One More Stupid Question

[z06guy]

I know I promised I would not ask anymore stupid questions, but somehow I just can't help myself.

Here it goes;

Now... this really didn't happen to me! but... I had a friend (wink wink) who was somewhat new to reloading on his new 550. HE TOLD ME he "may not have been paying close enough attention and may have unknowingly ran out out of power during the reloading process". HE TOLD ME at one point he stopped to make sure his power measurements were correct, and noticed there was no power in that case. That's when he noticed the powder hopper was empty. He said he "then pulled the case prior to that one and it DID have the correct amount of power". He feels he may have gotten lucky and caught his mistake just in time to prevent a bunch of cases from being loaded with no power in them. His question is;

What happens if he was to go to the range and attempt to fired those rounds with no power in them. Does the primmer have enough power to actually push the bullet out of the shell?

Will the bullet get logged in the barrel?

Is this going to be an opportunity to break out his new bullet puller and get some experience with that ?

I will bonk him in the head and pass along any good advice and constructive criticism anyone has.

[RammerJammer]

Primer alone will probably push the bullet far enough to get the bullet nice and lodged in the barrel. This is called a squib and wont cycle the slide. The most dangerous is just a enough powder to cycle the slide and your next round will set you on the path to buying a new gun. I wont give any direct what to do but you have scales and can weigh completed rounds.

[dapribek]

With the great variation in weight of used brass, would weighing completed rounds be a foolproof method of determining which rounds had powder?

[varminter22]

I think not.

Unless he has some VERY consistent brass, the variation in individual brass weight could easily be more than the weight of the powder.

[ToddKS]

What caliber were you loading? What bullet?

What was the powder and powder charge you were using?

What type(s) of brass were you using?

There are 3 sources of variation when it comes to weighing a loaded round: Brass wt. variance, powder charge variance, and bullet wt. variance.

With the answers to the questions above you can create a tolerance stack to determine if you can definitively determine whether or not a round has powder in it.

[z06guy]

All the brass is brand new from one mfg. The plan is to weigh a primed empty case with bullet and compare that to the completed rounds. Maybe that will reveal something. We're only talking about 25 rounds so if we need to we will pull all bullets and start over.

[Flatland Shooter]

Only 25 rounds? Don't risk it. Pull 'em.

[captain037]

I say pull them too. Not worth it.

[chirpy]

Trying to weigh and compare is asking for disaster! Pull the bullets, remove the decapping rod from the sizing decapping die and resize the case. Add powder and bullet and crimp and that should be good to go. Put the rod back in and adjust and continue reloading empty non primed brass.

Richard

[loneranger04]

Absolutely pull the bullets. I've seen squibs total a nice Smith 28 and a fairly new Nighthawk 1911. Luckily neither shooter was injured.

If your "friend" is having trouble watching his powder level then he can get a device that warns you of low powder levels but the nice thing I like about the 550B is you can eyeball the powder in the case before topping it with a bullet. Best defense against squibs.

[GrumpyOne]

You'll waste more time trying to weigh those rounds than what it would take to pull them.

[awfaxis]

[okiestovepipe]

This is why I got the 650XL w/ powder check.

[Kratos]

pull 'em. Not worth the risk. IMO

[alma]

I pulled over 200 there other day. I wasn't fun but it wasn't that bad ether.

25 would be easy or put the in the practice pile and is you hear a "pop" instead of a "bang" followed by a malfunction then Justin stop to ensure there isn't a bullet half way down your barrel before chasing it with a fresh round.

[packeagle]

Wouldn't risk it. Pull them.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk

[Glock shooter]

I pulled over 200 there other day. I wasn't fun but it wasn't that bad ether.

25 would be easy or put the in the practice pile and is you hear a "pop" instead of a "bang" followed by a malfunction then Justin stop to ensure there isn't a bullet half way down your barrel before chasing it with a fresh round.

+1

Practice pile, then there is no wasted time. Put them in a marked zip lock that way you know when to be careful.

[Max It]

Mr. Guy, what you said and what they said.

however;

take a brass rod sized smaller than the barrel (Brownell's) and go slow works also.

I have 150 -.38 spl bullets lightly loaded that may have double charge in one or so. my options were to pull them, throw them away. or final option was to shoot thru a heavy barrel .357 Blackhawk where it wont really cause damage. guess which I did.

[RPatton]

Practice pile, with a note and a squib rod. Shoot them first so they never inadvertently end up in with the rest of your ammo.

If they do then you will find a/the bad one when it matters the most and will end up not trusting your ammo and then having a larger "practice pile".

Some cast bullets will go far enough into the barrel to allow the next round to chamber.

[DagoRed]

I have also heard of undercharged cases detonating instead of igniting, if that makes sense (BOOM instead of fire). Regardless, 25 isn't that many, I've pulled more than that . Reloading is not a place where you want to be messing around, you skip steps or don't pay attention and it can go south.

chalk it up to a learning experience

Red

[Ethanolguy]

My cousin had a squib round a couple weeks ago at a 3 gun match with his 9mm. No powder, and lodged the bullet in the barrel and earned him a crappy score for the stage as he was only half way through and received penalties on all the unshot targets. I would pull them

[DeputyDog25]

I agree with some of the other members, find a loaded round you know is correct and weight it, then go through and weigh the other reloads and you will find the "light" loads. You can them pull the bullet and start on those again. Good luck!

[CJW]

I am sorry, but weighing them probably won't work. I had a similar issue once with 200 rounds of .45ACP; when chamber checking them I realized I must have double-turned the shell plate at one point. I found the no primer, no bullet, and no crimp rounds...which meant in the remaining 197 rounds the only one I couldn't account for had no powder in it.

Maybe the rest of you have some secret magic for pulling bullets, but every time I have tried to disassemble a loaded round has been a royal PITA. Furthermore, I weighed a bunch of empty brass and found that the variation was easily more than the 4.8gr of Titegroup I was loading with. Weight was useless. (Heck, I bought a cheap stethoscope to try to listen for powder inside, and that didn't work!)

I ended up with the "range" solution: keep them separate, use them only for range trips working on slow-fire group shooting, and wait for a pfft.

It worked...about 180 rounds into the bag of 197, of course.

[Steve RA]

You can use a wood dowel or the suggested brass rod, I'd suggest also taking a hammer.

[Max It]

i just took all my uFO''s to a outdoor range and put them in the sump;

someone will bury them in the desert there.