Strange squib load

[Liberty'sSon]

Ok, this is a new one one me. I've heard a few squibs and shot one myself. While it wasnt a Boolit, but a jword, I had a squib today on some 300 Blackout loads I was testing. The strange thing is that the round sounded and recoiled like a full power round. It even ejected the casing to the same area as the others. It was the last round in the mag. When I loaded the mag up withe the next load to test, the round wouldn't go into battery. I didn't have a cleaning rod with me but I dropped a small plastic rod down the barrel to confirm the obstruction.
I'm extremely thankful that the bullet didn't travel far enough to allow the next round to go into battery.
When I got home, I used a cleaning rod to remove the bullet. It was lodged pretty tightly and had a carbon layer on it's base.
Does anyone have any experience similar to this?

I should have said earlier, the round was a supersonic loading NOT subsonic. It wouldn't have surprised me as much from a sub. I was shooting for groups so I didn't chrono, but based on data I've seen it should have been about 1900 fps.

[bhn22]

Sounds like a typical squib. It's a good thing you checked the bore.

[TXGunNut]

Subsonic? Doubt I could tell the difference in recoil in a MSR, just feel the bolt cycling. Last round feels different anyway if it locks the bolt, good thing it didn't go any further!

[Liberty'sSon]

Subsonic? Doubt I could tell the difference in recoil in a MSR, just feel the bolt cycling. Last round feels different anyway if it locks the bolt, good thing it didn't go any further!

I should have said. It was supersonic. 130 gr Hornady SP over I believe 17.6 gr Lil gun.
It's got me a bit rattled because it was nothing like any other squib ive witnessed. Just wondering if any has experienced anything similar and if they knew of a cause.

[Outpost75]

Anyone who fools with low noise, subsonic loads, is going to lodge a bullet in the barrel sooner or later. The easy and SAFE way to remove these is with a Squibb Rod kit from Brownells. These come in various calibers from. 30 to .45 and are a solid brass rod which threads onto the end of a Dewey cleaning rod.

Flood the bore with Kroil, let soak, then thread the squib rod appropriate for the caliber onto your Dewey rod and let drop of its own weight - DO NOT USE A HAMMER! but use a multitude of tiny taps, just lifting and dropping of its own weight until the bullet starts moving.

I have removed many lodged bullets, both jacketed and lead by this method and have never damaged a barrel.

Patience is a virtue 8-)

[KYCaster]

Yes, I've seen something similar.

Guy had a squib in the middle of a stage at a 3 gun match. He didn't hear it, I did. I told him to stop, but he had already pulled the trigger again.

He didn't understand why I stopped him, he thought he just ran the magazine empty.

He pulled the EMPTY magazine and showed it to me. Then he opened the bolt and the last round from the mag, which was trapped by the bolt, fell out the mag well.

He still wasn't convinced. We put a range rod down the barrel and knocked out a bullet that prevented the last round from chambering properly. I don't think he ever did understand what happened.

The squib was his next to last round in the mag. It did eject the empty and feed the next (last) round in the mag., but, lucky for him, didn't let the round chamber.

I don't know if that's what happened to you, but I've seen enough squibs on the range to know that the shooters are often confused about the sequence of events leading up to it.

Lucky for you the next round didn't chamber. I hope you're able to figure out what happened.

Jerry

[Mk42gunner]

How in the world did the action cycle if the bullet was still close enough to the origin of rifling to stop the next round from chambering?

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought most of the .300 Blackouts were built on AR-15 platforms, i.e. gas operated. I must be missing something here.

Glad no one got hurt,

Robert

[ironhead7544]

I have had squibbs like that with 296 in a 357 Magnum with the lighter bullets. Comes from a light charge. Might be a ball of crud in the case from the improper burning. 296 just doesnt burn right with air space in the case. Dont know about Lil Gun but it seems to be a similar type of powder.

[TXGunNut]

How in the world did the action cycle if the bullet was still close enough to the origin of rifling to stop the next round from chambering?

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought most of the .300 Blackouts were built on AR-15 platforms, i.e. gas operated. I must be missing something here.

Glad no one got hurt,

Robert

You're right, the gas couldn't operate the action as designed but I can only guess the primer and possibly a small amount of powder allowed it to operate as a blowback action would.

[freebullet]

I'm no expert. I think that happens when the bullet to case mouth seal is broken prior to ignition. It let's the chamber build pressure to eject the cartridge, but the bullet stays put. Next round won't chamber due to stuck bullet & you find powder clumps incompletely burned.

[geargnasher]

How in the world did the action cycle if the bullet was still close enough to the origin of rifling to stop the next round from chambering?

Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought most of the .300 Blackouts were built on AR-15 platforms, i.e. gas operated. I must be missing something here.

Glad no one got hurt,

Robert

You and me both. Unless there is some feature that will allow the bolt to unlock under excessive chamber pressure rather than blow up the action, I can't figure it either since the AR-15 platform won't fire out of battery. Come to think of it, I've never heard of one blowing up. Maybe this is why?

Gear

[Grump]

Oh, I've seen a few pics of AR15 series barrels burst in various ways, plus the occasional case failure looking like either an unlocked bolt or possibly a bolt opening way early.

It does happen.

Other than an unlocked bolt slamfire almost miraculously resulting in a de facto blowback action, I also cannot imagine a way for an AR to eject any case while still leaving a bullet close enough to the leade to prevent the next round from chambering. I will remain open to ideas since I have a pretty good imagination and rudimentary understanding of fluid dynamics and Newtonian inertia.

Even with all that, I suspect that an unlocked-bolt slamfire would demand a super-light powder charge to eject without also sending the bullet much farther into the bore.

The remoteness of possibilities and number of separate factors required to make such a thing happen does not necessarily mean it didn't happen. But I think that we are still waiting for a confirmed instance of a human being killed by man-made orbital debris returning to earth. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0662393/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMlq5IJ265M

No one is known to have ever been injured or killed -- YET -- by falling orbital debris as of November 10 of this year (http://www.space.com/23544-goce-satellite-falls-from-space.html), I pretty much expect it to happen within the next 25 years.