A question about squibs...

[TheProf]

When squibs happen, people say that the bullet is lodged in the barrel and could cause an explosion if the next round is fired.

Since this has never happened to me yet...

1. Why is the bullet stuck in the barrel? I am assuming that the bullet is of smaller diameter than the barrel...and would easily slide out (if one were to tip the barrel down). Is the bullet resting in the barrel or is it truly "stuck"?

2. If the next round is fired, would not the bullet that is "stuck" in the barrel simply be pushed out...how could kaboom happen? Before pressure builds up to dangerous levels...would not the stuck bullet give way?

Ok... please educate me on this. I'm sure that some of my assumptions may be incorrect.

 

[M2 Carbine]

The bullet is not smaller than the barrel, it is larger.

Mostly bullets get stuck because there was no, or little powder in the case. The primer alone is powerful enough to drive the bullet up to a couple inches into the barrel.

In the last few months I've seen it happen several times.

A wooden or brass dowel or stout cleaning rod will drive the bullet backward out of the barrel.

If the gun is fired the bullet could be harmlessly pushed out of the barrel or the gun can blow up. Usually something like just bulging the barrel occurs.


The danger of a stuck bullet is, even very experienced shooters sometimes do not recognize it when it happens, because it seldom happens.
An example,
Recently I let a couple very experienced shooters shoot my Ruger LC9. All went well until a shooter got a squib load (no powder). The shooter and other shooter (store manager) thought the gun just failed to eject the last fired case and they said so.
The shooter started to pull the slide back to chamber and fire another round.
Standing close, I moved forward and grabbed the gun, locking the slide open with my hand. At the same time I said, "Do not shoot. There is a bullet stuck in the barrel".
The shooter released the gun saying, "How do you know?"
I said, "I heard the primer fire".

When teaching new shooters I slip in just primed cases on them (no bullet).
Recently I did that to a fairly experienced shooter, shooting a revolver. The shooter fired the next round after the squib load.
I told her, "You just blew up that gun in your face", and we had a talk.

 

[EddieNFL]

M2 was faster on the trigger.

 

[Frozen North]

The bullet is the same diameter as the groves of the barrel so the lands will fully engage the bullet. Have you ever recovered a bullet? You will notice that the rifleing of the barrel left deep marks in the side of the bullet.

Imagine two cars in traffic. The first one is stopped, the second one is zipping along and not paying attention. Even if car number one does not have their foot on the brake, car number two is gonna mess it up real bad.

 

[TheProf]

Thanks for the replies. I learned something today.

 

[Jim Watson]

You seem to see a lot of stuck bullets, M2.
In addtion to telling people how to deal with them, you might give them some pointers on being sure each cartridge has one and only one powder charge. That approach has worked for me since 1971.
If you are sticking bullets from factory loads, it is time to change brands.

 

[BRE346]

I had a squib last Thursday. well, I feared I had, and took the gun apart to peek through the barrel. No bullet-good. No powder-good. Primer hadn't been fired-oh. The round was magazine-fed, the case caught on the top of the chamber and when the gun was disassembled the bullet and powder fell unnoticed out the mag well. The gun is fine.
Yup, WinchesterWhiteBox 9mm loose rounds. Here's a pic of the case.

 

[rcmodel]

1. Why is the bullet stuck in the barrel?

The #1 reason is, poor reloading safety practices.
Somebody forgot to put the powder in.
Or, they double charged one case and didn't charge another one.
In any event, it should never happen if you are paying attention to what you are doing.

The #2 reason is, Cowboy Action shooters and other folk try to load to the lowest velocity possible to reduce recoil, and still get the bullet out of the barrel.
Sometimes, it doesn't.

2. If the next round is fired, would not the bullet that is "stuck" in the barrel simply be pushed out.

Imagine the stuck bullet as a stationary "plug" or cork.
Imagine the next bullet closing in on it at 800 to 1,200 FPS, or 545 to 818 MPH.

What you have is a hi-speed air compression about to happen.
The stuck bullet can't get out of the way fast enough to relieve the air pressure between the two bullets.
That creates not only very high pressure, but also heat.

That will leave a ring bulge in the barrel at the least, and maybe worse.

