Reloaded 9 mm case failure

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I'm not sure if I or anyone who could have been standing beside me 5 minutes before was lucky today not to be injured but I sure got a scare when upon pulling the trigger there was a flash and I felt pressure on my hands holding the gun. The shot felt a lot "different" from the usual. After checking that I still had all my fingers and upon examination of my Baby Eagle Jericho 941 9 m.m. I found that the bottom of the magazine had been pushed out and the right-hand side grip had been pushed away from the frame a little bit. I cleared the gun and tried to remove the magazine which is when the base separated from the tube part with the spring popping out. My hands had a lot of black on them (from burning powder blowing out everywhere from every orifice the gun has) as did the remaining cartridges. The bullet had enough ooomph to go out the barrel so that isn't a concern. I looked around on the floor and found the casing which you can see a picture of below.
I'll take a closer look at the gun later when I clean it and hope I can unscrew the grip and reseat it. Hopefully that's all the damage that got done and the mag can be reassembled.
I learnt today how much power is normally sent down the barrel and I'm grateful that IWI make one heck of a tough gun. Also glad no-one was standing beside me. If that small piece of brass went flying out the breech when the casing burst it would have caused some damage to anyone it hit.

Has anyone else experienced casing failures on reloads?


Fail.jpg
 
To me it looks like the round was not fully chambered.
I used to release the slide slowly but one range officer told me it could cause things like in your picture.
 
have seen this happen and have had it happen to me, can be the case of weak brass, tomuch powder, unsported barrel, some times it just happens, i see a factory load do this and i have had a reloaded round do this to me on a 9x21, scary at the time but i wouldnt worrie about it, i just make sure that the bass looks good when i chamber check them. bit of a thump to the hands isnt it :)
 
pats said:
have seen this happen and have had it happen to me, can be the case of weak brass, tomuch powder, unsported barrel, some times it just happens, i see a factory load do this and i have had a reloaded round do this to me on a 9x21, scary at the time but i wouldnt worrie about it, i just make sure that the bass looks good when i chamber check them. bit of a thump to the hands isnt it :)
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Yeah, really scary. The old heart rate shot up a bit for sure. I was two bullets into firing a magazine-load of 10 when this one fired. Not sure how it could fire if it wasn't chambered properly as I've found recently that my reloading die needed adjustment as it wasn't resizing the whole case so some of them may have been weakened. To be safe I'm not going to reload any of those shells from that batch once they're gone. I had fired off about 75 at that point.
I called it a day after that.
I've just finished cleaning the gun and found some pieces of brass casing inside. I was able to get the grip back on snugly again, so no real damage done except a few more gray hairs.
I've put the gun away for now but since someone asked, I'll be happy to post a pic of the gun in a day or two.
 
yep you will find some brass inside, and inyour hands. its scary when it happens but i got over it, , see this also happens some times caused by to little poweder, to much space in the case can cause it to be a boom instead of a bang :) , always watch your powder levels,
 
pats said:
yep you will find some brass inside, and in your hands. its scary when it happens but i got over it, , see this also happens some times caused by to little powder, to much space in the case can cause it to be a boom instead of a bang :) , always watch your powder levels,
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I use a digital scale and check about every 5 rounds. I usually go with 4.4 gr of 231 Win. with a 147 gr FMJ RN. I used to use a balance scale but I found it a pain to read the white lines accurately to tell how many grains it had. I was lucky today not to get any brass in my hands. Phew. The magazine went back together again ok as well so I'm happy.:cheers:
 
out of every thing i would just put it on a bad peice of brass. and just get out shooting again, i can imaging you have out 1000's of 9mm down range, i wouldnt sweat it, youll put 1000's more down range befor you ever see it again, if ever now that your the wiser :)
 
GFORCE said:
Looks like a double charge to me.
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A double charge would almost certainly do that but I find that 4.4 gr of powder takes up over half the space in the case so if a double charge was inadvertantly put in, there wouldn't be any room for the bullet, so I tend to agree with Pats that it was a weak case and hopefully I'll never see that happen again.
 
It must have been partially out of the chamber, or it would not have blown that way, weak brass, or not.
 
i dont see how it would be partially out of the chamber, most, if any semi auto pistols will not fire if not fully forward. i know that my pistols will not and as an RO with IPSC, i have seen a few diffrent firearms not fire if just out a little.

who knows the perfect ideals for this to happen but its 1 in 10,000 . at least it wasnt a complete case seperation, that can be a pain :)
 
Do you know the background of this particular brass?? Like how many times fired? Or was it just swept up off the range floor? Just curious, my buddy and i scoop old range brass a lot.

As you said with the 9mm even loading a normal 4.* whatever grain leaves little room for anything else. Not that i'm an expert but would have to think it's an issue with brass or chambering issue if thats possible in your particular gun. Not familiar with that powder but find it hard to believe you could even put enough powder in a 9mm case to see that result if everything else, brass etc checks out.....
 
Wolfgang7 said:
Do you know the background of this particular brass?? Like how many times fired? Or was it just swept up off the range floor? Just curious, my buddy and i scoop old range brass a lot.

As you said with the 9mm even loading a normal 4.* whatever grain leaves little room for anything else. Not that i'm an expert but would have to think it's an issue with brass or chambering issue if thats possible in your particular gun. Not familiar with that powder but find it hard to believe you could even put enough powder in a 9mm case to see that result if everything else, brass etc checks out.....
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I bought it as once-fired and I don't think I could have reloaded it more than 5 times, based on the number of packets of primers I've gone through. I'm wondering if it could have been a chambering issue. My re-sizer went out of adjustment and wasn't re-sizing the whole length of the case so the end nearest the primer was slightly bulged on some cases. I have 4-5 rounds that wouldn't chamber properly. THe gun also wouldn't fire because of that so why it happened on this case is a bit of a puzzle. A close examination of the other side of the case didn't reveal any sign of cracks or bulges.
I'd take the barrel off but ummm, I don't know how to do that and I'm a bit nervous about poking out pins and stuff that might mess it up. I'll talk to one of the guys on the range I know who is very knowledgeable and get him to show me. Would be good to do that anyway just to make sure I got all the shrapnel out.
Thanks for the input guys.
 
Breaker61 said:
Take the barrel out of the firearm and check the unfired rounds for full chambering. Could be a simple OAL problem.
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I usually check about every 10 cartridges or so with a pair of calipers and find that I don't seem to need to change naything once I've got the correct OAL set (1.09 if memory serves me correctly)

Cheers -
 
pats said:
i dont see how it would be partially out of the chamber, most, if any semi auto pistols will not fire if not fully forward. i know that my pistols will not and as an RO with IPSC, i have seen a few diffrent firearms not fire if just out a little.

who knows the perfect ideals for this to happen but its 1 in 10,000 . at least it wasnt a complete case seperation, that can be a pain :)
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Had it been a complete case seperation, the diameter of the brass would have at no place on it, been larger than the inside diameter of the chamber.
The subject ruptured case has been blown out to be much larger than the chamber and could not possibly be pushed back in the chamber.
Please explain how this could have happened in the chamber.
 
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