BillD Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 Do you guys actually have that many issues with your loaded rounds that you are having jams during practice and matches? I've fired about 8-9K out of my new limited gun and I can count on one hand the number of issues I've had. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shopgun Posted July 3, 2012 Share Posted July 3, 2012 Before it goes in the gun, it goes in the gauge. Major matches, club matches or practice, that's one distraction I can do without and I can control. And I NEVER pick up brass where major 9 is fired. I've seen too many case head separations and loose primer pockets to want to deal with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hunt_fish Posted July 4, 2012 Share Posted July 4, 2012 Do you guys actually have that many issues with your loaded rounds that you are having jams during practice and matches? I've fired about 8-9K out of my new limited gun and I can count on one hand the number of issues I've had. No, I would be in the same situation as you - but I like to know that it's a gun issue rather than an ammo one. I had a jam that locked the gun solid at our Nationals - since then everything has gone through the gauge. It's not a lot of effort for peace of mind! Ryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norther Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 Either some of you don't shoot much or you have a lot more time to reload than I do. I sort mixed range brass by caliber, in the process hopefully catching the odd split case or those filled with mud, run it through the tumbler and into the feeder it goes. A few press stoppages result (a 9mm stuck in the .45, or those pesky small primer pocket .45, etc) but not many. I gauge all match ammo, including local matches, in EGW 7 round gauges, which I find are tighter than my chamber. Just about all I fail feed perfectly in practice. I don't bother gauging practice ammo, I'd never go shoot because of the time and bother involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poppa Bear Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I will be case gauging for a while and maybe permanently if I have failures to gauge. I detonated a round last night when it jammed my gun up solid. I do not want to go through that again so I will be verifying cases for a while yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blaster113 Posted July 18, 2012 Share Posted July 18, 2012 I found out the hard way why this is so important for match ammo. I was shooting my .38SC Open gun at A2 last year. After about 5k rounds, the gun was 100% boringly reliable so I figured I didnt have to bother case gauging. Had a death jam which must have took me 20-30 seconds to clear. My target sequence got f*cked clearing the jam; I shot one target twice and didnt engage another. And of course this is on the last stage of the match. Recovered from a disastrous 1st stage to shoot pretty solid up until the very last stage. It was a LONG, LONG six hour flight home.... Had some minor hiccups loading so I knew that the jam was ammo related. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
de03x7 Posted July 19, 2012 Share Posted July 19, 2012 I have been shooting USPSA and steel challenge for three years. My wife and daughter shoot also so I go through a fair ammount of ammo. when I reload it is usually 1000 or more at a time. In the first year we had zero ammo problems and I never bothered to gauge any. During the second year we had two rounds that failed to feed. Of course my wife got both of them, one at make ready which wasn't a problem and the second during what would have been her best stage of the match. I had taken the seating die out and did not have it adjusted right when I restarted. I went home and checked all the rounds I had with the barrel while waiting for the gauges to come in. Now I guage every round I make before bagging them up and any that fail will be used in practice and the brass will get discarded. I usually have less than 5 per 1000 that fail and 99.9% fire fine when I shoot them. I still check every one because I will not risk my wife having another jam due to ammo. She shoots way too well to have her mad at me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted July 20, 2012 Share Posted July 20, 2012 I've fired about 8-9K out of my new limited gun and I can count on one hand the number of issues I've had. If you casegauged every round you wouldn't remember the last time you had an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poppa Bear Posted July 20, 2012 Share Posted July 20, 2012 I did an interesting experiment tonight. I grabbed 50 .40 S&W cases out of my tumbled but not sized box and measured them at the mouth and at the base. The mouth had a minimum diameter of .423, and a max of .426. The base had a minimum diameter of .423 and a max of .432. I then sized them using my Lee size and deprime die, which was set up in my RCBS press so that the die touched the toolhead. All cases then had a mouth diameter of .422 or .423. The bases ranged from .423 to .426 which tells me that the sizing die has a diameter of .426 where it last touches the case just above the extractor groove. I then ran them through my 550 which has a Redding die in the #1 position, a Lee seating die in #3, and a Redding crimp die in #4. All cases now have a diameter of .423 where the case is around the bullet. Most cases have a diameter of .424 at the base, but a few were at .425, .426, and one was now at .428. The case at .428 now had a ring above the extractor groove. The slightly smaller profile of the Redding die appears to have pushed some excess metal down which was something I was hoping to avoid by sizing with the Lee die first. I then drop tested all 50 cartridges in my 2011 barrel. Everything at .425 and smaller easily dropped into the chamber. The cases at .426 fit but I needed to apply light finger pressure to get them to fully seat. While I did not have any that measured .427, I know from past experience that a slightly harder push with my finger will seat them, but I also need a "tool" to pull them out of the chamber because the friction is greater than my fingernails want to deal with. The one case at .428 would not seat even with moderate pressure and needed a tool to remove it from the chamber. When my Bulge Buster gets here I will try it out to see if it can resize the cases larger than .426 to where they will reliably drop into the chamber. My home made ram pushing an empty case through my FCD gave me a diameter of .424, so I hope it will work better and easier with the Lee ram. I will also be testing another set of 50 to see what the effect is of running them through the LBB, and if it will make all of my cases properly sized so that all rounds that come out of my 550 will reliably fit in my 2011's chamber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kb58 Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 (edited) I had a frustrating experience with my Dan Wesson PM9 jamming. Finally did a drop check of 300 rounds using the barrel and found that ~50 were slightly oversized. Figuring that I should be checking them the right way, I bought a Wilson chamber gauge, then for fun checked all the bad rounds again. Every single one of them fit the gauge just fine Apparently the chamber on the PM9 slightly intrudes into the acceptable size range for rounds (meaning that the chamber is slightly undersized, assuming of course that the Wilson chamber gauge is accurate.) An undersized chamber might be great for accuracy, but it's a pain because a given brand of 9 mm ammo - even if it's within spec - won't necessarily fit... So my point is, using anything other than the barrel for a gauge is no guaranty that the rounds will work flawlessly. Even if the chamber gauge is exactly accurate, it won't help you