And doubling the bullet weight with two bullets without reducing the powder charge considerably is enough in itself to raise chamber pressure way above any safe & sane maximum pressure.

rc

 

[buck460XVR]

.......a while back, G & A did a torture test on a 686. They shot progressively reduced loads until they stuck a bullet in the barrel. They then fired two more reduced loads and then had 3 bullets stuck in the barrel. They then fired a standard .357mag load. I won't tell ya what happened, but I will say the test proves how tuff a 686 is. I'll give a link to the video so folks can see how it turned out.



L-Frame torture test

 

[EddieNFL]

I've seen a couple of 1911s with two bullets lodged in the bore. Couldn't rack the slides, but they didn't come apart.

 

[Patchbunny]

A wooden or brass dowel or stout cleaning rod will drive the bullet backward out of the barrel.

Do you push from the front of the barrel out the back, or from the back out the front?

 

[Standing Wolf]

The bullet is not smaller than the barrel, it is larger.

You're absolutely correct, M2 Carbine, except when bullets aren't larger. I've seen a couple defective .22 long rifle bullets over the years that were nowhere near caliber diameter. I met a guy once who said he used less expensive nine-millimeter bullets in .38 special and .357 magnum rounds. I told him he was probably sacrificing some accuracy. He was sure he wasn't, so I didn't argue about it. End of admittedly minor quibble.

 

[StrawHat]

Patchbunny Quote:
Originally Posted by M2 Carbine
A wooden or brass dowel or stout cleaning rod will drive the bullet backward out of the barrel.

Do you push from the front of the barrel out the back, or from the back out the front?

Since I shoot revolvers, I push from muzzle to breech. I have removed bullets from two self loaders and used the same idea.

I suggest you forget about using a wooden dowel, they splinter easily and can become jammed in the bore. Better is a nearly bore diameter brass rod. Lock the barrel in a padded vice an use a couple of solid swats with a mallet to remove the bullet.

 

[MrBorland]

Imagine the stuck bullet as a stationary "plug" or cork.
Imagine the next bullet closing in on it at 800 to 1,200 FPS, or 545 to 818 MPH.

What you have is a hi-speed air compression about to happen.
The stuck bullet can't get out of the way fast enough to relieve the air pressure between the two bullets.
That creates not only very high pressure, but also heat.

Cool. Hadn't thought of this. Very interesting, indeed.

Makes me wonder, though: It's pressure that's propelling the 2nd bullet, so wouldn't it's forward motion stop once inter-bullet pressure rises to the same point? IOW, why does inter-bullet pressure continue to rise well beyond chamber pressure, and why do the bullets actually collide? Momentum of the 2nd bullet?

 

[M2 Carbine]

Do you push from the front of the barrel out the back, or from the back out the front?

Stick the rod in the front of the barrel. You have no choice with revolvers since you can't remove the barrel from the gun.

If the bullet is closer to the muzzle, pushing from the back of the barrel is easier.

A couple days ago I purposely shot a primed only case, with bullet, in a Ruger Blackhawk .357, for something I was working on. The bullet traveled about 1 3/4 inches down the barrel. The bullet was easily knocked backward out of the barrel with a brass rod.


I noted that the sound of the primer being fired was so muffled that I would bet the majority of shooters would not realize what happened and would very possibly pull the trigger again.


At a gun show a couple months ago a friend was about to buy a very nice 1903 .32 Colt. He missed it but I saw where the barrel was slightly ringed. I guess even the little .32ACP can ring a barrel.
Too bad, it was an especially nice Colt.

You seem to see a lot of stuck bullets, M2.

No, not too many over the years.
But by the number of ringed barrels I've seen over the years I suspect there are a lot more stuck bullets than people realize.

At one time I was asked to inspect the 38 Colt revolvers used by a Security Guard Force at a secret facility (I had a Secret clearance).
As I recall about 1 in 5 guns had ringed barrels. And only commercial or military ammo was ever used in these guns.

 

[Mainsail]

It might help also to understand the word squib. In an aircraft, there is fire retardant in a pressurized bottle (or bottles) with lines to route the agent to the engine or wherever it might be necessary. In short, the pilot presses a button which sends an electrical charge down a wire and the squib explodes, rupturing the frangible disk that’s holding back the retardant, then the retardant rushes through the plumbing and escapes inside the engine cowling (as an example).

So a squib is just a reduced or muted charge. In its normal industrial definition a squib is intentional; we shooters use it to define an unintentional event, such as a cartridge without any powder (primer only) or a cartridge with very little powder.

