Fact or myths of reloading

[gandydancer]

I have heard you should always shoot your blackpowder firearms into the wind so when you go home your wife can enjoy the smell to. kind of like booze on your breath?

[noylj]

It has NEVER been shown in lab conditions. It can not be replicated.
Every one of those blow ups is MORE likely to have been a double charge.
People make mistakes. Powder has a set energy content and burn rate.
Apocryphal and anecdotal stories are not proof.
Light loads of 296/H110 does not blow up guns. Having a bullet and wad of partially burned powder stuck in the barrel will be a cause for problems if not noted.

[Reload3006]

It has NEVER been shown in lab conditions. It can not be replicated.
Every one of those blow ups is MORE likely to have been a double charge.
People make mistakes. Powder has a set energy content and burn rate.
Apocryphal and anecdotal stories are not proof.
Light loads of 296/H110 does not blow up guns. Having a bullet and wad of partially burned powder stuck in the barrel will be a cause for problems if not noted.

I wonder why Winchester Olin perpetuated this myth. Interesting.

[bmac1949]

MYTH: Reloaders and boolit casters can always come to a consensus on any issue.

[UNIQUEDOT]

Does anyone have a documented case of a cartridge intentionally being undercharged and blowing up a gun?

Only if it was a squib that stuck a boolit in the barrel! i contacted the powder companies about a decade ago asking the question you have put forth here and the responses i got from them was that "no one has ever been able to prove or disprove this phenomenon because no one has ever been able to duplicate it in laboratory tests".

[Saint]

If you consider how much I shoot my .44 mag I have already reloaded enough to pay for every bit of reloading equipment I own. Only problem with that mentality is that if I wasn't reloading I wouldn't be shooting it near as much. So in truth even though a box of reloads cost 1/4 the cost of factory I probably wouldn't be able to stomach 40+ bucks a box to shoot. LOL.

[ErikO]

The feds don't allow internet access in prison.

It's hard to get on the Prison Pistol Team as well.

[Ickisrulz]

I have seen where people say not to vacuum up powder. I do with a shop vac, not a carpet type unit. Any evidence to the vacuum starting fires with spilt powder?

[W.R.Buchanan]

newcaster:

You need to do a search on the glock bulge, fixing the glock bulge, loading the .40 S&W, using a Lee FCD to fix the Glock Bulge, the unsupported chamber. and a few other topics that escape me.

All of this stuff has been discussed in excrushiating detail many times.

First learn what a "unsupported chamber" is,,, Then figure out if Glock really needs to be included in the same sentence.

The correct answer is 'NOT"!

Randy

[W.R.Buchanan]

newcastter: I have been trying to dispell this myth ever since I have been here. It gets brought up about once a month. Please don't be offended by my tone, I am old and grumpy. Besides this answer was not directed at you only.

Here's what you need to know.

By understanding what an unsupported chamber is,,, you would find out that all automatic pistols have them. They are a necessary reality. The fact that no one made this point, is exactly what my primary input was.

A fully supported chamber in a handgun is only possible on a revolver. Auto pistols have feed ramps, and those feed ramps must intersect the chamber at some point, and this point is where the cartridge is unsupported, or more properly "not fully supported."

Glocks are no worse than any other auto pistol in that regard. Granted the 1st generation Glock 22's were a little looser than the 2nd generation Glock 22's are, but that was fixed 15 years ago. By simply replacing the barrel any Old 1st gen Glock can be brought up to current specs in that regard.

The only reason all the other brands of pistols were not criticized for unsupported chambers is because they didin't exist yet! Glock preceeded them by 10-15 years.

Thus Glock got stuck with this bum wrap. It has become the lie that has been told so many times it is now considered the truth. IT is BS! The infamous Glock Kaboom! ooh scary.

This barf about "unsupported chambers" was perpetrated by some gun writer long ago and it has been regurgitated on Internet forums to the point where people use it like they know what they are talking about. It is a technical term that makes them sound knowledgable.

As far as the other references I gave, if you take the time to read them you would understand all of the nuances of loading the .40 S&W cartridge, how to fix the case bulge, what actually causes the case bulge in the first place, etc. and successfully and safely reload brass left by others who were to scared to reuse it.

Please don't take the tone of the comment the wrong way. I offered the only real answer to your question on this entire thread.

If you are loading .40 S&W and you are not picking up your brass, then I assure you someone else is. If there is a bunch there then get it and read the references above and use it. We all do.

