No Powder - No Bang

J

JEC

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After loading thousands of rounds, I finally did it.... and today my rifle went "click" instead of "bang". I mean it literally, the sound was no different than the firing pin hitting a dead primer. There was no bang what-so-ever! I thought I had a bad primer, but when I took the round apart, there was no powder in the case. The base of the bullet was blackened, but the bullet had not moved forward. I always thought there would be a muffled "pop" and the bullet would stick in the lands. Not today.
 
The bad ones I get are the light charges that pop the bullet about an inch into the barrel....hate that :(
 
Are you using a progressive? I don't and one rule of thumb that I have learned over the years is to glance at the loading blocks/trays, it only takes a sec. to make sure that all cases are charged. Sometimes it is even faster using a pocket flashlight. A case that hasn't been charged would jump right out at you!
 
I've loaded a well over a hundred of thousand rounds of ammo, only a few misfires, eventually you will run into one. (Funny thing is, I recall having many more duds with factory ammo!)
 
Bone said:
The bad ones I get are the light charges that pop the bullet about an inch into the barrel....hate that :(
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Yep. I wore out a dowel one day and had to use my cleaning rod to clear my 44 mag. My wonderful Lee Pro 1000 decided wouldn't throw a powder charge about every 5th round. TONS of fun. I wound up using the bullet puller for about the last 200 rounds.
 
ben hunchak said:
Are you using a progressive? I don't and one rule of thumb that I have learned over the years is to glance at the loading blocks/trays, it only takes a sec. to make sure that all cases are charged. Sometimes it is even faster using a pocket flashlight. A case that hasn't been charged would jump right out at you!
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That's exactly how i do it, flashlight and all. Light charge or no charge is glaringly obvious.
 
I reload with a regular single stage press, but still managed to forget to load 1 case once. What I have done since is have the cases primer up in my loading block before I dump the powder in. This way almost 0% chance of an error. Nothing is 100% fool proof when I'm around.
 
Happens to everyone at least once. For me it was not realizing the hopper was empty and I prolly reloaded about 12 with no powder. They were 9mm so I just pitched em in the dud box at the club. Took awhile to get the bullet outta my barrel. No kaboom though for my G17. I imagine this is how most of them happen. Since then I have continued to put reloads through her and still no problems.
 
Was at the range last week with my Glock and factory ammo when I heard a click or rather didn't hear a band nor feel any recoil,I waited 2 minutes, I dropped the mag, cycled the slide and a spent cartridge ejected... odd I thought that should have been a full round. Took the gun apart and the bullet was about 1/2 inch down the barrel.

Damn squibs.

Don
 
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I haven't had one with no powder, but I did have a squib due to contaminated powder. It didn't look like case lube as there seemed to be too much of it to be lube. The power was all clumped together. My dad was shooting at the time and there was light recoil and little noise. Sure enough, bullet was about 3 inches into the rifling.
 
I load single stage..and usually check as I drop the bullet in the case. Check it off to just being careless. The thing that really surprises me, is the fact that there was no sound when the primer went off? Case is a 6.5 X 47L which is not really that big...a bit shorter than a 260 Rem. Maybe I was lucky... that case uses small rifle primers...so it did not push the bullet forward either.
 
smoke free

Don Doucette said:
Was at the range last week with my Glock and factory ammo when I heard a click or rather didn't hear a band nor feel any recoil,I waited 2 minutes, I dropped the mag, cycled the slide and a spent cartridge ejected... odd I thought that shout have been a full round. Took the gun apart and the bullet was about 1/2 inch down the barrel.

Damn squibs.

Don
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Do not listen to the voices in your head that say " I got it beat so I can have one and it will not matter ", good on you! I am about 5 1/2 years into this and I did not smoke today but I have not gone to bed yet, and I do not plan to smoke tomorrow.
 
I know a guy that had a mis-fire and thought he just forgot to reload. Cranked that one out and put in a new round and touched it off. It did mess up a fine firearm.
 
Flashlight all the way, easy to see if all the cases are charged and all at the same level, no light or double charges. I have a small cheap flashlight in my reloading gear for just this purpose.
 
Julian Hatcher, in Hatcher's Notebook (still one of the best!) talks about sectioning two revolver barrels, one 32-20 and the other a .38. Both were plugged - full - of jacketed bullets. The .38 had nine bullets in it - nine - which means that Buddy actually reloaded and carried on!

f:P:2:

There's an angel watching out for drunkards, fools - and some handloaders.
 
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