Who'd have thought it!

[gasboffer]

I was loading .45ACP on a Lee Classic Turret Press, and lost my train of thought, (that's easy to do when you're 78 yrs. old)! I somehow got a case loaded without powder. Lee 230 RNTL. I didn't have a .45 collet for my Forster Puller, and no inertia puller, and the case was too short to put in an RCBS Jr and pull with pliers.
I thought, "What the hell, I'll just see what happens if I try to shoot it." I was using CCI magnum pistol primers, and I thought "I'll just have to knock the bullet out of the barrel." (Glock 36). I aimed it into a bucket of dirt and pulled the trigger. It fired with a few sparks visible, no recoil of course. The slide didn't cycle, and the bullet went about 3" into the dirt. I thought this was a fluke, no primer would push a 230 gr. bullet out of the barrel, much less in the dirt that far, so I tried it again with the same results. Go figure!

[lwknight]

Lucky You,
I have to beat the bullets backward out of the barrel.

[44man]

OH YES, A primer has a lot of force and is the reason I use a standard primer in the .44.
I have to ask why you are using a mag primer in the .45 ACP????????

[JSnover]

Lucky You,
I have to beat the bullets backward out of the barrel.

My first handgun and my first reloads were .357 mag. I learned real quick, there's a better way.
Decap and size a case. Prime it. Fire it. Repeat if necessary. I never needed more than one.

[303Guy]

... so I tried it again with the same results. Go figure!That is revealing! Thanks for the posting.

[dhansen]

I once loaded a 50cal muzzle loader without powder and didn't have anything with me to pull the ball back out. I removed the nipple and managed to skrunch a few grains of powder into the flash channel and still get the nipple back in. I thought IF that would push the ball out I'd like to see what it looked like so I aimed the rifle at an old telephone pole about 10 feet away........... That round ball not only hit the pole but was moving fast enough to bounce back and whiz past my right ear! Hard to imagine those few grains of powder could do so much.

The moral of the story is always treat any shot fired as a full house load.

Coincidentally I was shooting with a friend of mine last week who brought out his nice S&W revolver and some old 45acp handloads he'd been hoarding. Very first round was a squib load that caused great puzzlement. First thing I thought of was to check the barrel after he had opened the cylinder. Sure enough, the bullet was stuck in the bore near the muzzle.

The moral of this story is to always make the gun safe and check the barrel if you hear anything out of an ordinary report.

[dragonrider]

"I have to ask why you are using a mag primer in the .45 ACP???????? "

that would my question also.

[lwknight]

I might guess maybe thats all he could get or had?

[JKH]

I would concur with the last posters conclusion, primers are still hard to get here and a few months ago large pistol primers didnt exist, my son was coming home from Tenessee and found a birck of magnums so guess what? All my .45acp loads for a while will be with magnum primers ;^ ) Of course I will back my load down a couple tenths to compensate, or maybe not as I tend to load middle of the road.

Stuck bullets from squibs are much more common in revolvers than autos, a lot of gas leaks out around the forcing cone/cylinder interface whereas you have a homogenous unit with an auto barrel with only minor residual leakage around the case possible in very light/squib loads, this allows for a great deal more pressure to build and exert itself upon the bullet and send it on its way.

Jeff

[goste]

Soooo. Could I load a .454 soft round ball from a muzzle loader, into a primed .45 case, fire it into sand, and mic. it, instead of pounding it down the muzzle with a mallet? :confused:

[GOPHER SLAYER]

I had a similer experience. I was shooting a 44 cal Colt SA , loaded with jacketed soft points. I had been shooting for a while when I cocked the pistol pulled the trigger and heard a soft puff noise, the bullit hit the ground about 20 feet out. I thought well at least the bullit cleared the barrel. Not quite. I cocked the gun , started to shoot and had second thoughts. I returned the gun to half cock removed the cylinder. I could not see down the barrel. There was a much older and more experienced shooter at the firing line so I asked him what could cause such a problem. He said the primer had enough power to push the bullit part way down the barrel, when it met enough resistance it stopped but the lead core kept going. That is what I saw hitting the ground. Had I fired again I would have ruined the barrel. THe man said he had seen it happen many times. I easily pushed the jacket out of the barrel without damaging it. Many years later I sold a beautiful Colt SA in 45 cal. to a coworker. Shortly after buying the pistol he brought it to work to show me a very nice Colt with a barrel that looked like a snake had swallowed a pig. He explained what had happened and how he saw the bullit hit the ground. I tried to explain to him what had happened but he would not believe me. He had the barrel replaced and gave me the ruined one. Try as I might I could not remove those two bullits. Now a word of advice from someone who is now old and much more experienced . If you fire a gun and something seems unusual or different, lay the gun down and check it out. It only takes a moment and you won't be sorry.

[Ricochet]

I'll bet that was a common experience with the "half jacketed" bullets that used to be popular.