Ammo Safety

Hi to everyone. I'm looking for some input on the safety or lack thereof with a cetain ammo/rifle combination.
I own a lever-action rifle in .357/.38spl. cal. In the owners booklet it clearly says that the "use of FMJ ammunition is unsafe" and not to use it, because "recoil inertia may be enough" to cause one round to impact the primer of the one in front of it in the magazine tube, and set them all off. Okay,I understand the reasoning, but in this case i'm talking about pistol cal. rounds, not a pointed .30-.30 hunting round. If i look at a winchester .38 spl. FMJ side-by-side with say a remington .38 spl LRN as an example, they're both rounded at the business end, 'yaknow? Now, the LRN is a hair more rounded at the end, but barely so, but the FMJ ain't hardly pointed at the tip either. So, my question comes down to this: Do you think it's just a case of the manufacturer being overly cautious/paranoid about a possible lawsuit that they made this blanket warning, even though they were probably thinking in terms of a pointed .30-.0-something type round? I'd like to try to get a good consensus on this. What do you think? Anyone else have any experience with this?

Lou,

The odds may be small, but when you consider where your supporting arm is, and the physics of eight rounds going off in a close-ended cylinder, I'd say it's worth following the rules.

Use SWC or FN, or if you're looking at a SD weapon, most will feed HP very well, too. I don't even use the LRN.

Probably in more danger from slamming (or dropping) the butt against a hard surface than from recoil...but there is a danger. OK...know you wouldn't do that intentially, but the number of crackes or shattered hard plastic butt plates tells me these things happen rather often.


Pesonally, would be just as cautions with hard cast led round noses bullets...a little les worried about the soft swaged factory RN bullets but I still wouldn't use them. Risk is small...but why take even a small risk when you don't have to.

If i look at a winchester .38 spl. FMJ side-by-side with say a remington .38 spl LRN as an example, they're both rounded at the business end, 'yaknow?

I know they specified FMJ, but I'd say the manufacturer is actually less concerned with the difference between jacketed and lead, and is more concerned with the round nose. As mentioned above, anything with a flat point (RNFP, SWC, even HP) is fine, jacketed or not.


Do you think it's just a case of the manufacturer being overly cautious/paranoid about a possible lawsuit that they made this blanket warning, even though they were probably thinking in terms of a pointed .30-.0-something type round?


Nope, there really have been examples of tube magazines going off in this manner, in non-spired pistol calibers. This was especially true of Henry rifles, where you manually hold the follower back while you drop rounds into the tube...if you dropped that follower by mistake, the mag spring accelerates the follower right onto the stack of bullets. Are you willing to bet that dropping your rifle on its butt won't generate a similar force?

It is an admittedly rare occurrence, but you're certainly free to try making it slightly less rare. :scrutiny:

Thanks to all for the input. Sounds as if the warnings should be taken seriously enough, and i have always followed them btw, but I was curious what others might have [B]found or heard in their own experience. I'll just stick with what i know has worked safely in the past for me, the flat-pointed .38 MC, the .357 JSP or something along those same lines. I surely don't want to end up with my rifle doing an impression of a Roman candle on me.

I've seen it happen. Do NOT load round nose (including FMJ) bullets in your rifle. Stick with RNFP (round nose flat point), TC (truncated cone), etc. You can also try wadcutters, but you may find that wadcutters don't feed properly -- it depends on the rifle.

If you are looking at a cartridge and trying to decide if it is safe for a tubular magazine, compare the meplat diameter (the flat leading edge of the bullet) to the diameter of the primer on another cartridge. If the meplat is larger than the primer, you are o.k. If it isn't, or if the bullet doesn't have a meplat at all (such as a round nose, spitzer, etc.), then don't use it.