An acquaintence shot only gas checked bullets that he had made and handloaded for his .44 Special revolver. He cleaned it one day and found a bulge in the barrel. He figured, and I agree, that a gas check must have come off, lodged and been struck by the next round. His loads were fairly warm and he shot single action and is sure he would have noticed a squib.
One of my early reloading adventures involved a then-new Charter Arms Bulldog. I had loaded a box or two of ammo for it using some cast bullets. I drove to the range and the very first round 'squibbed.' The bullet stuck between the cylinder and forcing cone, tying the gun up. I drove home, cut a hardwood dowel to length and drove the bullet out of the barrel. There was no powder in it.
I drove back to the range and attempted to fire a second shot. It squibbed. Same deal. I had left the wood dowel on the bench in the garage at home. I drove home again, drove the bullet out of the gun and checked THAT cartridge. No powder again!
Flummoxed, I weighed the remaining cartridges. They were all within a 2 grain range.
Thinking I had somehow seated and crimped the entire batch without powder, I used an inertia puller to dismantle all the remaining cartridges. Because they were heavily crimped, this took some time and effort!
Every single remaining cartridge had the intended powder charge!
Somehow, I had first shot the only two rounds, chosen randomly from a lot of 50-100 cartridges,
into which I had missed charging them with powder!
I put the dowel piece into my range bag. I never needed it again.
