Check your ammo

[Tom Givens]

A couple of times in our monthly newsletter I have written about the need to visually and physically inspect your carry/defensive ammunition for defects before loading it into your carry handgun. Ammunition manufacturers turn out millions of rounds each day, and even those with high quality control standards ship out ammunition that is out of spec and faulty.

You need to be certain each cartridge has a primer and that the primer is not damaged. Bullets should be firmly seated in the case. Cases should be without burrs on the rim, torn mouths, and bulges. This is critical. Many handgun malfunctions are caused by faulty ammunition, and a quick inspection might save you a lot of pain later.

Today one of our students discovered a badly wrinkled round while loading his carry magazines. The case is badly mis-shaped just below the base of the bullet. This would likely cause a feedway stoppage if someone attempted to fire it. This was a Winchester Ranger factory round of .45ACP.

[1slow]

Very good idea.

I have visually inspected and chamber checked all carry rounds since the1980s. If you weighed them on an electronic scale to see if they had powder, I would not think you paranoid but I do not do so.

In reading about WW1 fighter pilots, there was one who measured all his Lewis Gun ammo, others laughed at him but he had very few malfunctions.

[Duelist]

A few months ago, I had a Speer Lawman round with an inverted primer.

Stuff happens.

[Sensei]

Does this mean that I should stop dipping all my round into oil before loading the magazine so that they will glide effortlessly into the chamber?

Just kidding.

Keep track of your chambered rounds folks. Once they’ve been chambered, use a paint pen to put a dot on the case rim. Rounds with dots never get rechambered until they eventually get cycled to practice ammo. Be sure to compare the lengths of fresh and dotted rounds to make sure that none have been set back.

[OlongJohnson]

Very good idea.

I have visually inspected and chamber checked all carry rounds since the1980s. If you weighed them on an electronic scale to see if they had powder, I would not think you paranoid but I do not do so.

In reading about WW1 fighter pilots, there was one who measured all his Lewis Gun ammo, others laughed at him but he had very few malfunctions.

Rickenbacker is the one best known for that, but there were others. QC in mechanical systems of any kind, for any purpose back then wasn't what it is today.

http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2877

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Rickenbacker

[einherjarvalk]

Keep track of your chambered rounds folks. Once they’ve been chambered, use a paint pen to put a dot on the case rim. Rounds with dots never get rechambered until they eventually get cycled to practice ammo. Be sure to compare the lengths of fresh and dotted rounds to make sure that none have been set back.

I've always been under the impression that setback wasn't as big a deal as people seem to think it is. I still replaced an oft-rechambered round after it showed a tiny bit of setback, but now I'm curious as to how much setback one can have before it actually becomes dangerous to fire when used as practice ammo.

[GuanoLoco]

Use a set of $20 calipers and measure Cartridge Overall Length to the 1/1000th of an inch before and after repeated chambering. Measure freh rounds to get an average baseline.

SAAMI max is 1.169” from memory, I’ve seen 9mm deliberately loaded pretty short on occasion (< 1.060).

Use both thumbs and push the bullet tip into wood. Measure COL/COAL before and after to determine whether your ammo is likely to suffer (meaningful) setback.

< 1/100th” isn’t going to mean much in terms of cartridge performance.

[STI]

This whole paint pen business is too hard in my opinion.

Get a paper lunch sack and anytime you eject a live round preparing for practice, maintenance etc. just toss it in the bag. Next time you go shoot, load em up at the first opportunity of empty mags.

Also I'd say an easily attainable "QC" bare minimum for defensive ammo is to plunk test the whole box of 50 when you first open it. That way you don't have to worry about what you have and haven't checked, they're all good to go in mags and when the box is empty repeat.

[HCountyGuy]

I usually mark up the primer of an ejected round with a sharpie and rotate it to the bottom of the mag. Takes all of 10 seconds. Next time I come across that round it’s either fired off or tucked away til a subsequent range session.

To date I can only recall coming across one round of ammo I thought better of chambering. It was a 135gr Hornady Critical Duty where the jacket had started fragmenting. I never chambered it and immediately canned that round.

[JohnO]

The concept of checking your lifesaving equipment should not be a difficult one.