Tiger wrote:
Especially MSTreddy's experiments with blowing cases.
I'm glad I'm looking at the photo's, very educational! I'm sure you are doing it safely, your still typing. It's good to see what they look like though so I'm really glad you put it on here. We can all benefit from the pictures of the real deal.
Tiger, I can tell you, those cases were not my intent at empirical studies. They came about from general inattention on the part of a couple of friends and of course -- ME.
The 9 in a 40 is really quite benign when it happens. As the above poster mentioned, it goes bang -- not terribly accurate but will not cycle the slide. My buddy grabbed the 9 ammo loaded it in my 40 and shot. We looked at what happened and said -- OK, that was strange. Realized the mix up and corrected -- no harm no foul -- but I do get to laugh at him from time to time. The 9 in the 45 was ME - ALL ME!!! I grab my Colt 1911 in 9 (or so I thought) it sits in the safe right next to the Kimber in 45 and 2 other 1911s. Get to the range with the mags for 9, ammo, etc... Load mag, shoot one round, notice the very weak report and basically a keyhole in the target, no slide cycle either. Wonder what gives, manually rack, but have to pry the case to eject to find the 2nd pictured case and sit there for a second wondering what the @#$# caused that. -- Then of course I read the side plate and in bold script is KIMBER! -- Did I mention it was a 45 Kimber, not a 9? And of course another buddy is watching me and once we figure out no harm no foul proceeds to laugh at me -- imagine that! Needless to say, I had no 45 mags, or ammo, so that ended that portion of the days festivities.
The 40 in a 45 was another buddy, grabbed a 40 that was somehow mixed in with his open box of loose packed 45 and it went into the gun, same story, weak report, no cycle and out comes item 3. Those all happened within the last 2 years, so it's not like I intentionally set out to create artfully decorated cases. But I do keep them to remind me of what inattention can cause.
When you started the thread and folks started commenting on what it could be, I had some "evidence" of what it was not, and thought I'd share.
On firing the 9 in a 357 sig. I was thinking of setting out to test it, but I was giving thought to the lining up of the case in the chamber and having an issue with the bullet getting skewed before hitting the bore. That might get ugly quick. Thinking further, if it was lined up correctly so the bullet got into the bore correctly, then you might end up with some what of a shoulder from the wider base to the original mouth.
I do, thankfully, have all my appendages and desire to keep them attached in the appropriate places, so I might leave that experiment to conjecture.
On your pic, 1 and 3 do look like the were fired in some chamber that marks up brass that way, but 2 looks like a materially weakened and failed case for some reason or another. Interesting stuff.
Thanks for posting it.
/Eddy