As I said, I’ll never buy reloads again, but since I still had a couple of hundred left over, I thought I’d burn through them at the range a couple of days ago. I figured the worst that could happen was that I’d get some practice clearing malfunctions, right?
I set up, and just as the snow started, I began working with Glock. Drawing from the holster with my finger off the trigger, finding the target and firing a couple of two-shot strings, and then taking my finger off the trigger and reholstering the gun. Pretty simple stuff, but the sort of thing I want to make sure I have down cold. I was doing pretty well. I was really focusing on the front site, and it was tightening up my patterns.
But then I pulled the trigger and nothing happened. No click, nothing. I kept the muzzle pointed downrange and checked it. The slide was still partly open and the next round was jammed up and wouldn’t chamber fully.
Okay, weird. I racked the slide and the next round jammed up the same way. By that time it was snowing pretty good, so I cleared the gun, shot a few rounds with my .45, and left. When I got to the vehicle, I field stripped the Glock to look for whatever was keeping it from going into battery.
I tried to get a picture of the obstruction in the barrel, but neither my camera nor my skills were quite up to the task. So here’s a picture of what I found after pounding it out of the barrel with a wooden dowel rod and a hammer last night. (Great trick, by the way. Thanks intertubes.)
Turns out the item on the right was blocking the barrel, as those of you who read the title probably guessed.
Best I can figure, the primer ignited, but not the powder, which gave the bullet just enough power to make it into the barrel, but not very far. I didn’t hear any difference between it and the previous rounds, nor notice any difference in recoil, but, as I said, I was practicing two-shot strings, and running them pretty close together.
Luckily, it stopped where it did, and not, say, another quarter inch down the barrel. Because then the next round would have chambered and I’d be shopping for a new gun, if not a new hand.
Needless to say, I’ll never, ever buy another reload. And I tossed the twenty or so I had left.
Might as well say you’ll never buy another round of ammo.
If you buy reloads from hacks, you will eventually get crap. I buy reloads from a local guy, and i have shot ten thousand plus rounds without a failure; I cannot say that of the commerical ammo I have shot. So far as I know my reloader has never produced a squib. His stuff is not as cheap as others but you get what you pay for.
I have had a box of winchester whitebox with three squibs in a row, and I have had a Glaser Safety slug which was a squib. I’m glad I was at the range, and not depending on that specific round to save my life at the time.
I would never shoot a reload I bought at a gunshow, I’m right with you on that.
That’s a great point. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone personally who reloads. The folks I bought these from, Denver Bullets, have a pretty good reputation around town. I guess the only thing to do is to try to pay better attention to the recoil and report of each round.
Sorry, I should have linked. My guy is Precision Cartridge in Hobart Indiana. He uses the same type of equipment the big guys use. Sometimes, after he’s worn out an old camdex machine, he sells it used to someone like Olin.
Grouchy, cantankerous, and anal-retentive about the quality of his product, Dennis is my go-to guy for high quality reloads. He can be your guy too.
http://www.precisioncartridge.com/
First, I’m really shocked that you could have a squib and not notice it. I’ve never had one with any of my reloads (I do my own. I don’t buy them). But I’ve had one round of Winchester where the primer fired and nothing else, and another with a different batch of ammo where the gunpowder burned incompletely.
With the first, the gun didn’t even attempt to cycle. With the second, it cycled weakly. Both felt very different from a standard shot. Granted, I was doing slow-fire shooting. I might not have felt it if I was doing two-shot strings.
I guess my main point is that problems aren’t exclusive to reloads. However, looking at your other post about Denver Bullets, their quality control appears to be severely lacking.
Thanks for the tip, og. If he ships, he will be my guy. (I’m in Denver.)
And I was surprised, too, Laughingdog. I’ll admit I’m not the most experienced shooter in the world, but I thought for sure I’d notice something like that.
he ships. Not cheap, but again….
Come out for a blogmeet. Drive ‘em back. Easy-peasy.