Squib Virgin No More

[benchmark]

Well it happened. I’m no longer a virgin, I had my first and hopefully last squib load. It happened after I got my first progressive press. I missed the visual check prior to entry. Anyway it was so jammed I couldn’t shake it out and had to take it to a professional to remove it. bahabaha! I’m hanging the bullet and casing next to the hornady to remind me of the potential danger.

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[solv3nt]

Well it happened. I’m no longer a virgin, I had my first and hopefully last squib load. It happened after I got my first progressive press. I missed the visual check prior to entry. Anyway it was so jammed I couldn’t shake it out and had to take it a professional to remove it. bahabaha! I’m hanging the bullet and casing next to the hornady to remind me of the potential danger.

I did that once. It jammed my cylinder.

 

[DizzyJ]

If you load long enough it’ll happen.

 

[orygun]

I had a few in one gun, one day. I decided that 38 Special loads in 357 Maximum cases wouldn't work. This happened before I knew it was called a squib. I just called it a stuck bullet!

At least I noticed it before I tried to send another down the tube.

 

[Local Loader]

I've been lucky so far and haven't had a squib load yet. I've also been thinking of getting a powder check die to make sure I don't miss any, as an additional precaution.

 

[wingspar]

It happened to me with .357 Magnum. The bullet barely made it out of its case and prevented me from chambering another round. No powder in the case. Did it with .45 Colt also, but that bullet did not make it out of the case. These changed the order in how I did my reloading. Has not happened again.

Removal of the bullet from the lever gun was easy and pictured below.

https://pbase.com/wingspar/image/164013713/original.jpg

 

[gmerkt]

I've told this story before but it's been long enough ago that I will tell it again.

One of the guys at the range where I'm a member was making a living buying delinquent storage units. Way before it became a fad. One of the things he'd look for in the limited view allowed into the unit before bidding was anything gun related. If there was just a little peek of anything gun-ish, he'd go for it. He sold a lot of powder to gun club members. Also bullets and ammo. Some of the ammo he'd use himself.

This guy's wife died, so it wasn't long before he took up with another woman. First time around, his frau didn't do guns. He was trying to break the new gal in so as to like the activity. He was a shotgunner, so one day he went down to the trap field and left his new girl friend with a K38 in one of the pistol bays. I was on duty as an assistant RSO. It wasn't long before she had problems. The conversation started with her saying something like, "I've fired off all six shots and haven't hit the target once. What am I doing wrong?" A quick look at the revolver showed that all six jacketed bullets were jammed butts to nuts in the barrel.

The mistake was, the guy gave his girl friend ammo that had come out of a storage locker. Probably somebody else's reloads, jacketed bullet loads that were underpowered. Especially for a six inch barrel.

Not necessarily all of the K38's, but a lot of the older, longer barreled .38 Special revolvers were made in an age when even factory ammo was mostly lead bullet loaded. Lead bullets do not present as much friction in a gun bore than jacketed ones do. For this reason, some of the bullet manufacturer's published data no longer features .38 Special loads using 158 gr. jacketed bullets. A reloader can still do everything right, but if the gap between the cylinder and barrel is burned away too large, too much propellant gas will escape and not enough will remain in the bore to expel a jacketed bullet.

But all of this is beyond simple but problematic reloading errors. I had progressive equipment for a while, a Dillon outfit. It was alright but fussy. It seemed to me that I had to spend too much time tweaking adjustments on it. Which were interruptions that diverted my attention and interfered with the rhythm that helps avoid errors. I went back to single stage reloading where I could look into each individual case and see the charge with my own eyes. I'm not in business, I don't need the speed or quantity that comes with progressive.

 

[JuglansRegia]

I have had some other reloading issues but still haven't popped my squib cherry, yet.

 

[MikeInOr]

Knock on wood... 35 years, tens of thousands of rounds and not a single squib. I started on a Dillon 650XL, still pretty much exclusively use my 650XL and find it hard to load a squib if I keep the powder measure full. I do use a powder check die but can't remember the last time it went off to tell me I missed a charge.

Personally I think it is much harder to get distracted and miss a step on a progressive press than on a single stage press. Well, at least my progressive press.

 

[RVTECH]

Only one for me in 46 years of reloading - .38 Special in a Mod 605 Taurus snub - but it was a lead bullet and easy to 'knock' out.

I load SS and am very 'anal' about checking powder levels before seating bullets so I have no conclusive idea of what happened.

 

[deadeye]

At least you guys stop at one......... Not the only situation I have seen like this but sure says something about Hipoint quality and what they can take.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=a4d9830f36b4d279JmltdHM9MTY3NTQ2ODgwMCZpZ3VpZD0xYzViYTE0Ni1kMjAwLTZlMzAtMWFiMS1iM2UwZDNhODZmMTAmaW5zaWQ9NTMzNA&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1c5ba146-d200-6e30-1ab1-b3e0d3a86f10&psq=barrel+cutaway+of+squib+loads&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ3Vucy5jb20vbmV3cy8yMDE5LzAzLzA3L2hpLXBvaW50LXdhcnJhbnR5LWNlbnRlci1maW5kcy1jYXJiaW5lLWJhcnJlbC1zdHVmZmVkLXdpdGgtMzUtYnVsbGV0cw&ntb=1

 

[osprey]

I consider myself quite fortunate that in 40 plus years of reloading, I have never stuck a bullet. The fact that in the last 10 years I do a lot of subsonic load development, makes it even more amazing. I did have a bullet barely exit my 458 socom at an anemic 400 fps one time.
I have stuck a factory colibri 22lr bullet in a rifle, ignoring the box warning to shoot in pistols only. It was an east tap out with a brass rod thankfully.

