Beware of 9mm Makarov cases when buying once fired brass.............

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Marksman

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Check your once fired 9mm brass for 9mm Makarov cases, I loaded one that slipped in to a bunch of once fired brass I recently purchased. It tied up my gun and the slide required persuasion with a soft faced mallet to eject the partially chambered round. I then checked hundreds of cases and assembled rounds but didn't find any more Makarov cases.
 
Son purchased some remanufactured .223 ammo. Had one .204 Ruger round that jammed up his gun.
Had to mortar the gun to get it out. Checked the other box and only found the one.

wyo-man
 
Marksman said:
Check your once fired 9mm brass for 9mm Makarov cases, I loaded one that slipped in to a bunch of once fired brass I recently purchased. It tied up my gun and the slide required persuasion with a soft faced mallet to eject the partially chambered round. I then checked hundreds of cases and assembled rounds but didn't find any more Makarov cases.
Click to expand...

One of the most basic aspects of re-loading is to inspect the components being used. particularly cartridge cases, and especially purchased once-fired brass and range pick-ups. With 9mm particularly this weeds out the odd steel, aluminum, Berdan primed, A-Merc and other junk cases, and cases too damaged to size. It also will find odd caliber stuff mixed in! Obviously you were too busy to take this principal safety precaution!

Since Makarov cases are identical in dimensions to 9mm Parabellum except for case length being 1 mm shorter there is no reason why this should have caused a stoppage in and of itself!
 
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Makarov cases are slightly larger in diameter as well as shorter length than 9mm Luger.

For instance, the case mouth diameter for a 9mm Luger is listed as 0.3800". For the Makarov, the case mouth diameter is listed as 0.3902".
 
For what it's worth, I gave a friend 1/2 a coffee can
of 380 range pick up that had 3 brass Makarov's in
it. I didn't catch it when I picked them up. SO yeah,
it happens.

He found them when he did his checks. I got a talking
to when he gave me 10 lb of .223 pickups.
 
Alk8944 said:
One of the most basic aspects of re-loading is to inspect the components being used. particularly cartridge cases, and especially purchased once-fired brass and range pick-ups. With 9mm particularly this weeds out the odd steel, aluminum, Berdan primed, A-Merc and other junk cases, and cases too damaged to size. It also will find odd caliber stuff mixed in! Obviously you were too busy to take this principal safety precaution!

Since Makarov cases are identical in dimensions to 9mm Parabellum except for case length being 1 mm shorter there is no reason why this should have caused a stoppage in and of itself!
Click to expand...

Yep

First few things I do with any brass I'm not 100% sure of is run a magnet through them. Stand them up, by a hundred or so, on a table and shine a flashlight down in them looking for the durn Berdan's and checking for odd heights.

It pays to take your time.
 
Pulled a 380 out of a bag of 9mm cases.

Sloppy holder fit and loose when sizing, made the "Red light" go on.

It happens.
Just hope that it never makes for a major mess up.
 
The Makarov round is basically a straight walled and slightly shorter 9mm Luger. They use the same shell holder in spite of the difference in the case mouth diameter.

Hard to spot. But I'll give you a worse scenario. Many of us who load the Makarov round use converted 9mm Luger cases. I do. So you could not tell by the head stamp.

To those reloaders that may have run into one of my converted cases, my apologies. Sometimes they get away.

I load all the "9x's". To avoid confusion I only use nickel 9mm cases for conversion to Makarov.
 
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I have a pile of plastic containers filled with brass cases. Each is labeled with the caliber. When I pick up the brass at the range I always line them up on my workbench to visually check diameter and length. Never had an odd one get into my stash.

OTOH, when I have bought once fired brass in the past, I HAVE found an errant case in the mix. Simple though, because before I store them I do the visual size check.

It's not really hard, and does not take much time. Maybe my diligence s the reason why I have never had a failure in 50+ years of reloading.

(OK, well I lied - once I did have a squib that I didn't catch when I observed the powder drop just before seating the bullet)
 
Alk8944 said:
....

Since Makarov cases are identical in dimensions to 9mm Parabellum except for case length being 1 mm shorter ....
Click to expand...

Sorry but that is incorrect. They use different bullet diameters so the case mouth would have to be larger. Which it is.
 
My anal retentiveness makes me sort every caliber by brand. I look at every headstamp. I am not capable of making that error. I sorta envy that. You get no empathy from me.
 
glenwolde said:
Sorry but that is incorrect. They use different bullet diameters so the case mouth would have to be larger. Which it is.
Click to expand...


OP had sized the Makarov cases in a 9mm die, so when trimmed 9mm cases and 9x18 Makarov cases a re for practical / functional purposes are identical! Original makarov bullet diameter have absolutely nothing to do with anything. I suspect any issue he had was he had loaded the re-sized Makarov case with the same 9mm bullet and powder charge as went into the 9x19 he was loading. The considerably reduced case capacity of the Makarov case would then result in a significant overload, which would explain the stuck case issue he reported. Be sure you read and understand a post before commenting on it!
 
Marksman said:
I wasn't looking for a lecture, how would you know that I didn't inspect cases ? I DID INSPECT cases, the Makarov case slipped thru mea culpa. The Makarov round DID jam my gun despite your claim to the contrary. So sir, kindly get down off your high horse.
Click to expand...


I assumed you did not inspect the purchased cases because you as much as said so since you didn't spot the Makarov case before sizing and loading it as a 9x19! Did the stray Makarov get loaded with the same bullet and charge as the real 9x19s you were loading? That would have resulted in a significantly over-pressure situation which could have exceeded the elastic limit of the Makarov that resulted in expansion of the case head causing the stuck case!


Forget your snotty High-Horse remark, YOU were negligent in not adequately inspecting the brass you bought before loading it, All I did was point that out to you since you, based on the original post, are not sufficiently experienced to have understood the safety issues in not adequately inspecting components:mad:. I have been doing this for over 60 years and will point out safety issues when seen!
 
They must make boxer primed Makarov cases now. Every one I've seen wad Berdan primed and if I'd missed it previously I'd discover it when my depriming pin slammed into the bottom of the case during sizing/depriming, hopefully not breaking off.
 
oink said:
They must make boxer primed Makarov cases now. Every one I've seen wad Berdan primed and if I'd missed it previously I'd discover it when my depriming pin slammed into the bottom of the case during sizing/depriming, hopefully not breaking off.
Click to expand...
Hornady ammunition is boxer primed as are Remington, Winchester, Federal Prvi Partizan and Fiocchi, as well as Starline brass, but not inexpensive. That is the reason I trim 9x19 cases to 9x18mm. I have thousands of 9x19 and use the Forster Power Case Trimmer in a dedicated drill press I got from Harbor Freight for about $35. I trimmed all I will ever need for my P-64 in just about an hour, several hundred!
 
I'm not sure why we are discussing reloading cases in the ammo section but in any case, as usual some people here can't be civil and can't refrain from petty bickering. Take that garbage to PM or email but don't burden us with it.

We are more than done here, just too much to clean up.
 
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