124-HST Case Length Issue

[Sauer Koch]

At the range this evening, shooting my P30SK, with 124gr HST, and I had a failure to go into battery. It was about an eighth of an inch shy, and was a little hard to open the slide to extract; I couldn't really see any issue, so I decided to put it back in the mag, mostly full, and try again, but the same thing happened and it was much harder to remove from the gun. At first, I didn't think it was going to come out, but finally got it by pushing the muzzle against the rubber mat on the table. Once I began looking harder, I was able to see the problem; it's pretty subtle, but the one with the blue x has a slightly longer case than the other one, and that was the issue. When I load fresh rounds from my stash, I always stand them up alongside each other, and verify that the OAL all match, but I have never looked at the case length in relation to the others. Lesson learned! I've probably went through about 1K of these and never ran across this, so that's not bad, I just need to be a little more careful with my screening.

[lyodbraun]

Strange, but doesn’t surprise me at all.. good eye in catching it... maybe contact federal and let them know of the issue ?

[Jim Watson]

What is the case length?

[Sauer Koch]

What is the case length?

Not sure; I don’t have a caliper.

[olstyn]

Assuming the other one is the correct 19mm, going by proportion, it looks like it's about 20mm long.

[Jim Watson]

I once did some reloads that would not let the gun breech up.
I saw they were all in Hornady brass and were markedly longer than WW. But I got them as range pickup so they shot in some gun.

Chilling to think we have to do our own quality control on "premium" factory ammo.

[Sauer Koch]

I once did some reloads that would not let the gun breech up.
I saw they were all in Hornady brass and were markedly longer than WW. But I got them as range pickup so they shot in some gun.

Chilling to think we have to do our own quality control on "premium" factory ammo.

Well, considering it's mass produced, I guess it's bound to happen. I'm not upset about it, and look at it as a valuable lesson learned! The second time i tried to cycle it, and then remove it, it was what I'd call a catastrophic failure, considering how much time it took me to remove it. Had that been in the middle of a real situation, and I NEEDED that round, I would've been better off with a hammer in my hand!

Check every single round that goes into your mag!

*Update: this is the best I could do. Bad round is 48/64” (19.05mm) and a good one was 47/64”, (18.65mm) but by a simple ruler, it was extremely hard to see much difference. You’d think the ruler would have shown a bigger difference than my eyes saw; quite odd!

[Jim Watson]

Assuming you are eyeballing that ruler accurately, that round SHOULD chamber.
48/64 = .750" and the SAAMI maximum case length is .754", 19.15mm if you just must metricate.
Just in case of error or fouling, the SAAMI maximum chamber depth is .776" (19.71mm.)
I doubt the DIN/CIP is a whole lot shorter.

Try to get your hands on good calipers and show more reliable numbers.

[bfoosh006]

The left hand case is not as crimped either.. and with 9x19 being a tapered case, that will limit the loaded rounds ability to smooth chamber.

You can see the uncrimped portion readily in your photo.

[OlongJohnson]

It's interesting to me that the difference in OAL seems to be matched by a difference in length of the extractor groove.