 

[Local Loader]

At least you guys stop at one......... Not the only situation I have seen like this but sure says something about Hipoint quality and what they can take.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=a4d9830f36b4d279JmltdHM9MTY3NTQ2ODgwMCZpZ3VpZD0xYzViYTE0Ni1kMjAwLTZlMzAtMWFiMS1iM2UwZDNhODZmMTAmaW5zaWQ9NTMzNA&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1c5ba146-d200-6e30-1ab1-b3e0d3a86f10&psq=barrel+cutaway+of+squib+loads&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ3Vucy5jb20vbmV3cy8yMDE5LzAzLzA3L2hpLXBvaW50LXdhcnJhbnR5LWNlbnRlci1maW5kcy1jYXJiaW5lLWJhcnJlbC1zdHVmZmVkLXdpdGgtMzUtYnVsbGV0cw&ntb=1

That^^^^^ that is the reason I make fun of people that rip on Hi-Point. Even for as cheap as they are, the quality of the material is pretty damn good, and you can't beat that customer service that they have, they still replace the barrel for him. Really hard to beat that lifetime warranty and best of all the warranty transfers with it if you sell it.

 

[quneur]

Winchester white box did it for me.

 

[NobullSKS]

At least you guys stop at one......... Not the only situation I have seen like this but sure says something about Hipoint quality and what they can take.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=a4d9830f36b4d279JmltdHM9MTY3NTQ2ODgwMCZpZ3VpZD0xYzViYTE0Ni1kMjAwLTZlMzAtMWFiMS1iM2UwZDNhODZmMTAmaW5zaWQ9NTMzNA&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=1c5ba146-d200-6e30-1ab1-b3e0d3a86f10&psq=barrel+cutaway+of+squib+loads&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ3Vucy5jb20vbmV3cy8yMDE5LzAzLzA3L2hpLXBvaW50LXdhcnJhbnR5LWNlbnRlci1maW5kcy1jYXJiaW5lLWJhcnJlbC1zdHVmZmVkLXdpdGgtMzUtYnVsbGV0cw&ntb=1

“Can’t beat that grouping…” haaa

 

[Stomper]

You haven’t lived until you’ve squibbed.

 

[ageingstudent]

Only one for me in 46 years of reloading - .38 Special in a Mod 605 Taurus snub - but it was a lead bullet and easy to 'knock' out.

I load SS and am very 'anal' about checking powder levels before seating bullets so I have no conclusive idea of what happened.

I had one about 10 years ago while doing a workup with an unfamiliar slower powder in very cold temps. Yes it was right out of the book. The start charge stuck a bullet in the barrel. Okay I thought, that being the case I'll go up to the charge in the middle of the workup (it was about .5gr hotter); the bullet came out but skipped down range. So I went up .2gr more and the next round hit dead center on the bullseye but bounced off the range curtain and came right back across the sites and hit me in the upper lip. I got a fat lip and a hell of a good lesson. No more indoor Range testing with a range curtain.

It was out of a 4 in 66-0. I doubt the bullet was doing more than 100 ft per second but it was a 158 grain bullet and it snapped my head back like somebody hit me in the face with a baseball bat. I only test against non-rebounding mediums now. A sand pile is pretty good.

I load all my workups on a single stage and all charges are verified. I load my production stuff progressively, but I have it set up so I can visibly confirm every charge and if it looks even minutely off I pull the case and verify the weight.

 

[foxmeadow]

I learned a lesson with a Lee Loadmaster. At one loading session, I was loading .45ACP and wound up with a box of squibs. I was not replacing the powder hopper lid, and at some point in the 1k plus epic loading session, a dead horsefly got buried in the powder and blocked powder drops.
I only had to hammer out about 400 rounds, before I became confident that I was past the point of Insect infestation in my reloading.
Still had a few more squibs, so I unloaded the other 400......................................
Between That and irregular primer issues, I dumped the Loadmaster and entered the world of big blue and suffered no more.

 

[CLT65]

I did that once. It jammed my cylinder.

Same here, one time. It was over 30 years ago, got distracted loading a box of .38 special and jammed a bullet in the forcing cone of my Dan Wesson revolver.

Fortunately I haven't made that mistake again, but I don't think I've loaded a single round since that time where I didn't have a visual on the powder before seating a bullet. I learned my lesson and it stuck with me.

 

[ageingstudent]

I learned a lesson with a Lee Loadmaster. At one loading session, I was loading .45ACP and wound up with a box of squibs. I was not replacing the powder hopper lid, and at some point in the 1k plus epic loading session, a dead horsefly got buried in the powder and blocked powder drops.
I only had to hammer out about 400 rounds, before I became confident that I was past the point of Insect infestation in my reloading.
Still had a few more squibs, so I unloaded the other 400......................................
Between That and irregular primer issues, I dumped the Loadmaster and entered the world of big blue and suffered no more.

That is wild. The stuff you run across and the lessons you learn. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Or at least a little smarter .