What happened to this 45ACP cartridge?

It is called bullet setback, and can cause severe overpressure. I would not fire that round. There are several things that can cause it, but I would chamber some ammo from another box and see if it happens to them. If it does then your 1911 needs some work.

Set back.
There is not a tight fit of the bullet in the brass. When the round hits the feed ramp it pushes the bullet further into the case. That's not good.
Factory?



oops. too little too late.

Probably a poorly crimped round, it happens. If you have a kinetic hammer you can break it down and salvage the components.

It's pretty common. It happens a lot from recycling the same round manually.

Probably a poorly crimped round

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No. The taper crimp on a semi-auto round that headspaces on the case mouth has no bearing on this effect unless it's overdone, squeezing the bullet into an undersize condition. It's neck tension that's the culprit, or more correctly, lack of same. The case was poorly sized, or the bullet is undersized.

On second thought, I guess you could call overcrimped an example of poorly crimped.

Manually cycling live rounds is generally not a good practice. It sets you up for more bullet setback and possible accident/negligent/unintended discharges. If you want to practice cycling rounds get some snap caps or dummy rounds.

If I could get to it (I can't get the video to come up), I'd give you a link to a YouTube video of Clint Smith discussing the administrative reload. He comments on the number of guys he's personally seen that have shot themselves in the arm clearing live rounds from their pistols.

The .45ACP 1911 has one of the least direct paths into the chamber. It bangs the nose of bullet off the feed ramp and then off the barrel hood. Since the .45ACP bullet is fairly large, there is a lot of surface area making contact before it gets into the chamber. By contrast many modern pistols feed much more directly, especially in 9MM, and there is much less bullet contact as the round heads into the chamber.

EDIT to ADD: Here is the Clint Smith "Administrative Reload" video. His point is about keeping clear of the muzzle when extracting rounds, but the point to be aware of is the gun fired when ejecting live rounds. See from 3:00 to 3:30 point in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntpSu0c-tLo

Bullet setback.

beatledog7 said:

No. The taper crimp on a semi-auto round that headspaces on the case mouth has no bearing on this effect unless it's overdone, squeezing the bullet into an undersize condition. It's neck tension that's the culprit, or more correctly, lack of same. The case was poorly sized, or the bullet is undersized.

On second thought, I guess you could call overcrimped an example of poorly crimped.

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+1 ON THIS. Never reload and count on the crimp to anything but enhance feeding reliability.

The scary part is if he'd not removed the round manually, it would be in the "setback" configuration in the chamber ready to fire. Just guessing, but I'd bet money that condition has been the cause of more than one overpressure situation.

Being a rather low pressure round, the effect here is likely to be less scary than with a 40 S&W which normally operates at, or near, the ragged edge of upper pressure limits. In the case of 45 Auto FMJ, the setback likely just pushed the round into the +P range. For a 40, pressure can spike into the proof cartridge range and beyond. Hence more reported "Ka-Booms" in 40 S&W than 45 ACP

It's Remington UMC. Thinnest brass money can buy. Throw it away. Don't buy any more ammo from Remington. And try to avoid rechambering the same round in any semi auto at all costs. Chamber it ONE TIME and fire it. Seriously. Rechambering a commercial round more than once is like running through a mine field. If you handload, it is very easy to produce ammo that will NOT set back. The factories couldn't care less if their ammo sets back. They have all gotten really careless with this.

This is a known problem with the old Hornady XTP SD rounds, especially in 45 acp. I've got a box full of XTP's with Bullet setback. KU4hx is right on the issues. In .40 this can be a huge contributor to semi-catostrophic failures, not as much so in .45. But in any Semi-Auto's always check your ammo for setback, because in many cases you are cycling rounds in an out of the firearm daily.

This is the first I've ever seen it in a FMJ round. Perhaps this is because I don't cycle range ammo in an out of my guns a lot. I pretty much just load them and shoot them.

After reading this tip somewhere a few years back I tried it out. I always load the chambered first round for carrying from an otherwise empty mag. I haven't had a single instance of setback since.

With respect, how could that possibly make any difference on set back? Setback is an ammo problem, not a gun or magazine problem.

I would chamber some ammo from another box and see if it happens to them. If it does then your 1911 needs some work.

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We jump to the gun needing work that quickly? There's a much larger chance it's an ammo problem, likely merely bullet setback from a poorly sized case or slightly undersized bullet as beatledog said.

Don't buy any more ammo from Remington.

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It always makes me laugh when someone says to absolutely not buy anything from a certain manufacturer. Remington hasn't been in business for 197 years by selling nothing but crap.
Now, there may be certain things that I prefer from another brand, but Remington will do the job as well in the vast majority of instances.

It's Remington UMC. Thinnest brass money can buy. Throw it away.

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If you have some you want to throw away, send it to me. I'll pay shipping. Don't even care what caliber.

It's Remington UMC. Thinnest brass money can buy.

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The manufacturer is it Remington or XYZ their obligation is only for one time usage as opposed to multiple reloading of a cartridge case. From the manufactures viewpoint there is the economics of production. If the cartridge case integrity suffices for one firing then they the manufacture have meant their obligation. I’ve reloaded Remington cartridge cases multiple times with out a problem.

This almost gets to the point of WWB at Wal-Mart endless complaints. Even thou I can’t run thru a rainstorm with out getting wet I’ve no complaints with WWB.