DOH!! Had a squib

[olafpfj]

Well I guess it was bound to happen eventually. I had a squib today.

Shooting my S&W 586 in 38spl (yep, not a typo) and after about 20 rounds heard an unmistakeable sound. Sounded like pulling your finger out of a bottle of coke or a small cork pop gun.

Went to open the cylinder to check the barrel and no dice. The bullet was lodged between the cylinder and the barrel at the forcing cone.

The range guy at Bass Pro grabbed a rod and tried to push it back but we couldn't get enough ooomph to get it to move. He was convinced it was a FTF and not a squib and wouldn't let me just pack it up and go. My wife was shooting next to me, breaking in her new SigP290. I had a Beretta Neos 22 with me so I shot that until my wife was done. When it was time to leave the RO had her take everything off the line and was going to have me walk out the door to the car carrying the fully loaded, but jammed, pistol out to the car. Luckily my range bag has detachable soft pockets so I placed it in one of those and proceeded to keep it pointed down on my way out. At least it was covered so no one would panic. The lady at the entrance gave me a raised eyebrow and I simply told her "it needs to go to a gunsmith and you don't really want to handle it", she got the picture.

Got home and, now with a proper vice and tools, tapped the bullet back into the case and opened the cylinder. I also had to tap the whole cartridge out of the cylinder since the HP had expanded a bit from the brass rod I used to ram it out.

I know exactly when I did it. I was using a new seating die and a few of my cases weren't expanded enough so the bullet bound up. I had removed the case, emptied the charge, used a Lee expander from their "classic" kit to open the mouth a little more and placed it back in the press without charging it. DOH!!!

No harm to anything other than my pride.
I've loaded several thousand rounds of all types and this is the first mistake I haven't caught.

[Jumping Frog]

No powder is something that happens to us all - glad it happened without any damage

That is how I learned to visually verify the powder level in every case. Stove . . . . hot . . . . touch once . . .

The only time I had a bullet lodge between the chamber and forcing cone on a revolver was a slightly different story, however. I was loading .44 Mag with 230 gr LSWC gas checked bullets from my Lyman 429215 (Ray Thompson design). (I know that Lyman says it is 210 gr, but my alloy plus gas check weight comes in at 230 gr.) I was cautious trying out H110 as a powder because Hodgdon doesn't even list a load anymore for bullets that light. Keep in mind that Hodgdon also has a warning for H110 stating one must not goes less than 3% under the maximum load.

Well, I had a starting load of 22.5 gr, IIRC (to put it into perspective, I now load those same bullets at 25.2 gr). Bullet got stuck. When I pounded the bullet back into the case enough to open the cylinder and looked at it, the case had a full charge of powder, but the powder looked like blackened charcoal -- it did not ignite properly.

So I also learned that when one is a new handloader, the natural instinct of not wanting to "blow up your gun", will lead some people to conclude, "well, I'll just try a little less powder to be conservative." That cautious instinct can create problems of its own.

[fatmanonabike]

You are fortunate. I have seen what I believe to be are real photos with 5-6 rounds lodged in a barrel, although I'm not quite sure how it happens. http://photos.imageevent.com/cas6969/sh ... ugged1.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;