. I also make notes to put in the box or package of rounds. That's the worst part is I don't have clear understanding of HOW it happened. What I do have is the squib bullet sitting right on my bench as a clear reminder of WHAT happened!

Thanks all for lots of great stories and advice to learn from.

Two years ago I heard my pop,I bulged the barel on a new G30. I bought a new barel andhave been watching my reloads very carefully since then.