Jacket stuck in barrel

[itento]

Yesterday I was getting ready to shoot a qualification course and I wanted to shoot a few practice rounds with my Springfield XD40. The first couple of shots weren't even on the target. Suspected the sights got bumped so I moved them shightly to compensate. The next 2 shots were pretty eratic so I had my gunsmith buddy look at it. He shot it a coupple of times with similar results. I put the gun away and shot the course with my Kimber .45. Today I broke the gun down and noticed what looked like copper in one of the gun ports (3 poppets put in by Accurate Plating). Looking in the barrel, I found the problem: a full jacket lodged half way down the barrel. I was shooting 180 gr Montana Gold FMJ with a fairly mild load. At this point I'm not really sure how I'm going to get it out, but I thought I'd share this. I can't even figure out how this could happen. Note the rifling marks on the jacket.

Edited November 19, 2009 by itento

[BayouSlide]

Get a lead cast bullet of the same caliber and drive it into the barrel from the chamber side with a brass rod. It will push the jacket out like a piece of tubing in front of it. This trick worked for me when I posted the same question here a year or so back when I had this problem in my Glock.

I soaked the barrel in solvent ahead of time to lubricate it a little, FWIW.

Good luck!

Curtis

[Gregg K]

If you could soak it with some Kroil ahead of time it would really help. Kroil is good about getting behind stuff like this to break its bond. Its good stuff. Some benchrest shooters use it to get moly out of a barrel.

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=7610/Product/KROIL

[Duane Thomas]

How long have you had the ports, are they a new thing? Sounds like possibly APW might not have cleaned all the flash off the interior portion of one or more of the ports after drilling the holes, thus you've got jagged shards of metal protruding into the bore, catching and tearing the bullet jacket. The fact that the separation occurred right at the ports in indicative. This is bad.

There's a reason that Mag-Na-Port, for instance, uses EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) instead of drilling to create their ports: it totally avoids the problem of sharp burrs sticking into the bore.

[G-ManBart]

The other thing is that there is a good chance that barrel isn't going to shoot well even after the jacket is removed. Driving bullets over it could have left a ring and that normally kills the accuracy.

The really sad thing is that popple holes that size are next to uesless in the first place. R,

[itento]

I bought the gun from another LEO at an FBI Firearms Instructor Course. I shot maybe 100 rds through it and qualified with it last year, so its nothing new. As far as the barrel, it slightly buldged so there's no fixing. Thought I 'd keep it as a curiousity. The good thing about the popple holes, they probably kept the whole gun from going Kaboom!