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1st Time Reloading 40 S&W (Good News & Bad News)


wmetzler01

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The other items (the alarm and primer tool) may be wasteful or me being over cautious; regardless I've been shooting a while and never had a failure like this before so it's sitting heavy on my mind as it could have ended much worse.

As for the barrel, if it's shot then the gunsmith can machine the slide to accept the barrel. A few members have had this done to their 5" models.

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I say get back on the horse and load the way it's supposed to be done. If you're careful and your machine is set up right you should have no trouble as long as you're not loading split cases. A lot of guys around here have loaded hundreds of thousands of rounds without serious issues.

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when you have to stop mid cycle on a progressive press because of a failure or jam, you have to be very careful and check everything after sorting out the problem and resuming loading.

If I have to stop and walk away from my press I do it with the ram all the way up (handle on bottom of stroke) then there is only one thing to do when you resume. A habit from using the sl900 where the practice really shines.

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I do the same thing as far as stopping with the ram up.

I also re seat the primer (forward stroke) after every issue or stoppage i have with the ram down. For the most part, my main malfunctions are case feed issues (upside down, waterfall, jammed case, empty hopper), primer seating (seating doesn't feel right; too easy or hard), and round inspection. I'd any of these happen with the ram down, I fix it, then do the primer seating stroke again. Once i start raising the ram, I never stop, and try to make the same stroke every time.

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Been playing phone tag with gunsmith, I'll swing by his shop on Thursday if I don't hear from him tomorrow. In the meantime checking into purchasing a back-up pistol as I'm starting uspsa competitions.

Purchased Winchester brass and tossing out a bunch of junk brass while keeping the Federal and Speer head stamps.

Some will say I'm being overly cautious, but I really don't want this to happen again.

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So, any luck with the smith? What was the outcome?

Update: just got back from the smith, turns out I double charged the round and it caused the failure (the smith is great, Kapp Ogburn in Raleigh NC).

No damage to the barrel & no pressure ring, main recoil spring is shot, he's still looking at the extractor & firing pin, and he's still pulling brass shrapnel from the pistol. As for getting the shell out of the barrel, he had to pull the barrel and put it into the lathe, then he turned the case to reduce the thickness of the case wall; once he got it to 3/100th (or roughly the thickness of a piece of paper), he could tap it out. He said it was almost fused to the barrel wall. Other loads such as 9mm and other are a bit more forgiving to a double charge, but the high pressure 40 S&W is not forgiving.

I have what's left of the case and I'm going to put it on my "dumb a%&" shelf that contains exhibits of the other stupid things I've done.

My pistol should be ready by the end of next week; it will be fully functional and just as good as it was before.

Thanks to all who provided input!

Will

PS my powder charge die is on order...

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So, any luck with the smith? What was the outcome?

Update: just got back from the smith, turns out I double charged the round and it caused the failure (the smith is great, Kapp Ogburn in Raleigh NC).

No damage to the barrel & no pressure ring, main recoil spring is shot, he's still looking at the extractor & firing pin, and he's still pulling brass shrapnel from the pistol. As for getting the shell out of the barrel, he had to pull the barrel and put it into the lathe, then he turned the case to reduce the thickness of the case wall; once he got it to 3/100th (or roughly the thickness of a piece of paper), he could tap it out. He said it was almost fused to the barrel wall. Other loads such as 9mm and other are a bit more forgiving to a double charge, but the high pressure 40 S&W is not forgiving.

I have what's left of the case and I'm going to put it on my "dumb a%&" shelf that contains exhibits of the other stupid things I've done.

My pistol should be ready by the end of next week; it will be fully functional and just as good as it was before.

Thanks to all who provided input!

Will

PS my powder charge die is on order...

Sounds like a very competent gunsmith!

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