Near Catastrophic failure with the Shield...

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EnticeTheMalice

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EDIT: Added another post in this thread with more pics.






Today at the Range. It was ammo related. Blew out the case on a 9mm round. I was shooting Freedom Munitions 115gr remanufactured ammo. As soon as I slapped the bang switch I knew something was wrong. I could see a flash between the slide and the frame followed by stuff smacking me in the face, along with leaving black marks on my hands. It dropped the mag just enough for the slide to get locked back and the case was stuck in the extractor. I immediately disassembled the shield and thoroughly inspected it along with inspecting the other empty cases for bulging. None of the other cases showed signs of having been fired with poor chamber support. The Shield showed no visible signs of damage. Function checked it and it was fine. Then I put one round in a mag and fired it(repeated it X10). Worked fine so I put 150 rounds through it after that. Worked flawlessly. I'm just glad it didn't blow my shield up. Freedom Munitions is definitely getting a complaint email. Here's a pic of the case.

Edit to add. This range session I put around 75 rounds through it before it happened.
IMG_20141129_171739_zpsdnparpnm.jpg
 
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Glad you weren't hurt, first of all. I have some ammo from them I haven't shot yet. Gonna go over them with a fine tooth comb to make sure nothing looks suspicious.
 
Glad you're safe and your pistol wasn't severely damaged.
Let us know what they say.

Sent from my Transformer TF101
 
Gonna go over them with a fine tooth comb to make sure nothing looks suspicious.
Click to expand...


Exactly how are you going to tell, just by looking, whether or not this garbage is dangerously overcharged, making you and your gun the next victim?

Cosmetic things like dented cases and set back bullets are the least of your concerns when it comes to buying and using this **** ammo...
 
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I've been using Freedom Munitions new and reload, in 9m and 38 Special for over a year. Never had one problem in 2K plus rounds.
 
dullh said:
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Exactly how are you going to tell, just by looking, whether or not this garbage is dangerously overcharged, making you and your gun the next victim?

Cosmetic things like dented cases and set back bullets are the least of your concerns when it comes to buying and using this **** ammo...
Click to expand...

Wow easy. What's up with the vitriol?

I've personally fired over 3000 rounds of reman from them, 9, 45, 223 and 38. Nothing like that has happened. Add in another 2000 of their factory new across the same calibers.

You can find similar failures on occasion from factory new ammo, as well.
 
RalphMP9FS said:
That failure was due to the round not being fully seated in the breech.
Click to expand...

Nah. The Shield has a partially unsupported chamber. That area is the path of least resistance when remanufactured brass gives way due to fatigue or an over-pressurized round.
 
A few days ago I saw a thread post on AR15.com regarding ammo failure with Freedom Munitions 9mm. They may have some bad ammo out there. Contact them first thing Monday!

Rob
 
RalphMP9FS said:
That failure was due to the round not being fully seated in the breech.
Click to expand...

Can you expand on this? How does something like that happen?

As a prospective Shield purchaser, naturally I'm interested in how a blow out like this occurs. Thanks.

Rich
 
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It happened because of remanufactured ammo. Not the gun.

When freedom munitions sells new 1000 rounds for $202, and you cheap out and pay $194 for reloads instead...:confused:

Is your shield worth that extra 8 dollars?:rolleyes:
 
I'm going to cry FOUL here, that wasn't an ammunition fault, that was an OOB event. For those in doubt over this LOOK AT THE FORWARD POINT OF THE BLOWOUT. It is about 40% of the way up the case and I do not believe that S&W or any other responsible manufacturer would produce a firearm with a chamber design with the feed ramp this far into the chamber. That point is well past the "safe" point for the feed ramp intrusion and would lead to a lengthy trail of complaints about bulged and blown out cases. I will also point out that the Shield seems to be gaining a bit of a reputation for OOB events in the 40 caliber version so it's not really a surprise that this might happen in the 9mm Shield.