 

[Patriotme]

I had only seen two squibs in my entire life up until this year. I've seen 5 this year and threw away a lot of ammo afterwards. They've been pretty easy to punch out of the barrel with a wooden dowel and plastic hammer. I would recommend getting the biggest dowel that will easily fit in your barrel since the thinner dowels may splinter. I keep a couple in my range bag just in case.
I've never seen a squib in a rifle barrel. I imagine that would be a pita.
About 15 years ago my wife had a squib stuck in the barrel of her Bersa 383A (.380). We were shooting on seperate stations and I didn't know about it until after she fired the second shot and bulged the barrel. She described it as having a little pop and weak recoil for the first shot and a large kick and a lot of fire coming out of the ejection port on the second shot. The gun jamned every round afterwards and the barrel had the ring around it that you would expect.
I've made it a point to tell new shooters about squibs ever since then.

 

[BCRider]

Makes me wonder, though: It's pressure that's propelling the 2nd bullet, so wouldn't it's forward motion stop once inter-bullet pressure rises to the same point? IOW, why does inter-bullet pressure continue to rise well beyond chamber pressure, and why do the bullets actually collide? Momentum of the 2nd bullet?

Something to consider is that the pressure from the powder doesn't just appear. It builds over time as the bullet is travelling down the barrel. The peak pressure reached requires that the bullet is moving at a set rate and the volume of the chamber and barrel behind the bullet is growing at an expected pace.

Meanwhile the stuck bullet is seeing a build up of pressure of the air trapped between the two bullets. But that air space isn't seeing anywhere near the build up of pressure since there's no powder that is burning and adding a lot of extra gasses to the volume. So the build up of pressure between the two bullets only really becomes significant during the last couple of millimeters of gap. And by that time it's too late to push against the stuck bullet hard enough to get it to move. So an actual physical strike is almost guaranteed with the air space being reduced to a donut shape between the end of the stuck bullet's base and the rounded end of the oncoming bullet. That oncoming bullet can then act like a wedge driven into the rear of the stuck bullet. And even if it doesn't cut the pressure occuring in the center of the base is going to encourage the stuck bullet to swage outwards with a LOT of pressure. Far more than just what is generated by the gasses or trapped air.

Some have already talked about cowboy action loads and how low they are for pressure. Yet I saw the bulged barrel of a rifle that was shooting such "low power" loads when a squib round didn't make it out the end and the next one hit it. The barrel of a very nice 1873 clone was bulged externally as well as internally. The only good news is that the bulge happened down just about two inches back from the muzzle. So the owner was able to "save" the rifle by having the barrel cut back. But it gives you an idea that it's mostly due to the bullets impacting each other and not so much the pressure since in THIS case the burn and pressure build would have been finished by the time the bullet was that far down the barrel. At least in THIS case it was. On the other hand a stuck bullet closer to the chamber could well result in the actual chamber pressures spiking up well past what it would be if the bullet were free to travel.

 

[PO2Hammer]

Seems like there's been a rash of stuck bullets lately, and a lot of them are from cheap Russian factory ammo.

 

[stanmo]

I've heard of a few lately with WWB including Mine

I thought I was really careful loading my own, but I had one jam my in my Pre-10 last week. :banghead:

 

[Jim Watson]

So a squib is just a reduced or muted charge. In its normal industrial definition a squib is intentional; we shooters use it to define an unintentional event, such as a cartridge without any powder (primer only) or a cartridge with very little powder

Better to say "shooters NOW use it to define an unintentional event."
When I was coming up in the 1960s, a squib load was an intentional extra light load for minimum noise and recoil practice, usually indoors. Not a loading blunder that risked the barrel.

 

[Mainsail]

^^^Cool! Good info of which I wasn't aware.

 

[PO2Hammer]

SAAMI defines it as:

"LOAD, SQUIB
A cartridge or shell which produces projectile velocity and sound substantially lower than normal. May result in projectile and/or wads remaining in the bore."

Kind of covers both definitions.

 

[El Mariachi]

Thanx, Gentlemen, for all of this info. I feel a bit more confidant now in knowing what to look for and the procedures necessary to deal with one of these future squibs (cuz I know it's just a matter of time).

Now then, where is the official 'Richochet' thread? Cuz there's another topic that is difficult to fully understand, given the minimal info provided by Miss Google.......

 

[wow6599]

I have had 2 squibs in the past 12 months; one my fault (10mm in a G20) and one Remington Golden Saber in a BHP. Mine is what it is.....I missed a charge, the Remington GS, well....the box (and a couple more) are back at Remington getting checked out.

It happens......