Shield is UNSAFE

[billspencer1956]

If it is not the barrel or the ammunition could it be something else? My opinion is it was out of the shooters control too. So how did it happen?

 

[njl]

IMO people buy Commercial reloads because they want what is assumed the best reloaded ammo! Commercial reloads IMO follow the same safety concerns and Factory new ammo. Only difference is one case is used the other is new! Now I agree some remanufactured ammo use's cheaper components but a good Co. will stay with quality! FYI I buy new as the few extra $$ doesn't hurt my budget! BUT if $$$ were tight I would go commercial reloads .... I am also planning on reloading my own again in the future! The OP did NOTHING wrong buying commercial reloads from a Co. that seems to have a good rep.

Well...I'm not going to drag them through the mud, but there's a commercial reloader not far from me. I've seen a couple examples of their work (rounds given to me by people who bought from them) and both were excellent examples of "go home, readjust your dies, and try again."

But even if QC weren't an issue for some commercial reloaders, back when before I was reloading, I'd shop around, look at prices at places like Georgia Arms, and wonder why anyone would chance it when you can get factory new ammo cheaper...at the time, it was generally either CCI Blazer by the case or Winchester whitebox from Wal-Mart.

 

[njl]

That makes sense, but are you saying that bullet weight has nothing to do with recoil? That doesn't seem entirely correct. And when you say it's not difficult to produce enough pressure are you saying that with faster burning powder you can get greater pressure increases with smaller increases in powder as compared to slower burning powders which equates to less room for error? Just trying to learn something here.

Faster burning powders generally have lower grain max loads...so yeah, pressure does increase faster with faster burners.

Bullet weight contributes to recoil, but it's just one factor. Take 9mm, 115gr and 147gr. Launch both at the same velocity, and the 147gr will have more energy and recoil. Launch them both at the same "power factor" (bullet mass * velocity...i.e. momentum), and the 115gr will have more velocity, more kinetic energy, and more recoil. For another example, take .45acp, 230gr at 815fps and 185gr at 815fps. Same velocity...but again, the lighter bullet will have less energy, less momentum, and much less recoil. Either of these .45 loads will run my stock Glocks.

One of the cool things about reloading is that you can play around with different powders, charges, bullet weights, and as long as you stay inside a power factor envelope in which your guns will cycle properly, you can make ammo with as much or as little recoil as you want. If you haven't shot this sort of tailored ammo, you probably can't even imagine how much the recoil depends on the load.

 

[Bkreutz]

My opinion

 

[rsrocket1]

12 grains of Unique will fill a case without a bullet to 104.9% capacity. It's possible, but you'd really have to be ignoring the press to let that go by. it should be on the top of the case mouth if not overflowing. You would be really cranking down on the press to seat a bullet more than a tenth of an inch. If you were able to get the bullet down to normal seating length, you'd again be in the 125,000 psi region.

BTW here's 8.4g Titegroup and 12g Unique in 40 S&W cases. I had to tap and shake the Unique load to prevent it from spilling over the case.

 

[Smitty357]

Did he intentionally put 12gr of Unique in a case and then try to fire it? If not, how do you know there was 12 grains of Unique in there at the time of firing?

I honestly couldnt tell u how he managed to do that. Its not easy to cram 12gr of it into a .40 case thats for sure. After the incident he went home and went back to the drawing board. Trying to figure out what went wrong. A few days later he told me what he did. I never questioned him about it. More less just glad that a lesson was learned and nothing but a shield was lost.

I could be wrong on the 12gr, i could be exaggerating that. I thought he said it was 12gr. Thats more his expertise, not mine. I guess i should just say it was due to an over charge lol.

 

[Sig_Lover]

"Factory" reloads/ammo can be deceiving any one can get a license to manufacture ammo that dosnt mean they have quality controls. Just means atf collects a tax

 

[alleycat7002]

This go on forever

 

[WGSNewnan19]

Well...I'm not going to drag them through the mud, but there's a commercial reloader not far from me. I've seen a couple examples of their work (rounds given to me by people who bought from them) and both were excellent examples of "go home, readjust your dies, and try again."

But even if QC weren't an issue for some commercial reloaders, back when before I was reloading, I'd shop around, look at prices at places like Georgia Arms, and wonder why anyone would chance it when you can get factory new ammo cheaper...at the time, it was generally either CCI Blazer by the case or Winchester whitebox from Wal-Mart.

I actually live here by GA Arms and have toured their plant before.
Even after having seen their setup and safety measures in place, I still wont buy their loaded ammo!

At one time they used to load a 155gr. gold dot that was marked +P+. That told me all I needed to know!

Im gonna do some testing this week on actual case capacities of various powders just to see what can and cannot be put into a .40 without compression. Ill start with bullseye and work myself down the line with what I have.

If memory serves me correct a bullseye max load is 5-5.5 grains so if I can get 10 plus without compression it should be quite revealing. Ill try to post some results later.

I might even order some of this same ammo and take a bunch of measurements and randomly take down a bunch of them and look at the brass, oal, bullet weights, and powder type and charge.

 

[billspencer1956]

40S&W 180 has a special place in the history of guns. After the Miami shoot out the FBI turned to the automatic. They set a requirement that it had to match the 357 magnum. First test conducted used the 10mm with 180 grain bullet. Only problem was the FBI wanted it in a 9mm frame. The salesman from S&W solved the problem and cut the case down to a short. Removing air space and the safety margin. All this said this new round changed the history of guns for ever. Pushing a bullet in to the case will cause extremely high pressure. KBs are a engineering problem on this round, it is common knowledge.