As for how this could happen, it's a matter of design. Almost any semi ever made will fire with the slide just a bit out of battery. Because trying to produce an exact cutoff point with zero tolerance for error would prove nearly impossible in a production environment, you would need to hand fit the parts on every single pistol made. Even with these measures you would have to allow at least 5-10 thousandths of an inch of tolerance or you would find the slightest bit of shooting detritus causing failures to fire. With most pistol designs the cutoff point ranges between 1/16 and 3/32 inch. However, due to tolerance stackup that cutoff can widen to as much as 1/8 inch or possibly even a bit more. Now, take a pistol that can fire 1/8 inch out of battery WITH a barrel that may have had the feed ramp cut a bit too deep and we have the result seen here, an OOB event.

Now for what the OP should be doing. First, DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. I would suggest placing that case back into the barrel with the bulge aligned on the feed ramp and then carefully fitting the barrel into the loose slide while taking care to get the extractor groove fitted under the extractor. Once you have the barrel fitted into the slide LIGHTLY tap the end of the barrel with a block of wood to get everything as snug as possible. Then take a clear picture of the bottom of the slide and another of the top of the slide showing how far out of battery the barrel was when your pistol fired. If you have some calipers put them into place showing the gap between the rear of the barrel hood and the breech face of the slide. That will pretty clearly show how far out of battery your pistol was when this round fired.

Then contact S&W, because your pistol is covered by a warranty. Now, they will want to have you send them that case along with your pistol but I would not do that at this point. Because that case is LEVERAGE. Tell them that you will send them that case once you have a new replacement in hand provided by their warranty coverage. Once that happens, send them the case so they can use your old pistol and that case to reverse engineer the fault and hopefully do a bit of design revisions to keep this from happening again.

BTW, I will note that you are fortunate because in most OOB events the clues to what actually happened are usually blown into unrecoverable bits on the range. A case as complete as yours is rare and a rather valuable bit of evidence that can be used to clearly define exactly what happened and can be used to determine the exact position of the slide and frame when this happened.
 
Prasko said:
It happened because of remanufactured ammo. Not the gun.

When freedom munitions sells new 1000 rounds for $202, and you cheap out and pay $194 for reloads instead...:confused:

Is your shield worth that extra 8 dollars?:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

According to the Freedom Munitions website, the only difference between their NEW and REMANUFACTURED ammo is the cartridge case. The NEW ammo is loaded on new/virgin brass; the RE-MAN is loaded on fired brass. The other components are the same, and it is loaded on the same equipment.

I ordered once from them-1 box 38 Special, 1 box 45acp, 2 boxes 9mm (115 & 124 gr.). The 9mm shot fine, no issues. Haven't shot the 38 Special yet. The 45acp, I won't ever order again. Felt like I was shooting a 357 Mag instead of a 45. Only found a few pieces of the brass and that was thrown out. I enjoy shooting the 45 auto and 230 gr. ball loads are fine, but this stuff HURT to shoot! :eek: All was their RE-MAN ammo. And I was using my FS Ruger SR1911.

They seem to have a good reputation and get good reviews. Mistakes happen, even to the major manufacturers, just sucks when you are "the one" it happens to! :(

Glad you and your Shield are both okay.
 
I feel your pain -- I introduced my father to the joys of the AR platform on Thurs and Friday with my heavily-hooked-up and amazingly tacticool 15-22.... and at the end of the shooting day Friday, I decided to put my magazine of 25 CCI Stingers I keep for emergency purposes or self-defense etc. (not that I keep the 15-22 for defense but just IF....)

the first one was a resounding success, a nice BOOM sound and right on target. The second shot hit *exactly* what I was aiming at, made me look like Wyatt Earp. The third one..... not so good.

Kaboom.

The consensus is that the gun got dirty from shooting other rounds, the overall length of the Stinger being a little longer, and the shooting residue caused an out of battery discharge.


Tomorrow morning I have to call S&W to send it in. Sucks. SUCKS. But at least I am okay, right?
 
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