Ruptured case

[Forrest r]

Glocks aren't the only firearm that had/has un-supported chambers. Brass picked up at the range with round primer hits (top piece of brass). 2nd & 3rd pieces of brass show a bulge in them. The bottom 2 pieces of brass had the "bulge" sized out of them, note the double wear rings/marks on them.
[IMG][/IMG]

The brass pictured above was factory ammo shot in a s&w shield.

This is what starline says about their 9mm brass:
"9mm brass: also known as 9mm Parabellum, 9mm Luger and 9x19mm. This cartridge is now one of the most popular pistol cartridges in the world. **NOT RECOMMENDED FOR USE IN S&W SHIELD PISTOLS WITH NEAR-MAX OR +P LOADS, DUE TO POORLY SUPPORTED CHAMBER CONDITION**

A link to starline 9mm brass
https://www.starlinebrass.com/brass-...M-Luger-Brass/

Myself, I only use ww/federal/blazer 9mm brass. There's always a bunch of it laying at the ranges in my area. I do inspect and sort anything 9mm brass I pick-up even though it's factory ammo. I do use remington once fired 9mm brass for long bodied bullets, the remington brass is thinner than the ww/fed/blazer.

[Lloyd Smale]

I don't have a 9mm shield but do have one in 40sw. Ive never noticed any bulging with that gun. For that matter never with any gun I have including glocks except for my 20 and 29. If I push them to full power levels they do bulge slightly. I guess my luck could be contributed to the fact that in my 40s I don't push them right to the absolute last fps. I do with some of my 9 loads though and have shot them out of m&ps, glock 19 and 43 and two different ar15s and have never seen a bulged case after being shot in any of them. Ive never even found a piece of once fired that had a bulge where the chamber was unsupported. Ive seen some bulged a bit on the whole case from being shot in large chambers though.

[lar45]

At a Police auction many years ago I picked up a CZ-75 Clone, witness in 9mm. It was a lovely gun and the wife nabbed it right out of the box as soon as I got home. When we took it to the range, it spit out brass with a huge bulge. I looked at the barrel and someone had taken a dremel to the feedramp and really did a number on it. I looked at new barrels, but they were about the same price that I paid for the gun. We ended up trading that gun off to someone that didn't reload and bought the wife a new one.

[scattershot]

I’ll end this cautionary tale with a pic of the brass in question. The three rounds on the top were as received, right out of the tumbler. The three on the bottom were after resizing. If you look closely, you can see the incipient case rupture, just waiting to happen. So I guess the bottom line is, if you use range brass, be aware that it could have been fired in a subgun or something else with an oversize chamber. These entered the sizing die just fine, and gave no indication of a problem until a couple slipped by me in the reloading process.

Let’s be safe out there.

[respiegel]

My Tec 9 would do that to brass, switched to steel cased and it was much happier

[rosewood]

Have a CVA stalker in .223. Would shoot 0.5 moa. Noticed it was bulging the brass near the base but was worried about safety. Contacted CVA, they had me send it in and they gave me a new barrel. Seems they manufacture the barrels as .222 (that is what is stamped on the bottom anyway). I think when they ship them to America, they probably manually ream them out to .223. Guessing someone got the reamer off a bit when they were reaming it.

Rosewood

[Lloyd Smale]

had to bring this one back because Ive seen it 4 times this summer in my own guns. What I think ive found is (both are ar15 9mms) that some of the ammo I had was had two problems. first it was a top end book load and I usually down load 9s a bit. Added to that I seated bullets out a tad to far and whats happening in my guns is there firing out of battery. Seems an ar15 in 9mm isn't like a 556 and will fire without the round all the way into the chamber. Both by the way also have a small amount of unsupported chamber. A couple also hung up and fired and blew out on a batch of ammo I didn't have enough crimp on. Apparently the sharp edge of the case rim caused enough drag that the round didn't go all the way into battery. Since ive found these problems I seated a bit deaper backed the load off and crimped a bit more and have put about a 1000 rounds through them since and haven't had a problem. Sure does wake you up though. Twice it blew the mag right out of the mag well. You wouldn't want to be holding the gun by the mag or mag well when one blew.

[35remington]

It is impossible for a Shield to fire out of battery with a pull of the trigger and have a case failure result from being “out of battery.”

Cannot happen. A lack of understanding of how these pistols function contributes to this unfounded presumption.

[Lloyd Smale]

I guess its kind of questionable that a round IS fully in battery if its in an unsupported chamber.

[Lloyd Smale]

kind of stumbled on a cure for my problems. I saw on line somewhere where a guy suggested a lee underized sizing die (basically a small base sizing die for 9mms) I bought one and loaded up 500 rounds (even used my old tired brass) and shot them over a couple days and never had a single blowout. Rounds will no go fully into battery even in a dirty chamber. Some even claimed better accuracy because it sizes down the part of the case that holds the bullet to a smaller diameter and that increase case tension on the bullet. I did run a few rounds for groups out of my 16 inch gun and didn't see an improvement but that gun will about shoot one hole groups at 50 yards anyway with about anything I throw in it. Need to try it in my 4.5 inch ar. Its a bit more accuracy challenged.