Had a malfunction with the new 22 today. 
Ok, not the gun but the ammo. Pop…pop…failure to feed. One still in the chamber, and it won’t eject. Hand it over to the gunsmith and he goes and knocks the round out of the chamber. Well knock isn’t exactly right, he says I really had to pound that out of there. Turns out the brass cartridge split and wedged itself in there pretty solidly when it expanded. Here’s pictures:
Have you had an ammo malfunction? Share your stories?
Not me but my wife has has to many problems with her Sig P238. Sig just replaced the extractor and polished the feed ramp, and test fired it and it is still having problems ejecting brass. The slide bites back on the brass and takes a bite out of the brass leaving a V at the opening of the brass. She just got the firearm back from Sig and we just went to the range today and it did it again. Needless to say Sig is going to get an earful tomorrow. I will have to ask her latter where the brass is at and take some pictures.
I have only seen that once before. It was the same ammo manufacture but I was firing it out of a single shot bolt action .22 (my very first firearm I was 15 at the time).
My father finally got the casing out and thought it was a bad extractor so we took it to a gunsmith. He ended up telling us we had a bad batch of ammo and we should dispose of it and use a different brand.
Yikes! @BJP that is really broken!
What type of ammo are u useing,might want to check the batch, for case tolerance,if reloading might went to insure sizing is correct
Just saw the pictures,might be the ammo,grain or powder off changes feed ability,and ejection capability
What brand of ammo or. A relodad,any pictures of the case bottom,primer area,what caliber,if reload who made primer. They have different strike tolerances, etc can cause issues
All of those are factory loads ranging from 90 - 95 grain. Winchester white box, Browning, Hornady American Gunner, and S&B. When the firearm was sent into Sig the first time she also sent the brass looking like this so they could see what was happening.
makes that brass mighty hard to reload… that’d be an issue at our place.
While at the range with my Bersa BP9CC (my original EDC) I was firing away with a batch of factory-reloaded ammo I’d bought when there was a rather loud explosion as my eyes clamped shut, a burst of fire singed the hair off my hands, and I felt my gun try to fly out of my hands. One of the brass cartridges was apparently too weak and burst upon firing. There was enough pressure that the bullet exited the barrel, but there was also enough back pressure that it nearly blew my slide off of the handgun. I immediately made sure neither I nor anyone else was injured, and then began disassembling my BP9 for damage assessment. Amazingly, there were not only no physical injuries to me or anyone else, but the handgun was completely unharmed (just force-disassembled in a violent manner). I will NEVER buy factory-reload ammo again. The cost savings per round is NOT worth having the possibility of that event ever happening again.
That seriously makes me wonder if you had a stove pipe. I’ve seen .22lr’s split like that before but only when there was a stove piped round. Sometimes they blow clear, sometimes they have to be pounded out.
The only other way I know of that this can happen is with a double load of powder and/or a slightly oversized chamber so if it happens again I’d have a chamber casting made and have it mic’d.
I did my CCW Qualification with a Taurus PT 24/7 .45. I cleaned it the night before, and made sure it was well lubricated. Then, I loaded my allegedly 12 round magazines with 11 rounds, one more than I normally put in them. Every time I loaded a full magazine, I got a double feed.
Every. Single. Time.
My Instructor was happy, though. I did exactly what he’d taught me to do. I got a lot of practice clearing double feeds. My AR did that one time with .223 snap caps one time right after I lubricated it too, now that I’m thinking about it.
Had this happen recently from a split case… the gunsmith had to use some serious commitment to get it pounded out. Factory new .22lr ammo, no stovepipe though, just a bad case.
Yep, that’s what I was referring to. Sorry if I was unclear.
Factory reload ammo, as explained to me, consists of casings collected at firing ranges and sent in for reload. While the casings are examined for stress it is not uncommon for some to make it through the reload process with overstressed casings that can/will explode upon firing. That is what happened to me, apparently. It took me running a wooden dowel down the barrel and pound the split casing out of the chamber.
Same solution on mine. New ammo though, rather than Factory reloads.
Yes. I’ve decided never to buy factory reload ammo ever again. I’d rather spend a few more cents per round and shoot with peace of mind rather than save a few bucks and have my gun try to explode on me again.
@BJP I’d take a a serious look at your EJECTOR. I’d be willing to bet that it is either damaged or broken off. Had a 1911 do that to brass once, The ejector had a big chunk missing out of it causing it to not clear the extracted round slamming it to the top of the barrel when the slide came forward.
Cheers,
Craiig6
This is a self induced double feed, failure to extract story. I was desperate to get a bunch of 9mm ammo together for a class but it was during the Obama Error and there was NO pistol powder to be had. My boolet an powder monger only had 5lb jugs of X700 shotgun powder. We looked at the books and decided while not preferred it would work. The powder had a very small tolerance with narrow window to operate in. I trust my reloading gear implicitly but the powder was scketchy so I stayed on the conservative side of the middle. I forgot that reloading manuals are QA’d by lawyers so the charges listed are also conservative.
So I commence to making ammo, the powder is metering like water as it is a fine flake type so my weights were virtually perfect. 2K later I’m ready to go. Me being me, something in the back of my head said take some bunker ammo. If you don’t use it it goes back, if things go bad you still have a class.
The short of the long story, three of my 9mm would run the ammo at about 90 - 95% for operation. My other two 9mm would jam about 75%+ of the time. Accuracy was actually very good, potentially exceptional.
I started the class on bunker ammo to get through the Fun DUH Mentals and get everyone confident in their skills. Then I had a grand old time inducing FTF’s, FTE’s, stovepipes, double feeds and all manner of ugly mean nasty things by tossing a fist full of the reloads into the ammo box.
While it cost me a little bunker ammo I discovered an excellent training aid and have the better part of 1,500 rounds of “Potential Malfunction Ammo” in a florescent orange ammo can. Someday I may actually develop a usable load for that powder as I have about 4lbs left, or I may try shotgun reloading.
Cheers,
Craig6
