Near Catastrophic failure with the Shield...

[Dezfan]

So exactly how cheap are these "gun show reloads" when they cost you a gun and possibly bodily injury?

Because no one has ever had a simular experience with factory ammo.

 

[scooter123]

Try fitting that fired case into your barrel. I expect that you'll find that it will only go in far enough to be about 0.20 inch short of fully chambered. This means the case was under pressure and this far from fully chambered when it failed. That fully fits the definition of an OOB event, a cartridge being ignited while not fully chambered.

Now, I cannot say for certain it was a fault in your pistol. On rare occasions a high primer can "catch" the lower edge of the breech face and cause a premature ignition. IIRC Sig Sauer recalled a batch of early P229's that were sold to Law Enforcement so they could modify the lower edge of the breech face to prevent this potential.

 

[federali]

It could be that the round was out of spec, yet, the gun fired out of battery which should not have happened. I'm not familiar with S&W Shields. I know that Glocks, for example will indeed fire slightly out of battery to compensate for dirty combat conditions. With that much shell exposed, the gun should not have fired.

 

[hoc9sw]

As to modifications, my Shield 9 has none. I am a "factory spec" guy.

I have experience with Freedom Munitions, but only new rounds, which are good so far. I don't use reloads or "remans" in keeping with warranties, as I can (and do) break anything / everything (guns, cars, coffee pots, you name it).

I disagree with those who say a Shield will not fire OOB, as I have seen it happen.

 

[Mcwsky09]

Likely not a factor here but during my last reloading session with 9mm 115 grain round nose I found a 124 grain flat point 9mm projectile which calls for a different powder charge but likely not sufficiently different to cause a dangerous condition. I've never bought and 124 grain so it had to come from the factory that way. So there could have been something wrong with that single round. However, I would say it looks like a case failure and it blew out along the ramp so not out of battery and far less damaging that an OOB would likely be.

 

[Rastoff]

I disagree with those who say a Shield will not fire OOB, as I have seen it happen.

As I said earlier, I think it's possible for a Shield, and other semi-autos, to ignite while out of battery. I just don't think it's possible as described in the OP.

As support for what I just said, when any of the M&P guns are out of battery, the chamber has dropped. This will move the primer out of line with the striker. Therefore, the gun cannot be fired out of battery by pulling the trigger. A piece of debris is another matter altogether.

 

[robkarrob]

The photo "seems" to show an OOB firing, but not so. I agree with Rastoff, the Shield does not fire until the barrel is 98% locked. I say 98% as the trigger pull will cause the sear to release the striker when the slide is about 1/32 to 1/16 inch rear of full lockup, but the back of the casing is still contacting the breech face. The barrel is not fully locked upwards, but is very close to being fully locked upwards, about 1/16 inch from fully locked. Since the back of the cartridge is up against the breech face, then the cartridge is fully chambered. The case is still fully supported, and the barrel is 98% fully raised and partially locked in place by the barrel tabs into the slide, to prevent any side to side movement. If the cartridge was not fully chambered and sticking out some, the barrel would not rise high enough and would stop well short of lock up. This stopping short of lock up would stop the forward slide movement, also well short of where the trigger pull would release the striker.

This particular casing blowout most likely happened in the opening where the feed ramp cuts into the chamber. Remember as the gun fires, the recoil is almost immediate. The extractor is pulling the case out and the pressure is still within the casing and barrel. We can speculate that the cartridge case wall was weak and or the cartridge was likely over charged with powder. This would cause the blowout to occur further up on the cartridge, as the extractor was pulling the casing out and there was still high pressure exerted against the weak wall of the casing.

To me an OOB firing is when the cartridge is not fully seated into the chamber, allowing the edges of the case to be partially unsupported and allowing the breech face to be partially open.

Bob

 

[Smitty357]

I stopped dealing with Freedom a long time ago. Due to having gotten 500rds of 62gr 5.56 (green tip). And having tons of issues through 3 different rifles. I actually gave way the last 200 or so rounds because I was just fed up with the ****. Never again have I dealt with them nor do i ever plan on it.

I will stick to the usual wal-mart ammo. As i've never had problems with it through any of my weapons.

 

[rsrocket1]

OP, if you put a case in the gun and tried to fire it "OOB" you would see that you would get a very light strike off center on the primer. It would in fact be so light that it won't set off the primer. My experience is with the M&P FS and not the Shield however.

I did not know the Shield left so much of the case exposed. The FS doesn't leave nearly as much out in the open:

 

[MKE.guns]

Over the last year all I shoot in my S&W M&P 9C and S&W M&P CORE is Freedom Munitions 9mm reloads. Well over 2000 rounds. Just received 1000 more rounds last week. Just a satisfied customer.

 

[RobertJ.]

Yeah but "Slapped the bang switch" Sounds so much more tier one internet operator bad ***.

I apologize if my post had a "tone" to it, it really was in jest, mostly. It was early, I was on my first cup of coffee, and I've done the same for the word, "boolits"!

 

[Jiman]

To piggyback on Saudade's pic, here's my coworkers Shield barrel next to my Sig 229 (.357). Don't ask me why I didn't post my M&P FS barrel...but for all intents, they both fully supported the round identically.



I know Saudade's pics are way better than mine, but in a side to comparison, there's definitely a difference. Now that I see that, compared with the OPs brass, I also don't think this was OOB.



IMO, The case ruptured at the unsupported section of the case.

 

[BlueOvalBandit]

I don't think this was an out of battery ignition.

I agree, the case does not show the classic out of battery signs.