 

[WGSNewnan19]

I would suggest anyone wanting to know the actual history of the round begin here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.40_S&W

 

[WGSNewnan19]

on another note - I find it hard to believe that anyone could entertain the idea that the shield wasnt designed to shoot the .40 cartridge. If any manufacturer had the experience and knowledge to do it - it would be S&W!
I would imagine that S&W probably knows more about the cartridge than anybody on this planet! maybe outside of winchester.

 

[billspencer1956]

I would suggest anyone wanting to know the actual history of the round begin here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.40_S&W

Confirms the history and the KBs thanks.

 

[WGSNewnan19]

Id like to point out something also regarding the "airspace" issue. The airspace issue was a result of a reduced charge in the 10mm to meet the 180gr. 950fps requirement.
They new what they wanted and the .40 was designed to meet that need. It was a knee jerk reaction to say the least but a lot of research and development went into it. There was far more to it than somebody just cutting down a 10mm case and reducing the powder load.

It was designed to be the ideal cartridge. A balance between the big and slow and small and fast crowds. I personally believe they accomplished that.

Most of the initial problems were more a result of trying to modify a 9mm pistol to shoot a new round it wasnt designed for. Thats kinda like complaining of your frame twisting on your hotrod because you dropped a big block in it. gun companies were rushing out to be the first in line with it and stuff happened. I would suggest that all those issues have been more than remedied.

Everybody has their own opinions and I can accept that but the OP didnt leave anything for discussion when he blamed the gun and only the gun.

The .40 is no more dangerous than any other round.
Yes it had issues from the start but many of those were not the rounds fault.

 

[MBIAmmo]

Second time at the range. Under 100 rounds through a brand new gun. Had to pull metal out of my brothers hand. They know this is a problem and keep selling these things.

Good morning JW - Will here from M.B.I., I'm sorry for my delay in seeing this thread. I just read what happened to you and your brother with the Shield this morning and would like to get some more details, if you don't mind.

When you get a chance, will you please shoot us an email at [email protected]? I'll let our team know to expect your email and if you can, please send the photos with it.

If you can, please also let us know in your email what retailer you bought the rounds from. We'll do our best to work with the retailer to make sure you're taken care of there as well. Obviously, we take these situations very seriously and want to do what we can to make it right.

Thank you for your time, we definitely appreciate your understanding and patience as we work through this.

 

[fpuhan]

Kudos to MBI Ammo

Kudos to MBI Ammo! I've been reading this thread with a lot of interest. I neither shoot a Shield nor do I shoot MBI Ammo, but I'd like to commend the company for enrolling here and stepping up publicly to address a rather volatile situation. I hope the OP sees their post and together they can investigate, evaluate and come to a mutually agreeable resolution to the issue.

That is all.

 

[Ed Fowler]

Great to hear MBI cares, that was exactly the kind of response I was hoping to read.

 

[CATI1835]

I have been following this thread for a bit and have been hesitant to weigh in. I don't pretend to know what the cause of the problem was the OP had but I will share an experience I had.

This was a few years ago when .380 ammo was virtually non-existent. If you could find it for $60 a box you felt you were having a good day. I had a Ruger LCP at the time and was always looking for ammo. At a local gun show one weekend I was fortunate to find one box of "remanufactured" ammo. It was from a major ammo "remanufacturer". I jumped on it like a duck on a junebug. Some time later I took it to the range. All was good for about the first 15 rounds. Then I experienced a catastrophic failure. On reflection, it was probably an over powered round, very loud report, heaver recoil, etc. I immediately knew there was a problem when a piece of metal grazed my cheek. Inspection showed a ruptured case stuck on the ejection port, badly ruptured. The ejector was gone, possible what hit me. The slide damaged to the point it would not operate freely after I extracted the case. My day at the range ended at that point.

I came away from this experience with a couple of thoughts. Even though this was from a major manufacturer (still in business), I no longer trust "remanufactured" ammunition. I will never trust handloads from anyone. People make mistakes. Its easy to make a powder loading error, either up or down. Even though the box, or individual, tells you these are "once fired" brass, you have no way of knowing that is true. The round I had a problem with appeared to have been more than "once fired" but I am no expert.

I sent my LCP back to Ruger and to their everlasting credit, they repaired it with no questions at no charge. This even though it was not the gun's fault. I could not have asked for better customer service. I kept the case for a while but eventually got rid of it. I don't think it would have done me any good anyway. Just an average commercially manufactured brass that the "remanufacturer" could easily say was not theirs. Thanks to Ruger for their stand up attitude.

I will NEVER fire reloaded or remanufactured ammo again. The possible exception would be shotshells, but that is a whole other ballgame. And finally, ALWAYS wear eye protection. Just my two cents...

 

[Heyman]

I've shot thousands of re-manufactured rounds from Freedom, but after finding a round with a bullet obviously seated too deep, I think I'm going to stick with new ammo from other manufacturers from now on. If this get past QC, what else are they letting through. My buddy also had a round where the case was completely split in two, and powder was all over the inside of his box of ammo. No picture of that one, but here's a pic of the bullet seated way too deep.

 

[Radco]

Good morning JW - Will here from M.B.I., I'm sorry for my delay in seeing this thread. I just read what happened to you and your brother with the Shield this morning and would like to get some more details, if you don't mind.

When you get a chance, will you please shoot us an email at [email protected]? I'll let our team know to expect your email and if you can, please send the photos with it.

If you can, please also let us know in your email what retailer you bought the rounds from. We'll do our best to work with the retailer to make sure you're taken care of there as well. Obviously, we take these situations very seriously and want to do what we can to make it right.

Thank you for your time, we definitely appreciate your understanding and patience as we work through this.

WOW I never expected to see you guys post here ! Fantastic to see a Co. take pride in their work and issues ! Outstanding!