Dropping ammo?

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rem44m

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Hey guys have any of you ever dropped your magazine with ammo and had it cause of dud?
 
Define dud? If a bullet was to be poorly seated in its case the percussive force from a drop might dislodge the bullet, but that would certainly cause a failure to feed and not a failure to fire- because it wouldn't chamber.

A properly made round should be fine if it's dropped, magazine itself is more prone to damage.
 
Nope. Never happened.

I've dropped ammo on concrete and it still fired. As long as the components are still in place, it should still be good to go.
 
Unless the magazine were dropped from some great height, I can't imagine how the magazine or the ammo would be affected, except for maybe a scratch or dent on the magazine itself. If the magazine hit on the feed lips, feeding could be affected, but it would not cause a "dud" or misfire.

Jim
 
I dropped partially loaded magazines hundreds of times during IPSC competition, on sand, gravel, and concrete. Never affected reliability of cartridges remaining in the magazine. Never occurred to me that it could.
 
Hey guys have any of you ever dropped your magazine with ammo and had it cause of dud?
It occurs to me that if ammunition were that sensitive, the inertia of the slide/bolt when it chambers the round could set the round off.

It would, all else equal, be more likely to go off due to impact, than cause a dud.

Ammunition was air-dropped I would guess by the boxcar load during WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. It didn't seem to cause any problems.
 
Done it plenty of times in the military, during competition, and at the range. Never had that problem
 
Thanks all, the reason I ask is I was at the range the other day and had a "dud" where the firing pin hit the primer but nothing happened. The ammo was Federal 165 grain hst out of a Glock 27. I had been carrying that magazine with the ammo loaded in it for probably over a year through all sort's of conditions and I have dropped that mag on concrete once or twice over that year. I've never had a "dud" happen with a glock because they seem to smash that primer pretty well. What was more concerning is this was my self defense ammo in my concealed carry pistol, which means had I found myself in a situation where self defense was necessary, I would have heard a click when I should've heard a boom.
 
I had been carrying that magazine with the ammo loaded in it for probably over a year through all sort's of conditions
Well there's your problem!

The primer probably got contaminated with gun oil or moisture somehow.

It's a good idea to rotate out your carry ammo and reload with fresh ammo occasionally, say every six months or so.

Shoot up the old ammo first for practice.

rc
 
When i was responsible for a police dept. firearms training program i had officers shoot their duty ammo every three months. With fresh ammo they were sure to avoid the contamination of open holster carry. Also there was an occasional dud, usually primer upside down, with Winchester ammo (out of 100,000 rounds ordered each year). Remington got the bid one year and our Glock pistols would have constant missfires and i returned the entire lot, after that Winchester was specified in the bidd proposal.
 
rem44m said:
What was more concerning is this was my self defense ammo in my concealed carry pistol, which means had I found myself in a situation where self defense was necessary, I would have heard a click when I should've heard a boom.

Hopefully you now realize why the one of first things taught in any competent weapons class is malfunction drills.
 
I'll be honest I have not focused on malfunction drills until now. Now I load up my mags before I got to the range and throw a snap cap in somewhere in the mag. Gives some good practice.
 
I doubt that dropping ammunition just once could cause such a problem, but where ammunition is subjected to continuous rough treatment (battering from the repeated cycling through a gun) it might be an issue. For those inclined to keep the same ammo in their gun year after year (re-chambering it for cleaning, etc.), I recall this incident from 2012...


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.

Stick with fresh ammo and it shouldn't be a problem.
 
If it was a dud after it was dropped once, it was probably a dud before it was dropped.

I have successfully fired dozens of dropped rounds in my 60 odd years of schustink. I have also had my share of undropped rounds that were duds. So far, I cannot recall a round that failed to fire because it had been dropped.

I think what you had was a case of random correlation not causation.
 
Agree with the contaminated primer. I rarely clean my mag internals. Although I know I should. Maybe a little heavy on the lube? Even an over oiled auto could eventually migrate oil/lube into the mag internals. I need to more diligently rotate my carry ammo, now that I think of it. Good lesson heard to the OP and the readers. Carry on...
 
481 -- awesome post. Everyone should follow that procedure if they load/unload their semiautos on a regular basis.
 
Uh, you realize the military drops ammo from aircraft all the time, right? And when it hits it bounces and slides over rough ground that would knock you senseless - and it still works.
 
Agree with the contaminated primer. I rarely clean my mag internals. Although I know I should. Maybe a little heavy on the lube? Even an over oiled auto could eventually migrate oil/lube into the mag internals. I need to more diligently rotate my carry ammo, now that I think of it. Good lesson heard to the OP and the readers. Carry on...
I could very well be wearing two left shoes on this one, but didn't that web site Box of Truth soak loaded rounds (primer up) with WD 40 for something like days and still they all fired? Just an old coot that still likes the idea of pulling the trigger again (as on a revolver) compared to that rap,rack,tap, whatever, auto dance.
 
Well, soaking primers of loaded ammo with WD 40 and seeing that they still fire only proves that those particular primers didn't get saturated with WD 40. Primers will seat and seal into some cases tightly enough to prevent stuff from getting into them. Primers seated into other cases with slightly oversized pockets might allow enough WD 40 to seep through neutralize those primers. The dimensions of ammo components are not controlled tightly enough to make any absolute claims.
 
Ha! I drop rounds in magazines on concrete floors every week! Yet to have a problem from any of them.

I did once experience, in a revolver round, the dislodged primer compound that 481 describes. Best I could figure, it was a primer and case that I had previously pulled a bullet from using an inertial puller, then re-powdered and seated. If you're going to reuse brass and primer that have been through an inertial pulling, I suggest using a flashlight to see if there's still priming compound in the primer.
 
After the Gwinnett Co PD report and the experience that ATLDave describes, I am led to wonder if the ammo manufacturers have made any changes to their priming compounds that would increase their resistance to the effects of cyclic battering. :confused:
 
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