Check Your Carry Ammo

[BillSWPA]

Regarding rotating carry ammo, I work behind a desk and carry concealed, with the ammo well protected from moisture. If the ammo has come in contact with moisture (usually from sweat but very occasionally from rain), it gets replaced. I always chamber the same round, and replace it if it starts getting shorter.

Within the past decade I have seen two ammo shortages lasting multiple years, when nothing was available. I have since begun keeping more here, but this is one reason I have disliked getting rid of what is likely perfectly good, expensive ammo rather than shooting less expensive ammo.

1 in every 15 rounds failing to go off on the first primer hit is concerning. The ammo was carried for much longer than most here would consider wise and I will have to re-think what I do. However, nothing happened to that ammo in that time. The problem was at least as likely to be poor quality ammo than ammo that was carried too long.

[BobM]

When I was working full time, I had the officers shoot up the duty ammo during qualification once a year and issued fresh before they left. The last couple years, during a different range session, I'd have them fire the top two or three rounds in the carry magazine and top off with fresh ammo. If we could have afforded it, I would've had them shoot it all up twice a year.

After I retired, I was hired by one of the local court systems. No one knew how old the duty ammo was they were carrying so I suggested shooting it up at the next session. The chief bailiff was skeptical but humored me. On the first stage, he turned out to have a dud round in his chamber.

[JCN]

Regarding rotating carry ammo, I work behind a desk and carry concealed, with the ammo well protected from moisture. If the ammo has come in contact with moisture (usually from sweat but very occasionally from rain), it gets replaced.

The other thing I like about Federal HST is the primer sealant they use to protect the powder.

[spence]

The other thing I like about Federal HST is the primer sealant they use to protect the powder.

I carried Ranger bonded for some time, still have maybe half a case of it. It, too, has primer sealant. That is one thing I can most assuredly appreciate. I spend much time in the climate and sweat significantly.

[358156hp]

Pi Sr doing other things, Pi Jr = Defiant Munitions. Corbon as anyone knew it is no more. A few old-Corbon employees were/are members here. Hard primers and no-gos in strikers guns was not uncommon for a period of time as they struggled with components towards the end.

Tragic, but normal. Mixed calibers on range tables results in all kinds of stoppage clearance drills. Loose training rounds always go home or hit the street on duty and troop doesn't know or care about the difference. Give some troops 50 rounds for their 46 round gun, the other four will reappear somewhere 10 years and some caliber or manufacturer switches later. Troops will help each other out with a spare round, whether its the right one or not. People are people, but some is mitigated in training, range management, and supervision.

Their website is still up and apparently taking orders. It is even more interesting that the website shows a South Dakota phone number. Apologies, I did misread the article online about Super Vel, they were talking about Peter Sr, and it was about five years old anyway. I normally don't put too much stock into anything in print that's over about two years old. My reading comprehension must have really sucked last night.

[Ed L]

1 in every 15 rounds failing to go off on the first primer hit is concerning. The ammo was carried for much longer than most here would consider wise and I will have to re-think what I do. However, nothing happened to that ammo in that time. The problem was at least as likely to be poor quality ammo than ammo that was carried too long.

Given the many problems with Corbon ammo over the decades, I'm not sure why there would be any doubt that the 5 failures to fire out of 77 rounds was the ammo company's poor QC.

Now onto my experiences with carry or defensive ammo failing to detonate.

The first one was relatively early in my handgun experience and is cringworthy and derpy. Back in the late 1970s and 1980s Glaser Safety Slugs were a big thing. They were sold in packages of 6 or 8 rounds for almost $20--so they were too expensive for most people to fire 100-200 rounds through an automatic to insure reliable functioning. So some people suggested just fire a few Glasers through your gun to make sure they detonate and then carry the Glaser as the round in the chamber with different rounds in the magazine. That way you know the Glaser will go bang and you get all that awesome stopping power. Well, I discovered quickly that the Glaser carried in this fashion could go bad quickly and fail to detonate. The Glaser Safety Slugs of that time did not have primer sealant. Even with primer sealant, I still would not carry them. Due to the nature of the rounds they are not crimped tightly and a bad also a bad choice because of under-penetration.