Examples of very exaggerated OOB

The "donut" look is because pressure is applied uniformly to all of the unsupported case and since it is OOB there is more than the feed ramp that is unsupported

 

[6518John]

Whatever happend here I DEEPLY appreciate all the comments and insight from everyone, especially Doug (aka Rastoff). I have learned volumes in this thread.

 

[ggibson511960]

Crying Foul on Conjecture

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.

Pull a deep cleansing breath and recount the facts as told by the OOP and as evidenced by the photograph:

1. The case failed from excessive internal pressure (pretty obvious)
2. The firing pin struck the primer dead center (see pic)
3. The gun functioned normally after the incident

Everything else is speculation or deductions from the facts. All kinds of repeaters can fire a cartridge out of battery, but this one didn't. The firing pin cannot strike the primer if the barrel block is not indexed into the slide recess. Same for all tilting-barrel, hesitation-locked automatics (Browning's design). If the slide/barrel group is far enough rearward to cam the barrel OOB the firing pin is above the primer's center. All the speculation around the tolerance gap and the sear engagement are postulations of other possible accidents and miss the point that the gun was locked up in battery. The firing pin center-hit the primer. Keep that in mind.

Here's another list of speculations (guesses) as to the cause(s) or contributors, none of which are excluded by the three salient facts.

1. Work hardened, or cracked brass. Reloaded brass is harder from its initial firing. Those citing fatigue failure need to write their metallurgy professor for a do-over. The case in point is more brittle from its initial firing. It's not necessarily weaker. It just has a steeper stress/strain curve (less elastic), and less fault tolerant to any imperfection or overpressure event.

2. Wrong powder (not likely in an extended production run)

3. Wrong powder charge weight (not likely with automated equipment, but it can happen with hang-ups and bridging in the measure drop tube)

4. Wrong bullet weight (There are heavier 9mm bullets out there)

5. Wrong bullet seating depth (Too deep). Automated loading machine wouldn't likely do this, but a dirty chamber could upon seating the round.

6. Wrong ammo (There is some hot-hot submachine gun ammo out there)

My highly speculative guess in this witch's brew of possibilities is a combination of numbers 1 and 5, but it can't be the gun. The bad round might have held together in a fixed breech gun with more of the case head supported, so you could say the gun was at fault for not handling bad ammo better. Bad cases can fail above the unsupported portion

 

[shawn mccarver]

Stupid question alert, but:

"fired out of battery" means the striker hit the primer while the cartridge case was not fully seated in the chamber, correct?

Yes, but it could be more accurate to state that firing out of battery means that the action was not completely closed (thus, it was not "in battery"), which by definition means the cartridge case was not fully seated. Different sides of the same coin. OOB firing, however, often implies a GUN problem, as opposed to an AMMO problem, as a gun should not fire when the action is not closed.

EDIT: I wish to stress that I am NOT passing judgment or issuing an opinion about what happened in the case described in this thread. I am merely trying to offer additional insight into what is meant when it is said that a gun fired "out of battery."

 

[ironhead7544]

I only see one pic of the case and the hit does not look centered. Are there more pics I missed?

The hit looks off to the side to me in comparison to the direction of the blowout.

I am not familiar with the Shield. Is it possible the firing pin was stuck? Or stuck momentarily?

 

[Rastoff]

I only see one pic of the case and the hit does not look centered. Are there more pics I missed?

The hit looks off to the side to me in comparison to the direction of the blowout.

I am not familiar with the Shield. Is it possible the firing pin was stuck? Or stuck momentarily?

No, you didn't miss any pics. Yes, the primer strike is not perfectly centered. This is not an issue and is quite common. Just examine any brass at any range, even your own, and you'll see that not all striker hits are in the center.

What ggibson511960 is getting at by saying, "...struck the primer dead center..." is that the striker hit is not obviously out of the normal placement. Had the striker hit been on the very edge of the primer, that could indicate an out of battery event. Not the case here.


As to supported vs unsupported case, I offer up this pic:

Left to right we have:

1. Beretta 92FS
2. Browning Hi-Power 9mm
3. S&W M&P .40S&W Full Size
4. S&W M&P .40S&W Compact
5. S&W M&P .45ACP Full Size
6. Ed Brown 1911 .45ACP Kobra Carry

The take away from this pic is that most chambers don't fully support the case. All of these have been fired thousands of times and never had any kind of catastrophic failure like the OP. So, the case pictured in the OP was not due to an unsupported chamber.

What I find most interesting is that the two least expensive guns are the only ones with fully supported chambers. Weird, huh?

 

[Muss Muggins]

No, you didn't miss any pics. Yes, the primer strike is not perfectly centered. This is not an issue and is quite common. Just examine any brass at any range, even your own, and you'll see that not all striker hits are in the center.

What ggibson511960 is getting at by saying, "...struck the primer dead center..." is that the striker hit is not obviously out of the normal placement. Had the striker hit been on the very edge of the primer, that could indicate an out of battery event. Not the case here.


As to supported vs unsupported case, I offer up this pic:

Left to right we have:

1. Beretta 92FS
2. Browning Hi-Power 9mm
3. S&W M&P .40S&W Full Size
4. S&W M&P .40S&W Compact
5. S&W M&P .45ACP Full Size
6. Ed Brown 1911 .45ACP Kobra Carry

The take away from this pic is that most chambers don't fully support the case. All of these have been fired thousands of times and never had any kind of catastrophic failure like the OP. So, the case pictured in the OP was not due to an unsupported chamber.

What I find most interesting is that the two least expensive guns are the only ones with fully supported chambers. Weird, huh?

No semiauto firearm has a truly fully supported chamber. The case rim has to protrude to some degree in order to provide purchase for the extractor. Revolvers, on the other hand . . .