How can this happen?

[stang68]

At the range yesterday, after shooting my .357 magnum Marlin, I decided to shoot some of the cartridges that I had loaded for the carbine in my Model 19-2. After about 20 rounds I had what I thought to be a dud. After waiting 15 seconds I tried to open the cylinder and was unable. I then figured that I had a cartridge with primer but no powder and that the bullet was lodged partly in the forcing cone and partly in the cylinder. I know what that's like because I did that once on purpose just to see how far a primer alone would move a bullet. After driving the bullet back into the case I was able to open the cylinder. When I got home I was curious as to what happened and used my bullet puller and was completely surprised to see that there was a full load of unburnt powder in the case. I'm at a loss as to how this could occur. The primer had enough punch to move the bullet out of the case into the forcing cone but did not ignite the powder. My load was a .357 case with a 158 gr LSWC over 12.1 gr AA#9 with a medium/heavy crimp. Has this ever happened to any of you?

[ronnie gore]

i had the same thing happen with the same powder, i was using standard primers so i switched to magnum primers but have not tested but a few of them.
also check the flash hole i have gotten brass that did not have a hole.

[jj2am44]

How did it move the bullet out if it didn't have a hole? I could see maybe the primer backing out against the recoil shield and tying it up. But he said it was in the forcing cone. Go figure.

[stang68]

I forgot to mention that the primer was a WSP (non-magnum small pistol)

[38-44HD45]

How old is your powder? Could it have gotten water or oil in it? Has it been stored where it gets really hot? If it's not old powder that has been stored in high heat, and wasn't wet or oil-soaked, then I have no idea how it could have happened, even with a non-magnum primer, especially if the primer was hot enough to push out the bullet. Are you absolutely sure that the round you pulled after you got back home was the offending one, and not one of its neighbors? You might just have a primer-only round still lurking around somewhere...

[stang68]

Yes, I'm positive because I separated it from the others, and it was the one with the spent primer and a bullet pushed far down in the case from when I used a dowel in the barrel to drive it back into the case. The powder is old, I bought it from an individual, it was sealed when I bought it, and I've kept it indoors. When I bought it I smelled it after opening and it had no strange odors. I've loaded and shot 400 or more rounds with it with no problems until that one.

[pownal55]

i had the same thing happen with a 17mach 2 rifle using cci ammo. the powder had dried to a hard mass, split the case neck and pushed the bullet half way up the bore. most of the powder remained in the case.

[MMA10mm]

Cold temps, contaminated powder, low-power primer, low bullet resistance (light-weight bullet or bullet that is not crimped does not give enough resistance to the powder-burn to combust correctly/completely) are all factors that can reduce performance, and if you combine two or more of them, it gets dicey.

Has it been humid then dry where you're at? I had some loads once in 9mm using a flake powder that I had loaded when it was very humid, and when I took them out to shoot them it had gotten cool and dry, and condensate had contaminated the powder. After two squibs, I pulled some bullets and about every 4th round had a semi-wet, clumpy consistency to the powder...

AA#9 with light bullets and heavy powder loads needs magnum primers. It's one of those in-between powders. Most say to use a magnum primer with all ball powders, and I've found that AA#9 (one of my primary-used powders) does OK with regular primers in most applications, but I never shoot light bullets in the calibers/loads I use AA#9 for.

For Large Pistol priming, I only use Winchester primers now. They say "For Standard AND Magnum Loads" and are in-between a standard and magnum primer in power. Winchester came up with this primer for their own loading of ball powders in pistol cartridges, and it has served me equally well with W231/HP38, HS-7/W571, and AA#9/WC-820 throughout the years.

For small pistol priming, as you're doing, you have to stock some magnum primers, especially for slow-burning ball powders with light bullet loads.

[stang68]

Thanks to all for the responses.

To answer MMA10MM and others:
The powder, according to Accurate based on the Lot# is from 1999. They told me if it had been sealed and had no noxious odor it would be fine.

The powder was not contaminated with oil or water.

The powder was not subjected to high heat or major changes in humidity since I've had it.

I've loaded and shot over 400 rounds with that powder with both 158gr LSWC and 158gr XTP's with no problems. I want to get some WSPM primers but can't find them or any other primer locally for a long time now. I guess I'll just load with Unique until I can find some magnum primers.

Hopefully that was just a one in a million circumstance.