The next situation was with another exotic round, the German made Geco Action Safety Slug. It was supposed to be high performing round that was designed for German police and their anti terrorist unit. It was sold in the US under than name and the as the BAT round, an acronym for Blitz Action Trauma. Yes, I know.

It was an 84 grain 9mm solid copper bullet with a huge hollowpoint. The round had a muzzle velocity of almost 1400 feet per second when fired from a handgun. The bullet was fitted with a plastic tip to insure reliable functioning in guns that were designed to fire hardball. There was small channel from the bottom of the round to the hollowpoint cavity which propelled the plastic tip out of the bullet when the round was fired. In practice, the the tip dropped off slightly after the round left the muzzle. Below is a rough diagram, and a picture of the bullet that shows it after it was fired into some test medium, and a picture of the box.







This round was mentioned positively in gun magazines including Combat Handguns. I bought a bunch of this ammo in 9mm in the late 1980s. I think the ammo was a bit over $1 a round at that time. I fired several hundred trouble-free rounds though a Glock 17, HK-P7M8, and a CZ-75. I fired some of these rounds from time to time. But they were hard to get and expensive, so I didn't shoot a lot of them. I may have gone a year or two without firing any.

Fast forward to the early 1990s. I tried firing some and got failures to detonate with some of the same guns that had previously functioned handguns including a HK P7M8, a Glock, and a Sig P228. I retried the rounds that failed to detonate and some of the rounds fired on subsequent hits, while others failed to fire at all. This ammo was from several different batches and packages that had previously functioned reliably in my handguns. There was something about the round or the primer that made it go bad over time.

I notified a friend on the west coast who had some of this ammo. He test fired it and got the same results. He actually wrote an article about it that appeared in the gun magazine Special Weapons for Police and Military.

Since then I have used several different name brand types of ammo. I now use the Federal HST 124 grain standard velocity hollowpoint for my 9mm handguns.

[JHC]

This is an interesting clip from JJ on clearing stuck slides. His examples were failures to go to battery. Recently someone I know had a fully chambered round in a Gen 5 G26 that was locked up tight and couldn’t be retracted. This technique popped it right open with ease.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0t-A...I2YzEzYmMxYg==

[WDR]

This is an interesting clip from JJ on clearing stuck slides. His examples were failures to go to battery. Recently someone I know had a fully chambered round in a Gen 5 G26 that was locked up tight and couldn’t be retracted. This technique popped it right open with ease.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0t-A...I2YzEzYmMxYg==

Glad I clicked on that. Worth remembering.

[Mike C]

I got this report last night from my good friend, Rob Haught, who is a police chief in WV, as well as a prominent trainer. This underscores the advice I keep giving to carefully inspect every round of carry ammunition. You bet your life on the ammo you carry.

We had an OIS with two State Troopers serving an arrest warrant on a 60 year old male for battery. On entry to his house he engaged both with a handgun striking one 4 times and the other once. During the gunfight the most wounded Trooper experienced a catastrophic malfunction of his G17 when a .40 cal round would not feed. How it got into his magazine is being investigated. The Trooper just underwent surgery to amputate his leg above the knee. BG died on scene. I know we preach checking our duty ammo but this is a verifiable case of why.

Any chance there are donation pages for the officers involved? I would happily contribute.

[RJ]

I carried Ranger bonded for some time, still have maybe half a case of it. It, too, has primer sealant. That is one thing I can most assuredly appreciate. I spend much time in the climate and sweat significantly.

I had to go look up "Primer Sealant" since it wasn't something I was familiar with. I noticed out of my two current carry ammo types, the HST has this purplish-reddish stuff on top of the primers, but the Speer Gold Dot 124+p doesn't. Based on what I read (Primer Sealant is designed to provide a barrier to moisture, especially for .mil users) it would seem like a discriminator for use in humid/hot climates (aka Florida, where I live). I learned something today. Thanks @JCN for mentioning this.