Dangerous Primer Failure................

R

ronsroom1

Guest
This is a FYI guys...........Hopefully it will never happen to any of us................Ron

THE FOLLOWING TRAINING ADVISORY WAS FORWARDED FROM GWINETT COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT - LAWRENCEVILLE, GA

In September of this year a GCPD officer was involved in a situation which quickly became a use of deadly force incident. When the officer made the decision to use deadly force, the chambered round in his duty pistol did not fire. Fortunately, the officer used good tactics, remembered his training and cleared the malfunction, successfully ending the encounter.

The misfired round, which had a full firing pin strike, was collected and was later sent to the manufacturer for analysis. Their analysis showed the following: ".the cause of the misfire was determined to be from the primer mix being knocked out of the primer when the round was cycled through the firearm multiple times". We also sent an additional 2,000 rounds of the Winchester 9mm duty ammunition to the manufacturer. All 2,000 rounds were successfully fired.

In discussions with the officer, we discovered that since he has small children at home, he unloads his duty weapon daily. His routine is to eject the chambered round to store the weapon. Prior to returning to duty he chambers the top round in his primary magazine, then takes the previously ejected round and puts in back in the magazine. Those two rounds were repeatedly cycled and had been since duty ammunition was issued in February or March of 2011, resulting in as many as 100 chambering and extracting cycles. This caused an internal failure of the primer, not discernible by external inspection.

This advisory is to inform all sworn personnel that repeated cycling of duty rounds is to be avoided. As a reminder, when loading the weapon, load from the magazine and do not drop the round directly into the chamber. If an officer's only method of safe home storage is to unload the weapon, the Firearms Training Unit suggests that you unload an entire magazine and rotate those rounds. In addition, you should also rotate through all 3 duty magazines, so that all 52 duty rounds are cycled, not just a few rounds. A more practical method of home storage is probably to use a trigger lock or a locked storage box.

FURTHER GUIDANCE FROM ATF FIREARMS TECHNOLOGY BRANCH:

The primer compound separation is a risk of repeatedly chambering the same round. The more common issue is bullet setback, which increases the chamber pressures often resulting in more negative effects.

SOD RECOMMENDATION:

In addition to following the guidance provided above of constantly rotating duty ammunition that is removed during the unloading/reloading of the weapon, training ammunition utilized during firearm sustainment and weapon manipulation drills, should also be discarded if it has been inserted into the chamber more than twice. This practice lessens the likelihood of a failure to fire or more catastrophic results.
 
Another solution...

On the front steps as you come home, drop the magazine out and fire the chambered round off ... and yelling, 'Honey, I'm home".
 
I have read other new guide lines. From various manufacturers and PD's.
Train once a month on range. Shoot your duty ammo first. That solves a few problems.
 
the idiots in Miami seam to do this when I dechamber the round goes in my range box and those are the ones I use in practice, never back in cary this would explain a bunch of military misfires from stuff dropped in
 
I'd say the odds of having a primer go bad from re-cycling are less than the odds of having a bad primer in your box of ammo. Millions of primers are made every year and some do make it past the inspections with no mixture and/or no anvil. Even the Match primers are not exempt. Don't believe me? Call Federal and ask them. I've had it happen to me as have other competition shooters who burn a lot of ammo each year.

If you think that re-cycling may result in a failure, simply replace your carry ammunition with new stuff each year. I do that even though my CCW is a revolver.

Don't worry. Be happy :)

JMHO

Ray
 
The safer solution is to fire your carry ammo every 90 days.

Then reload with new.

Jon
 
I also read. Some people think over pressure, from bullet push back, is another issue with carry ammo.
Maybe, a few KB's (Kabooms).
Early .40 S&W ammo had several KB's. NY cops had 2 in one day at range practice. Glock G22. Some blame the firearm. Some blame the ammo. Federal said it did not have clear specs. on brass wall thickness. And the brass was nickel plated. Might have been a little thin....????
 
