Just a reminder: plunk your pistol loads

[1KPerDay]

Shot a handgun match last Saturday (took third in Production shooting my P226) and a guy in my squad had trouble all day with "squibs" in his Canik. They weren't actually squibs though. He had started loading a new coated FP 147 bullet and had apparently not checked any of them for proper function/plunk in his pistol before building them all. He had a malfunction, tap/racked then repeated tap racks didn't fix it. The SO called for an investigation and he had a "squib". Nobody had heard anything and the sequence of events didn't match up to a squib.

What was happening is he'd seated them all too long for his chamber and they were jamming into the lands and holding the slide out of battery, and then when he'd rack them out the case would pull free from the bullet. He carried a squib rod around the rest of the day.

Check your loads, folks. Seriously it takes 3 seconds to plunk a new combination. No reason not to.

 

[murf]

especially when you switch guns. chambers are all different. a load can plunk in one gun and not in another.

murf

 

[mdi]

Good example of an "oops! I forgot that step"...

 

[Toprudder]

I have a spreadsheet with the different bullets I use, and the max plunk COL for each gun in that caliber. I try to pick a COL for a given bullet that will give me at least 0.020" distance off the lands in the tightest chamber that I have. Whenever I get a new bullet type in my inventory, I go through this test.

 

[tightgroup tiger]

OOPSII !! If he's competing you would think he would know better. I'll bet the next time he competes he will check every round he takes. The last time I was at the range a young fellow had a Canik that wouldn't fire but 1/3rd of the time and he brought it to me and said that it will only fire every third round.
The trigger would pull clear to the frame before it would clear the sear. A lot of the times it wouldn't clear it and the gun wouldn't go off no matter how hard you pulled it. That was with factory loads. I had some short loaded rounds for my PF9 and it wouldn't fire them either.
I really felt bad for him. It was his first time to the range and he had his brand new gun.
After that experience I would take a Canik if it was given to me, let alone compete with one.

 

[Shimitup]

I take every bullet profile I load and start them in a case then I chamber them and press them to the barrel hood in each gun I load for then measure the OAL and subtract .010". I consider this to be the absolute max OAL that I can load for each gun for any given bullet. I scribble these notes in my manual next to the corresponding bullet, it keeps me from running into that problem. (Edit) I just backed up and saw Toprudder's post, yep, pretty much that.

 

[sparkyv]

I have a spreadsheet with the different bullets I use, and the max plunk COL for each gun in that caliber. I try to pick a COL for a given bullet that will give me at least 0.020" distance off the lands in the tightest chamber that I have. Whenever I get a new bullet type in my inventory, I go through this test.

An excellent way to prevent issues no matter to which firearm you feed your handloads. Exactly the way I do it, too.

 

[Blue68f100]

I have a spreadsheet with the different bullets I use, and the max plunk COL for each gun in that caliber. I try to pick a COL for a given bullet that will give me at least 0.020" distance off the lands in the tightest chamber that I have. Whenever I get a new bullet type in my inventory, I go through this test.

I do the same thing, but logged into my notes with gun and load development. It's the first thing I do when I get a new gun or bullet. With rifle it allows you to go back and see how much throat erosion you have if needed.

 

[Toprudder]

I do the same thing, but logged into my notes with gun and load development. It's the first thing I do when I get a new gun or bullet. With rifle it allows you to go back and see how much throat erosion you have if needed.

Since the only rifles I do much loading for are ARs, I don't worry about distance to the lands since I can only load to mag length, but that is a good idea to keep a log of that.

I probably should mention that my spreadsheet also includes the bullet length, from which I can get an idea about case volume of a loaded round. That way, I can make a comparison between a new bullet and bullets I have previously used, and get an idea about min charge for a new load workup. A lot of times, when I see a big difference in load data between two different bullets, it has to do with where the base of the bullets ends up when seated, which changes the case volume. Less volume almost always means less charge.

 

[Texas10mm]

OOPSII !! If he's competing you would think he would know better. I'll bet the next time he competes he will check every round he takes. The last time I was at the range a young fellow had a Canik that wouldn't fire but 1/3rd of the time and he brought it to me and said that it will only fire every third round.
The trigger would pull clear to the frame before it would clear the sear. A lot of the times it wouldn't clear it and the gun wouldn't go off no matter how hard you pulled it. That was with factory loads. I had some short loaded rounds for my PF9 and it wouldn't fire them either.
I really felt bad for him. It was his first time to the range and he had his brand new gun.
After that experience I would take a Canik if it was given to me, let alone compete with one.

I'm guessing you only have one child?

My Canik TP9SFx has been flawless in over 2k rounds in three months. I'm betting that that young fellow had changed some springs in the pistol. There are a lot of mods one can do to a Canik. Not every mod will work with every pistol.

 

[marchboom]

When I would compete I would do the plunk test on every round I would use. Just reassurance. And it's definitely part of the die set-up for a new round. I will also do a plunk test on every factory round I carry in my CCW guns. Never had a problem with factory but at least I can be assured that every round has fit the chamber.

 

[Average Joe]

When using a new bullet profile, I plunk all my handguns to make sure they will function correctly. My CZ has a short feed throat, and is the most finicky about some bullets.