first squib round - newbie

[sltintexas]

I had my first squib round. I was loading 9mm, using Win231 & 125grain lead bullets. My load data showed to use 3.9 grains of powder so I started a little low as adviced at 3.7 grains. I was using CCI small pistol primers.

I did feel a recoil, and to my untrained hands it didn't feel any different than the other rounds. As you can see from the attached picture, there was a lot of unburned powder left in the guns insides. Luckily for me, it jammed my gun up pretty good so I didn't fire another round. The round lodged in the barrel but was easily removed.

It did eject the brass and I could not tell conclusively which one went with this round. From all that I found, none of them had any unusually wear or bulges or anything.

I am thinking something happened to the powder that deactivated it... i did not use any case lube.

See pic attached.

 

[rcmodel]

3.9 is the recommended Starting load.

You should not have reduced the charge below that.

There is a very good reason a tested starting load is a safe starting load.
And you just found out why.

rc

 

[GodGuns&Guitars]

Had a guy at Pikes Peak Gun Club that was having several of these. I inquire what he was loading etc. Everything sounded fine until he mentioned he cleaned his dies with Hoppe's #9. That will kill primer and powder.

 

[Otto]

3.7grs. of 231 didn't cause your squib...some other mistake was made.
The photo below is from a Winchester reloading guide 14th edition.

 

[editingfx]

Partial load thrown, perhaps? What method did you use to charge the case? I had a short series of squibs when switching powders in my Lee hopper with Auto Disc; the small ball powder gummed up the disc movement, and prevented the charging cycle to complete. A very slight loosening of the hopper screws solved the problem. AND, I learned to ALWAYS watch ALL parts of the operation.

EDIT: ahhhh..... I didn't look at the pic 1st... now I see all the unburned powder! So forget my partial idea.

 

[something vague]

wow, that's pretty much the whole 3.7grs right there on your gun. I can't explain why but odviously the powder was not able to ignite completely. I would also agree that it wasn't due to being below the starting load. Being only .2gr's below would not have caused that much powder to not ignite. It almost seems like a contamination of some sort.

 

[FM-793]

Had a squib as well yesterday - mine was uncharged.

I'm betting that you had some kind of contamination as well, but that was a lot of unburned powder. I'm guessing that if you'd had that level of contamination, you would have noticed it or remembered. Did anything change on this particular lot? Did you clean your equipment/dies/powder measure/priming tool?

 

[HK G3]

I really want to know what caused that powder to fail to ignite. Even if he had deviated from the min. load, the bullet should have still cleared the barrel.

Scary stuff.

 

[blikseme300]

Looks like contamination

I have seen this kind of thing twice. Each time it was narrowed down to contamination. Things like volatile cleaners and propellants can & will effectively neuter primers and propellant. Biggest culprit appears to be WD-40 when used to lube firearms, ammo and/or reloading equipment. Don't use the stuff around your guns, reloading equipment & ammo!

BTW - I often fire 9mmP reloads that are made up with 124gr LRN bullets, 3.7gr HP-38 and CCI500 SPP. Across my Chrony out of a BHP these read 950-980 ft/s. These light loads do cycle the BHP & CZ75 just fine and there is no unburned powder such as in the picture by the OP.

 

[sltintexas]

I forgot to mention since i am a newbie I measured every load. They were all within range.

I am starting to think it was something like blikseme300 mentioned. I think something just snubbed some of the powder.