A very uncool malfunction.

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northern skies

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I went shooting yesterday, it was a blast! well......almost.

M14.

Had a misfire, cleared it. I couldn't find the round on the ground, so I decided to unload my rifle the noisy way before starting an extensive search.

I noticed the bolt wouldn't fully close. I checked the bore, to find a bullet sitting in the lands!

It's no wonder the round was so hard to find, it was hiding in the empty cases without a bullet.

Well, I learned my lesson, to fully investigate the malfunction before continuing to fire. My rifle blowing up in my face would have ruined an otherwise great day.

The ammo was Canadian surplus, Dominion 1964.
 
Yikes!! Glad to hear your safe.

This is the first time I have heard of a bullet separating on ejection.
Where did you get that ammo? I have never come across it.
 
Could you be a bit more specific on your misfire.DA 64 ball was/is very good quality ammo and I fired lots of it in uniform.Bullets are very tightly crimped and sealed with an asphalt compound and it is truly strange that the bullet would engage the rifling to the extent that it would be pulled from the case on extraction.If this was the case,you might want to get the throat of the rifle checked for clearance as the bullet should not engage the rifling when chambered. This raises pressures considerably-an unsafe situation.I once had a round of IVI 9mm sqibfire in an issue Browning HP.In this case the primer detonated,but the propellant did not.The result was that the bullet was driven forward from the case by the energy of the primer alone and lodged in the barrel, and the propellant remained in the case and partially spilled into the weapon when I cleared it.What exactly happened when you fired this defective round.Did the primer in fact detonate? What about the propellant ? Did you see any unburned powder in the action or case?
 
He said he had a misfire ( did not go bang) cleared gun and looked for loaded round on the ground, could not find it, decided to continue shooting and found bullet pushed into lands in chamber. To me this sounds like a commercial round or a reload that has a little longer bullet that got forced into the lands and when it did not go off , was pulled from the case. This is "just about " impossible with military ammo because it is crimped and glued. It would be interesting to know the make of cartridge or headstamp markings. Read a little closer Dominion 64 surplus ammo . You should have had to pull very hard to pull the FULL METAL JACKETED BULLET out of the case. When you say "misfire" what happened, if nothing happened , to me that is a "misfire" or "failure to fire", whereas a "squib" is the primer goes off and moves the bullet up the barrel just enough to ruin most peoples day and rifle or hand gun. Yours from your disciption was a misfire and it is very strange you were able to pull the bullet out of the case. When reloaders try to pull bullets from surplus ammo they sometimes have to seat the bullet deeper to break it free , so they can pull it out to reuse it.
 
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the primer did not fire.

The reason it was in the lands (just enough to be stuck) was because the next round drove it into them when it was chambered. There is a big dent in the base of the offending bullet from the next round. The M14 really flings them in there, as with most semi's.

Since there was no squibfire, I made the mistaken assumption that the round was whole. The line was live, and I wasn't able to search all around the bench until the line was clear.

I always run a pull-through through the barrel and visually inspect it before the first load of the day, and repeat this periodically during the session. Since military ammo is so heavily crimped, I have never heard of a round separating only from extraction (and by hand for that matter). It didn't occur to me as a possibility. Like I said, I learned something from this and will be even more methodical now.

Bearman: like the original post says, it's DA 64
 
OK,I'd set aside the misfire concern and focus on why the bullet from the unfired round was stuck in the rifling to the extent that it remained there when the unfired case was extracted and BEFORE the next round seated it even further into the rifling.I'd be concerned about the possibility of this particular barrel being short-throated to the extent that it will allow the bullet of a MILSPEC ball round to be engaged in the rifling on chambering.This is a possibility with even the best quality control in place,and who knows just what the Chinese use in their M14 clone manufacturing processes.This is an unsafe situation because this raises breech pressures and because the problem will repeat itself at some point in time.Next time you are at the range you can check on this by stripping your bolt completely(no firing pin and extractor),marking the bullet of an unfired round with a black felt tip marker,and then chambering the round and closing the stripped bolt behind it by hand(no operating rod spring).You may or may not feel resistance when the bolt if fully closed on the round. Next, retract the bolt by hand and shake the unfired round free from the chamber and examine the bullet for the presence of rifling marks.If you see rifling marks on the bullet,you will need to have the throat reamed to establish additional freebore in front of the rifling-unless you decide to only shoot handloads made up short enough to preclude the bullets from engaging the rifling on chambering.You can also replicate the bullet/rifling clearance test at home by making up a dummy round with a pulled DA64 bullet seated to the same overall length as an unfired ball round.
 
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