Squib today

magicchip

magicchip

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So I'm off at the range, merrily blasting away from my 9mm CZ. One of the rounds sounded funny. I decided to check, and sure enough, nice and shiny bullet is lodged in the f$cking barrel.
It's sitting nice and tight, but very close to the chamber, barely engaged in the rifling. Should I tap it out through the crown of the barrel or back towards the chamber?
Any advice?

BTW..thanks for the correction Stevo.
 
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That's not a stovepipe. A stovepipe is when the empty brass is not completely ejected and sticks in the the ejection port with the case mouth facing out.

What happened to you is commonly called a "squib" round.

Reloads or factory?
 
Yep... in this case I'd say knock it back the way it came from. It shouldn't be very hard to move. Sometimes a cleaning rod will do the trick to if it is not in there too tight.
 
HeadDamage said:
Yep... in this case I'd say knock it back the way it came from. It shouldn't be very hard to move. Sometimes a cleaning rod will do the trick to if it is not in there too tight.
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Thanks for the help !!
 
Same thing happened to me on my progressive loader. I have loaded for 25 years and never a quib load but one day I was shooting my .45 ACp and the slide didn't come back and it felt weird. I racked the slide and released the mag from the 1911 and sure enough a bullet was stuck in the barrel. I tapped it out with my brass rod and started to fire again. I think I went 10 more rounds and then the same thing happened. Well that was it for the day for the 1911 and so I started to shoot the .44 mag real slowly. About 5 cylinders full and the same thing happened. I put away my stuff and headed home. I couldn't figure out why I would have squib loads. So the remaining loaded shells I put aside with a note on the outside to check for squibs latter on. I reloaded and watched every case as it was going thru the reloader and I got into about the 10th round and sure enough no powder. I took the powder measure apart and it was fine, now I am really confused. While I am pouring the powder back into the hopper from the container I notice something flash by my view and into the hopper. I got a gallon pail and dump the powder out of the hopper again and into the pail. Sure enough in the bottom of the pail is a small pistol primer. How the heck it got there I will never know but once in a while it would plug the hole up and no powder would come out and thus the squib load. Now I pour all my powder thru a strainer first and then into the hopper and I watch every case as it goes by. I am extremely careful now and if I had more money I would upgrade to a progressive that has a low powder die spot on the turret, but that will have to wait. When I got time I looked at the reloaded rounds that were in question and about 1 in 5 were squibs so I dissembled all of them.
 
hunter64 said:
Same thing happened to me on my progressive loader. I have loaded for 25 years and never a quib load but one day I was shooting my .45 ACp and the slide didn't come back and it felt weird. I racked the slide and released the mag from the 1911 and sure enough a bullet was stuck in the barrel. I tapped it out with my brass rod and started to fire again. I think I went 10 more rounds and then the same thing happened. Well that was it for the day for the 1911 and so I started to shoot the .44 mag real slowly. About 5 cylinders full and the same thing happened. I put away my stuff and headed home. I couldn't figure out why I would have squib loads. So the remaining loaded shells I put aside with a note on the outside to check for squibs latter on. I reloaded and watched every case as it was going thru the reloader and I got into about the 10th round and sure enough no powder. I took the powder measure apart and it was fine, now I am really confused. While I am pouring the powder back into the hopper from the container I notice something flash by my view and into the hopper. I got a gallon pail and dump the powder out of the hopper again and into the pail. Sure enough in the bottom of the pail is a small pistol primer. How the heck it got there I will never know but once in a while it would plug the hole up and no powder would come out and thus the squib load. Now I pour all my powder thru a strainer first and then into the hopper and I watch every case as it goes by. I am extremely careful now and if I had more money I would upgrade to a progressive that has a low powder die spot on the turret, but that will have to wait. When I got time I looked at the reloaded rounds that were in question and about 1 in 5 were squibs so I dissembled all of them.
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:eek: Pistol primers in your powder bin, blocking holes? You either need to scrap some hardware, or REALLY take more care. Think about what would have happened if that primer got hard pinched in the dispenser...!!!
 