This reminds me of a article by a writer in a gun magazine some 30 or 40 years ago. He had a very hot round fired in his gun (not sure if damage was done) which was a surprise for what was loaded.
Turns out the ammo was riding in his vehicle for a long time, and the powder was pulverized from vibration. This increased the burn rate to a dangerous level.
 
fishbone

That story has been making the rounds on the Internet ever since Al Gore invented it. The guy has been everything from a cop in NY to a cowboy in Montana. The damage is everything from a sore hand to a destroyed revolver. I don't think anyone has ever verified that it actually happened.
 
I don't think it would happen with a revolver but larger rifle rounds can create pressure.

An acquaintance of mine tested handgun ammo, dude's a fairly serious pyro (for some weird reason his sort seem to hang out around here) so he has powder mills. First he took pistol rounds and loaded them in the vibratory and left them for hours, days, a week........boom, boom boom.

Then he ball milled a bunch of rounds......boom

So he dumped the powder out and plate milled it........boom

blender......boom

So he started on rifle powders. He finally got some "dangerous" consequences like blown primers by emptying 7MM Remington Mag rounds and grinding the powder. Another friend of mine fired a round of 300WM that had been under the seat in his truck for years, same thing, blown primer. I still teach proper ammo handling and storage as part of my Hunter Ed program but I treat it as more of an ethics issue than as a real safety concern...... I've heard several reputable accounts involving "opening day, driving to work over the mountain, gun behind the seat, old ammo in the glove box...... BOOM! and a miss..."

I've never taken the time to test beyond this so this is an opinion piece






A'gain








;)







al
 
Snopes says that the story of the guy who shot himself in the groin with a .22 round he used as a replacement fuse in his pickup is false too.

There's gotta be at least one for real urban legend!
 
I'm a big time Snopes follower but I had no idea the groinshot thang was an urban legend....... IT HAPPENED to my brother-in-law Tony.

:)

Only it weren't used as a FUSE, it were in his pocket. Up here in these You-nited States we got 9V batteries, they're rectangular with the +- posts side-by-side like a car badd'ry and you shouldn't carry them in y'er pocket with live 22 rds. And I'm stretching my story some, his didn't even go off, it just got hot enough to burn his leg and he dug it out of his pocket, unharmed. Actually, "shot in the groin" ain't in it even if it does go off. 22shells pop and the case goes flying but not enough to hurt you. much. We put some in the fire, they hit hard enough to break a coke bottle. I'm guessing the 22-as-a-fuze story did actually happen. I'm also guessing nobody was hurt. But my cousin Carla did have to get a bandage on her leg when the brothers set a box of 7mm's on the woodstove sideboard, it hit hard enough to penetrate and was hot enough to stick........

al
 
I can't verify it either, but (there's always a but) I read it in a magazine in the 70's by one of their staff writers. I only subscribed to main stream gun rags such as 'Guns & Ammo, shooting times, etc.
But then again, he may have been short on real stories that month. LOL

I'm surprised at alinwa's post of grinding the powder up and not getting high pressures. I thought the surface of the powder particles had a significant influence on burn rates.
 
I'lll throw this in, but it's just from what I have seen...

The problem is the bullet slipping back in the case, because the factory taper crimp is not very consistent. You can take your semi-auto pistol, measure the OAL of a factory round, then load it through the pistol 5 times, from the magazine, and remeasure. You will find a majority of the time this round will have a new shorter OA, sometimes it's much shorter.

Also, once the bullet starts to slip, it will slip even further after that initial groove in the bullet from the taper crimp is passed. Most defense / combat bullet have a slight taper to the bullet, making it much easier for it to actually become loose and seat nearly to the powder. A pistol like a Glock will still chamber this round due to the large dimensions of the factory chamber.

I have never been in a discussion where this was a primer issue, nor have read about it.

The rule of thumb is that you do not do this practice at all, but just set any round aside that has been chambered in a pistol designed for duty or self defense. The cost of the ammo versus the cost of a KaBoom is not close. This way, a fresh round is put in the magazine after every unloading of the chamber.

It has also been advised that if a person wishes to actually have the pistol safe at night, then it needs to be locked up. I guess as they say; there is no such thing as a unloaded firearm. I follow that to the letter with this type of firearm. With my BR rifles,, having the bolt on the bench makes me pretty sure things are safe.

Just my thoughts, but it is indeed measureable, and in high pressure rounds like the .40 and 10mm ( what I carry ), it can cause quite an issue.

s.
 
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