"You can't use lead bullets either , because of the polygonal Rifling." That is another BS line that people barf up here consistantly. Yes you can, just ask around.

The first pic is the unsupported area in a Glock barrel. The second is the unsupported area in a 1911 barrel. Which one is more unsupported? Answer: the 1911, not the Glock.

But both are supported where it counts, and that's all that matters.

Randy

[newcastter]

Now that is some good info I can absorb and use, Thanks for your input and thoughts Randy

[Jammer Six]

I thought you couldn't use lead boolits in a Glock.

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

I thought you couldn't use lead boolits in a Glock.

Don't tell my buddy that. He's been using them in his Glock 23 .45 Cal. since he bought the gun. He's never blown the gun up and never had a problem with his reloads. The gun is ten years old or older and as far as I know, he's never changed the barrel either.

BTW, I'm not making any commentary one way or the other about Glocks in general. Only that my buddy has never had a problem with the Glocks.

[Clark]

I bought an old Glock 22 40 S&W 10 years ago.

It had a chamber so sloppy it did not meet SAAMI max dimensions.

Worse, the feed ramp intruded .235" and with the web of the cases .18" thick, that left .055" of thin unsuported case wall at the bottom of the chamber. This would make guppy belly case bulges with 30% more than book load powder charges.

So I TIG welded up the chamber and re cut the chamber to .180" feed ramp intrusion.

Now I can shoot 15.5 gr 800X 200 gr, which is the max load for 44 mag, and nearly a triple load for 40sw. That is not a practical load, as it takes double compression and more to get the powder to fit. And the recoil is so bad that a couple shots makes the hand hurt for hours.

[reloader45]

I have heard that you should not reload brass fired out of a glock because of a unsupported chamber, So does this mean I should not pick up brass at the range?
Anyone know if this is a fact or just a myth?
Also has anyone else heard of any myths out there or even facts that are questioned?

I have a second generation Glock22 (40s&w) that has been feed 100s and 100s rounds of lead and jacketed using the same casings at or near max and loaded on a Dillion 550B without any problem other a sore back from picking up where ever the cases land!
Other wise a Myth! Possibly started by those that are trying to tell their wife why they need a different barrel!!

[Big brass ones]

I like the unsupported barrel rumors and get lots of 40 S&w brass that way. I use to reload as is without bulge busting and would get a stubborn case or two that would not chamber. Finally i had one stuck so bad that I had to resort to tools to remove it. There is no forward assist on a pistol for a reason!!!

now i bulge bust with a FCD and innards removed.

[nanuk]

perhaps someone needs to sacrifice a rifle, and load some rounds with very slow powder, and only half a case, then shoot it straight down.....

303guy shoots straight down... but he hasn't blown a gun up yet.

[nanuk]

The feds don't allow internet access in prison.

Up here they do... the Criminals have a Constitutional right to it... go figger....

Speaking of Glocks, I heard that you can walk right through a metal detector onto an airliner with a fully loaded Glock.

sure you can... but you may get shot!

Lead bullets dont need lube, jacketed bullets do just fine without it so lead should be ok too.

IIRC, Layne Simpson, in an article in one of the Hodgdon Reload Manuals talks about that. He recommends no lube on the first round in a Muzzleloader.

It's hard to get on the Prison Pistol Team as well.

several years ago, the Indigenous Summer Games, the Small Bore Rifle and Handgun shoot was held in our Maximum Security Prison, indoor shooting range.

[Bwana]

W.R. Buchanan writes:
"A fully supported chamber in a handgun is only possible on a revolver. Auto pistols have feed ramps, and those feed ramps must intersect the chamber at some point, and this point is where the cartridge is unsupported, or more properly "not fully supported."
I would say that the chamber on my G32 and the aftermarket Wolf 357 Sig bbl are fully supported. At least as supported as any rifle bbl. Also, concerning the proposition that revolver chambers are fully supported, I would disagree to the extent that in a swing out clyinder the chamber is "not supported" in the area where the extractor is. And in guns such as the Ruger single actions, and the afore mentioned guns, most of them have the clyinder bolt slot over or near to over the center of the chamber. This is where excessive pressure will manifest itself first due to harder extraction because of the thinner chamber wall.
The rest of your post is pretty much spot on.

[beex215]

if you reload lead, you will automatically get lead poisoned