Skip: The weird thing was that it was a new can of Unique that I was using and all the ammo that I was loading was large pistol, .45 ACP and .44 Mag. How on earth a small pistol primer got into a new can of powder I will never know. I didn't stop during the session and switch powders and the only time my hands touched the can was at the end of the first loading session to put it away. To this day I have no idea what happened other than a new can with the seal on it had a small pistol primer in it which is extremely hard to believe. The only other explanation I have is that someone put the primer in the powder hopper and then I put the powder on top of it. I always look into the hopper first to make sure there is nothing in there so maybe this one out of a 1000 times I forgot to look and the primer was in there, I just don't know.
 
If I remember right it was live, maybe when I was inserting the primer hopper one fell out of the tube thing and into the powder hopper, it beats me what happened.
 
I've been lucky. With my Hornady Progressive, I've set up the powder charging stand and bullet seating station at the every last in the rotation so I can see into my 9mm and 45 cases before the bullet seating station.

Squib loads suck !
 
I fired a 'squib' [primer only, no powder] in a S&W 1917 shooting a .45 Auto Rim ctg once. Bullet lodged about 3/4" in the front of the barrel. Noticed it immediately & stopped shooting. Tapped the bullet out with a wood dowel from the muzzle end. No buldge or ring in the barrel afterwards. And no other ill effects to the gun. Was lucky. :redface:
 
Couple of days ago, went to the range. A friend was shooting Fiocchi factory ammo in his Mk5 Webley. Last round in the cylinder had a primer, but NO powder. Bullet got out of the cylinder and barely into the barrel. Probably a good thing it was the LAST round.;)
 
So in a squib situation, what's better to do, tap it forward through the barrel, or tap it backwards through the chamber? Is it safe to do this immediately after or should you do a count like a hangfire?
 
hunter64 said:
Same thing happened to me on my progressive loader. I have loaded for 25 years and never a quib load but one day I was shooting my .45 ACp and the slide didn't come back and it felt weird. I racked the slide and released the mag from the 1911 and sure enough a bullet was stuck in the barrel. I tapped it out with my brass rod and started to fire again. I think I went 10 more rounds and then the same thing happened. Well that was it for the day for the 1911 and so I started to shoot the .44 mag real slowly. About 5 cylinders full and the same thing happened. I put away my stuff and headed home. I couldn't figure out why I would have squib loads. So the remaining loaded shells I put aside with a note on the outside to check for squibs latter on. I reloaded and watched every case as it was going thru the reloader and I got into about the 10th round and sure enough no powder. I took the powder measure apart and it was fine, now I am really confused. While I am pouring the powder back into the hopper from the container I notice something flash by my view and into the hopper. I got a gallon pail and dump the powder out of the hopper again and into the pail. Sure enough in the bottom of the pail is a small pistol primer. How the heck it got there I will never know but once in a while it would plug the hole up and no powder would come out and thus the squib load. Now I pour all my powder thru a strainer first and then into the hopper and I watch every case as it goes by. I am extremely careful now and if I had more money I would upgrade to a progressive that has a low powder die spot on the turret, but that will have to wait. When I got time I looked at the reloaded rounds that were in question and about 1 in 5 were squibs so I dissembled all of them.
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Nice one, I had a spider build a nest in the drop tube of my RCBS dispencer. It was giving me inconcistent loads when I was loading my .308's:eek: :eek:
 
Funny that. I had my first squib today, too.

My friend's son was on the range for the first time. Good thing we safety trained first. FTF. We both looked at the Beretta, he looked at me and I took the firearm from him and cleared it. The copper coated bullet was lodged about one inch into the barrel. The case was very dirty outside.

The safety procedures really worked well. Do you think my friend's son's mother would have been upset if her only son had a kaboom his first time on the range????

Some Breakfree, a wooden dowel, a hammer, and out it went after about six hits. Nicely striated bullet. It looks like something under a CSI microscope. (I'm a reloading newbie, I've only loaded about 700 rounds, all firing properly except for one today, so this stuff is fascinating to me.)

I think I'd better check my powder loading thing.
 
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Squibs are almost as bad as anti gunners. FOr some odd reason why Ive got them 2 times in my USP with Fed 147s, I had to have them drilled out. No way in hell it couldve been removed with a rod, a hammer or a sledge hammer. otherwise in my old 1911, you can tap them out easily.

Generally you can hear a somewhat loud gas like noise accompanied by failure to eject. The brass in my case looked burnt over the outside. Apparently some guns like the USP are tested that you could shoot a squib out with minimal damage to the barrel. Personally Ill wait for the drill.
 
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