today's match some guy's gun has seized. i walk over while guys are working on it, thinking there is a live round in the chamber. it is locked up solid, about 1/4" out of battery. single stack .45. anyway, atfer beating it senseless, we remove the front of the 2-piece guide rod and turn the bushing...real tight. finally get the bushing off. now, it gets weird. about an inch from the bore, i can see copper and assume a squib, followed buy another round. wrong! closer examination shows barrel is cracked at 6 & 12 o'clock. slide ain't moving. more hammers and muscle, beating it out of battery to get the slide stop off, we remove the slide.
now we know there's no live one in the chamber, and peer down the muzzle...guess what i see. case head that says "380" on it. thinking i'm drunk, we all look in amazement. ask owner where he got the ammo...turns out it's a reload. so, the theory was this. somehow, a 380 case got into the 45 case during the reloading process. just enough powder got dropped, then, the bullet seated, crushing the 380 brass into the 45 case. bullet fire with enuf energy to get the bullet most of the way down the barrel, then, shooter must have fired another behind it, causing extreme pressure and expansion in the barrel, which is not permanently attached to the slide. this was bizarre.