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Thread: Case gauge or chamber check your carry ammo

  1. #1
    Site Supporter JodyH's Avatar
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    Exclamation Case gauge or chamber check your carry ammo

    A reminder to case gauge or chamber check your carry ammo.

    I've become rather complacent with the quality control of my carry ammo.
    Just give them a cursory look for obvious defects as I transfer them from the box to the magazine.

    Well... I got a big reminder why that's not good enough this morning.
    I shot my VP9SK carry ammo at the range yesterday (Barnes Tac-XP +P) and finally got around to cleaning the pistol and loading up my carry mags this morning.
    Got out a fresh box of Barnes Tac-XP +P, all the rounds passed a visual inspection as I loaded them up in the magazine.
    Went to chamber the first round and the slide stopped about 3/16" out of battery.
    Cleared everything and my first thought was obstructed bore, despite the fact that I had just run a boresnake down the bore 2 minutes prior.
    Stripped down the pistol and removed the barrel, nope clear and clean chamber and barrel.
    Looked at the round that wouldn't chamber, OAL is dead on with the other rounds and the case length is good. No obvious defects on the bullet or the case.
    WTF?
    Drop it into the chamber and it stops short of dropping in fully.
    I then take a much closer look and feel of the round.
    No taper (or at best not enough taper).
    I've shot several hundred (if not 1000+) rounds of the Barnes Tac-XP +P and never had an issue. They've been very consistent and 100% reliable.
    I then case gauged a couple boxes (and every round in every magazine currently loaded) and didn't find another bad round.

    I got lucky that the defective round ended up being the top round in the magazine and the first round I tried to chamber up.
    If it was buried in the magazine somewhere I wouldn't have discovered it until it was too late.

    Lesson re-learned.
    It just takes an extra 30 seconds to case gauge every round as you load up and is well worth it.
    While a case gauge won't catch every defect it'll cull out way more than just a visual does.
    Last edited by JodyH; 01-14-2018 at 11:59 AM.
    "For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
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  2. #2
    Yep. I plunk test all carry ammo prior to gassing up.

  3. #3
    New Member schüler's Avatar
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    Real butthurts will also do it for match ammo and 2k tests. Especially commercial reloads and for me, all Freedom Munitions products.

  4. #4
    New Member schüler's Avatar
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    Anyone ever weigh individual cartridges for squibs?

  5. #5
    Member olstyn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by schüler View Post
    Anyone ever weigh individual cartridges for squibs?
    My understanding is that brass weight varies too much from case to case for this to be reliable.

  6. #6
    Member Balisong's Avatar
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    Thanks for the reminder. I've gotten a bit complacent in this area myself lately. I don't own a case gauge but I used to be in the habit of plunk testing carry ammo and I'm going to get back into that habit now....

  7. #7
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    Great practice to check, glad you caught it. I remove the barrel from my carry gun and use it to chamber check my carry loads.

  8. #8
    New Member schüler's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by olstyn View Post
    My understanding is that brass weight varies too much from case to case for this to be reliable.
    For reloads, I agree - mixed brass. For the 50 cents a round stuff I'd think it would be consistent enough to show seriously deficient powder charge.

  9. #9
    Site Supporter Hambo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by schüler View Post
    For reloads, I agree - mixed brass. For the 50 cents a round stuff I'd think it would be consistent enough to show seriously deficient powder charge.
    I just did a random sample on Federal 147gr HST and the weight varied by 4.5gr from lowest to highest.
    "Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA

  10. #10
    Site Supporter JodyH's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hambo View Post
    I just did a random sample on Federal 147gr HST and the weight varied by 4.5gr from lowest to highest.
    I've found that powder weight is such a low percentage of the overall cartridge weight that bullet and case weight variations are enough to disguise a low or even no charge in 9mm.
    "For a moment he felt good about this. A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it. Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
    -- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --

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