How hard does it hit the ramp
Well, you have good advice here and I hate to put in a mixture of facts and opinions that might mess you up? I am always in some transitional stage between pistols, many years apart, often splitting hairs.
I have read that excessive setback (bullet pushed back into shell reducing overall length) can raise pressures and even blow up a gun. In a semi auto pistol that can mean a kaboom out the bottom. Allegedly it can be worse on ones hand if it is a polymer frame pistol than a steel frame pistol?
I have read that factory ammo is glued in, along with being tightly factory sized when shell was created.
I read somewhere, that american ammo manufactures guaranty only, that their semi auto cartridges can be chambered 3 times safely.
If you look at a reloading book, and compare the amount of a given brand of powder, for a 38 special verses a 9mm, you may notice how close it is. Then when you look at the pressure levels they are surprisingly different. (9mm is perhaps small so hands can fit around the grip?)
Yes the 38 special cartridge can be reloaded many times and can be neck sized only if desired. A loose grip on the bullet might only have the bullet move forward under recoil. Eventually the cylinder might not rotate. (light revolver with heavy load kicks back more vigorously - bullet should be snug).
But back to semi autos. The back of the bullet shell (case) has a primer and a primer flash hole in front of that. Basically the brass at the head is pretty thick. But if a person got wild polishing the feed ramp with an electric tool one could expose more shell and it could become dangerous.
(When barrel is out of pistol, drop a cartridge in it to check how it looks - or remove the magazine on a loaded pistol and shine a flashlight up inside)
If one was to reload a shell excessive numbers of times (resize it back down many times) the flexing can make the shell more dangerous to such blowout problems than before.
Now I dearly love my many S&W revolvers. I also love my 9mm and .22 rimfire semi-autos. My 1911 colt 45 long ago was wonderful but did not feel right in my hand. And for me the thumb safety was slow.
My 40 cal Glock feels wonderful in my hand. Unfortunately the extractor is so tight the shells do not slide easily up under it like my glock 9mm. When the 40 was new the shells moving up under the extractor harshly, delayed the shells upward movement and the front of the cartridge hit the feed ramp hard. Eventually I took the barrel out and repeatedly pushed a cartridge under the extractor and repeatedly rotated it. All sharp areas got covered with a layer of brass and began working much better. (And does not void my warranty)
(The magazine spring is not at all weak, quite the contrary)
I have read that some models of pistols feed directly into the cylinder and others use a lot of the feed ramp. I notice my 22 buck mark feeds directly in and has a great magazine follower length, for a stable angle. My glock 9mm also feeds in very well, almost perfect.
My 1911 45 had a very smooth extractor lip and the shell fed in as slow as you want to release the slide. In my next pistol purchase (probably a S&W 45) I will be looking closely at the extractor design and the magazine follower front to back stability (how tall is the follower and not excessively loose).
This will be a problem because gun stores do not let one take apart pistols. They also do not let one put old empty shells up under extractors.
And I am not motivated enough to bother buying various brands of ammo to measure the depth of the groove the extractor fits in - in 45 and 40 cal.
(I would hate to polish the extractor edge of my glock and then find some brands of ammo are not gripped well, because I removed excessive metal). (Highly unlikely because it moves quite a bit when shell is shoved under it).
(Because the extractor is now the loaded chamber indicator, they may have added metal?)
Anyway I like the S&W viewing port, as a better way to check for loaded chamber.