[VAdoublegunner]

I had that happen one time not with just one but with several cartridges. It was just after Alliant changed over to the new, cleaner Unique. Not only did a few fail to fully ignite creating a lot of "wet" looking powder, when I checked the cases later I found that the nickel plating was flaking off of several that did fire. This was once fired range pick up that I watched the guy fire. Very weird. I attributed it to having moisture in the brass, since the unburned powder was wet in appearance.

I had some friends at Alliant at the time and ended up talking to their ballistics guys about it. They gave me some new powder and took the old stuff and my brass to check out. It was a fairly standard load in 38 Special using a Rem 110 JHP bullet. They may have had a bad lot in some of the early runs.

In your case I would guess a partially blocked flash hole that didn't allow enough flame front to pass to ignite the powder but did increase the pressure in the case enough to push the bullet out.

[WR Moore]

FWIW, on another site there was a thread on recommended primers for certain calibers. Checking the Winchester data sheets showed that the WW SP Magnum primer should be used in that cartridge with all powders. Remington lists the 5 1/2 primer as the correct primer for .357 Magnum, 357 Sig and .40 S&W. I don't know about any differences in primer compound, but the reason for the specification by Remchester was those primers have thicker primer cups to better withstand the pressures of the cartridges.

Not that I haven't used standard primers in .357, but I generally don't push the pressure boundries and I use Unique.

[stang68]

I'm thinking that I may just start to clean the primer pockets of the cartridges before reloading either manually or by de-capping before tumbling. I guess that it's possible that if there's a lot of residue around the circumference of the primer pocket when priming, the primer could be crushed slightly, causing the problem that I experienced. Any thoughts on this?

[Rancher]

Stang68,

You probably already know this, but I'll post it anyway, just to be sure. If you decap before tumbling, a substantial number of cases will come out of the tumbler with media particles firmly lodged in the flash holes. Inspection and removal is tedious, but critical.

[stang68]

Thanks Rancher, I do know that but I appreciate all reminders especially when it's a safety issue. I reloaded today, decapped first, and then manually cleaned the primer pocket.

[thedane]

To answer your question it has happened to me. 30 years ago when I loaded up some Winchester 458 Magnum cartridges. The primer ignited the powder didn't. I drove the bullet out with a dowel. I tried it again same result. I never did figure out what the problem was but I think it must have been a bad powder/primer combo.

Fast forward 30 years, I recently loaded some 41 Magnum cartridges. I believe it was with Hodgdon H110 and CCI Magnum primers. After a few rounds, a bullet lodged in the barrel and the powder was unburned. This powder was old but worked fine in all other 41 and 44 magnum loads I have used it in.

In all cases the primers were powerful enough to drive the bullet a significant way up the barrel.

I'm surprised that your primer didn't move the bullet all of the way into the barrel.

I'm very glad that in 30 years of reloading, this had only happened a couple of times. I would be happier, of course, if it never happened.

[Paul5388]

The only time I've ever experienced the same situation was with a maximum load of Alcan 7 with a 125 gr JHP in .357 brass. Alcan 7 wasn't a ball powder and never needed a magnum primer, so that probably wasn't the cause.

Since the decapping pin had done its job and I don't tumble very often, so the flash hole wasn't the problem either.

[NKJ nut]

Stang, my guess is that the flash hole itself was obstructed on that particular round.

[stang68]

I thought of that, Jesse, and most likely the cause, a granule of corn cob stuck in the flash hole. My procedure is to invert and tap every case on my reloading bench prior to putting it in the shell holder but I could have missed that particular one or maybe that didn't dislodge a granule.

On second thought, going back to Paul's post, the decapping pin should have dislodged a granule had it been there, right?

[Scrapper]

I found someone had used a little too much case lube once (the sticky stuff) and some of it had made it down the case, could this be a cause of some of the unburnt powder?

[stang68]

I don't need or use case lube for that cartridge so that isn't it.

I'm never going to know what the cause was and I'm starting to make comments without thinking, like the corn cob granule stuck in the flash hole above, so I'm just going to continue as before, being careful, and hope it doesn't happen again.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.

[Paul5388]

If/when I decide to tumble a batch of brass, I normally make a practice of blowing compressed air through each primer pocket. With 100 psi of pressure through a rubber tipped blow gun, it usually ensures a media free case.

[thedane]

FWIW, I used to decap before I cleaned my cases. Then you have to worry about the flash hole and media. Years ago I started cleaning my cases before decapping. Now it's much easier and no worries about the flash hole being clogged.