Todays mistake...I'm damn lucky

We can't afford to be casual with these kinds of tools.

We should be focused and attentive at all times, specifically looking for mistakes like this one.

It's the easy mistakes that you have to pay extra attention to.

You're lucky this turned out to be a "Look at how close I came" thread, it easily could have been a "Sewing my 3 fingers back on" type thread.
 
It's never a good thing to make mistakes like this.

But the amount of hand wringing over the "near death experience" is amazing. The ONLY things that were at risk when shooting sub size ammo is the brass and the extractor hook of the gun. There simply isn't any risk of the gun letting go and eating any fingers. At MOST there would be a little of the gasses come back and out the ejection port and foul the insides with soot.

As mentioned by a couple of folks the pressure is actually less due to the bullet rattling down the bore with no sealing. And since the mouth of the casing can't headspace against the chamber it also means that it's hanging on the extractor only when the firing pin hits. Do that enough times and the hook of the extractor MIGHT break off since it's not really intended for that sort of duty.

I'm actually surprised that the gun cycled. The time I saw some .40 being shot from a .45 1911 the pressure due to all the leaking was so low that it didn't cycle correctly. Two rounds of stovepiping and not even clearing the empty quickly pointed to a problem which was confirmed when we found the two overly bulged .40's. Not a big deal to the gun though. And certainly zero need to buy a new barrel in the OP's case.
 
I really can't see this kind of mistake leading to missing fingers, maybe some burns at the worst as the case is head spacing off the extractor ... I'm really impressed you got 4 off without a malfunction
 
I'm surprised to hear even a 9mm cartridge can be retained in a .45 ACP 1911 magazine. Would've thought the rounds would spill out of the magazine. Some .40SW doublestack magazines don't even hold 9mm. Now I'm going to have to check all my mags at home. See how many 9mm and 40SW fit in all of them.
 
It could have been much worse. Usually, .40 in a .45 or 9mm in a .40 will result in a split case, poor accuracy, and no damage. The danger lies in the smaller round getting lodged in the chamber ahead of a bigger round. Catastrophic disassembly will be the result. 20 gauge shotshells are yellow for easy identification to prevent inadvertent loading into 12 gauge shotguns for this reason.
 
cancer said:
I'm surprised to hear even a 9mm cartridge can be retained in a .45 ACP 1911 magazine.
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Wasn't a case of loading 9mm rounds into a 45 mag, I loading a 9mm mag into a 45 gun. Externaly a 1911 mag is a 1911 mag regardless of caliber.

M
 
BCRider said:
It's never a good thing to make mistakes like this.

But the amount of hand wringing over the "near death experience" is amazing. The ONLY things that were at risk when shooting sub size ammo is the brass and the extractor hook of the gun. There simply isn't any risk of the gun letting go and eating any fingers. At MOST there would be a little of the gasses come back and out the ejection port and foul the insides with soot.

As mentioned by a couple of folks the pressure is actually less due to the bullet rattling down the bore with no sealing. And since the mouth of the casing can't headspace against the chamber it also means that it's hanging on the extractor only when the firing pin hits. Do that enough times and the hook of the extractor MIGHT break off since it's not really intended for that sort of duty.

I'm actually surprised that the gun cycled. The time I saw some .40 being shot from a .45 1911 the pressure due to all the leaking was so low that it didn't cycle correctly. Two rounds of stovepiping and not even clearing the empty quickly pointed to a problem which was confirmed when we found the two overly bulged .40's. Not a big deal to the gun though. And certainly zero need to buy a new barrel in the OP's case.
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Yup, folk like to worry. My first thought was, "gee, that was dumb, but not dangerous" Now if you loaded a 357 into a thru bored 38 S&W.....and ive seen several that wll chamber......
 
strangeday said:
i went to the range this afternoon. Using my para-ord ccw i started putting some lead down range. I was using 8rd mags and i noticed that a couple of rounds "felt" different until the slide went forward on the 8th round and to my surprise the entire round slid through the barrel and dropped out onto the table....hmmm seems a 40s&w made its way into the stack of the mag.... Until of course i picked up the brass.... Seems there were a few 40's in the magazine. I was surprised they functioned at all and thankful that they didn't blow up my gun and my hand.........


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wow.
 
Strangeday said:
I went to the range this afternoon. Using my Para-Ord CCW i started putting some lead down range. I was using 8rd mags and I noticed that a couple of rounds "felt" different until the slide went forward on the 8th round and to my surprise the entire round slid through the barrel and dropped out onto the table....hmmm seems a 40S&W made its way into the stack of the mag.... until of course I picked up the brass.... seems there were a few 40's in the magazine. I was surprised they functioned at all and thankful that they didn't blow up my gun and my hand.........


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Ha ha ha ha! Have done exactly the same thing before with a 1911. The .40 case ruptured down the side... I still have it somewhere.
 
I knew a guy who ran two mags of 7.62x25 thru his norc Tokerov clone before he realized he had the 9mm barrel in it, and that was having to rack the slide for every shot....NOT the sharpest tool in the shed that fella....after that event, i no longer attended the range with him.

Now that i think of it, that was also the day i had to convince him that the colt police positive with the non working cylinder bolt, 1) should NOT be shot with 38 spl, as it was stamped for S&W, (he said since it chambered it must be ok...and 2) that since the cylinder bolt wasn't working, he'd just line the cylinder up with the barrel by hand...seriously...until i told him that i was leaving before he tried it, he was convinced there was no issue.......some peoples kids!
 
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