if the pistol camber is undersized. Edited July 26, 2012 by kb58 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillD Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 I had a frustrating experience with my Dan Wesson PM9 jamming. Finally checked all 300 rounds using the barrel as a gauge and found that ~50 were slightly oversized. Figured that I should check them the right way I bought a Wilson chamber gauge, then for fun, checked all the bad rounds again. Every single one of them fit the gauge just fine Apparently the chamber on the PM9 slightly intrudes into the acceptable size range for rounds (meaning that it's slightly undersized, assuming of course that the Wilson chamber gauge is accurate. An undersized chamber might be great for accuracy, but it's a pain because I can't just assume that a given brand of 9 mm rounds will fit... Have a competent gunsmith ream the chamber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poppa Bear Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 (edited) Measure the cases that will not fit. The base of the case should max out at 0.394", and the mouth at 0.380". If they are larger than this and fit the gauge the gauge is not a case gauge but a chamber gauge, because a TRUE case gauge will have a MAX diameter of 0.394" at the opening for the case to be inserted. Take one of these cases that does not fit and measure the diameter where it stops going into your chamber. This will tell you what the true MAX diameter of cases can be that will fit your gun. If it is less than 0.395" your chamber is undersized and needs to be reamed and I would wonder how it made it out of the factory. I would expect that it will measure closer to 0.396" or even 0.397" if not even larger than that. I learned about a lot of this when I went from a Glock to a 2011 and started mass producing rounds for it on my Dillon 550. The Glock will take anything smaller that .430, the 2011 needed .427 or smaller. The 550 always produced rounds that fit the Glock, but I now need to process the brass and size it down to 0.424" before I send it through my 550 if it is going to ALWAYS fit my 2011. Edited July 26, 2012 by Poppa Bear Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 Had an issue with my 38S last week, first time in two years. A round would not go into battery. Case gauged fine, barrel drop tested fine. I knew exactly what to look for, as it happened like this when I first got the super. The extractor groove is .004" bigger (extractor groove not as deep) on a certain type of brass, and the extractor won't allow this brass with the bigger groove to slide up the breech face. I thought I had culled it all out 2 years ago, but apparently missed a piece. Case gauging did no good on this brass.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poppa Bear Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 You culled it Grumpy, it was an extra piece you picked up while trying to recover your brass. That sounds like a problem I hope I never have. No case gauge or barrel will ever catch a problem like that and to hand mic every case to weed it out, NOT FUN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyOne Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 You culled it Grumpy, it was an extra piece you picked up while trying to recover your brass. That sounds like a problem I hope I never have. No case gauge or barrel will ever catch a problem like that and to hand mic every case to weed it out, NOT FUN. The head stamp on the brass in question is 1*OPT..... That is all that's on it besides the 38S stamp. Every piece I've ever found of it has been nickel plated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eddiegunks Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 i ran over 5k rounds through my 45 colt with no issues. then one day i lost a (grudge) match cause of a case issue. since then i have case gauged every round. i may be too picky but if they do not slide in real easy i put em in my "practice only" pile. most are sized okay but they have extractor damage on the rims or something like that that keeps them from dropping into the gauge. i pull em out just cause. FWIW i use Dillon dies. where do i find the DAA 20 round case gauge? my google search was not successful. cheers eddie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben b. Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 If you casegauged every round you wouldn't remember the last time you had an issue. Amen. I case gage everything before it gets packaged,have been for 3 years, and it has been 3 years since I've had a malfunction, except...when I started loading .223 for 3Gun, I didn't have a .223 gage and went fine for a few thousand rounds, then had recurrent problems at a big match. Went home that night & ordered a case gauge and when it came I found some bad loads. I got the religion again and smooth sailing since. Like others have said, most of my case gage rejects shoot fine in practice. Most. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopPop Posted July 29, 2012 Share Posted July 29, 2012 4+ years since I started case gauging all my match ammo. It's a pretty mindless task and yes, it takes some time but I haven't had an ammo issue since I've been doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimitz Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 I've come a long way since I originally posted this including having started to reload myself and I'll put it this way. ... What possible reason could you have for not checking your reloads? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmorris Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 . What possible reason could you have for not checking your reloads? Why don't people use their turn signals? Lazy or they just don't care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norther Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 . What possible reason could you have for not checking your reloads? Why don't people use their turn signals? Lazy or they just don't care. That's right, I don't care about the rare jam in practice. Gauge all match ammo, and spend your time shooting. Gauging 500 rounds a week gets old... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poppa Bear Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 All of my ammo is match ammo. Some might get shot up in practice, but every round in the blue boxes is suitable for a match. I also check every hundred loaded. Load up a tube of primers and take the finished rounds and run them through the gauge. If they fit they go into blue box, if not they go into the box by the LBB. Every so often I run all of that box through the LBB and then they all go into a blue box. Having detonated a round because it got jammed solid into the chamber, I will gauge everything that goes into my gun now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillD Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 I don't case gauge everything I load, very little in fact. I will probably start case gauging my .40 ammo for majors. But seeing as I've had less than 5 failures of any kind with my Limited gun in 12,000 rounds, I think my chances are good. Case gauge or not, up to the individual, not a question of moral superiority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wide45 Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 Take that time, and spend it checking each case before you load it. Mind your process, and pay attention while loading. You don't need to chamber check, if you don't load bad ammo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben b. Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 After all the careful production is over, quality control checks remain important & useful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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