Next time you buy "Cheap" ammo ....

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45R

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Please think about this......

A squib from crappy Russian ammo. Picture was taken at today's THR shoot. I dont remember what caliber it was but the owner of the gun reported that that recoil felt strange and put the gun down. Waited a few minutes then took the pistol apart. This is what we both saw!

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I have said it a thousand times and I will say it again.

"COMMIE AMMO FOR COMMIE GUNS, WESTERN AMMO FOR WESTERN GUNS!!!!"

Looks like a P7M8 would have been a pricy lesson. Glad nobody was hurt and there was no property damage.

Chris
 
Hate to burst your bubble, but you can get a squib load, or any one of a number of possible malfunctions, from even premium brands of ammo. True, it probably happens more often where the qc on ammo is less rigid.

Back when we were testing 9mm pistols for the Army's XM-11 pistol program, they had a squib load go off in a Glock 19. Firer noticed something different about it, but was shooting rapid fire to test pistol durability, and pulled the trigger again before he realized there might be a problem. Result: The Mother of All Kabooms. Barrel shredded, slide bulged out on both sides, and the front of the polymer frame just disappeared. Firer would have probably lost some fingers if he hadn't been wearing heavy leather gloves.

This was with M-882 ball ammo. What apparently happened was, one round went off, and for some reason all the powder didn't burn -- just enough to send the bullet about 2/3 of the way down the barrel. It did cycle the action, bringing another round up behind it. Now, all the guns had been subjected to, and passed, the bullet-in-bore test, with no worse result than some bulged barrels. Ruined the guns, but no kabooms. What happened here was that the remainder of the powder charge followed the bullet into the barrel. When the second round was fired, the compression heat fired every grain of powder simultaneously, creating pressure somewhere around 100,000 PSI. This is NOT something you want to have happen to one of your weapons.

Glad 45R's friend noticed something wrong and immediately stopped shooting to check.
 
I know a squib load is possible with any ammo but I cringe when I see people shoot Wolf or Barnaul et. al. through certain guns. I have seen too many guns with problems or destroyed because of it.

Now AKs, SKS, Makarovs, all seem to be fine with the stuff.

But it is absolutely true that any ammo manufacturer can have a squib charge, double charge etc.
 
Yep any ammo could have a QC problem . American Eagle ammo toasted a Kimber Custom II the first year I was learning to shoot. The round was almost double charged and it rendered the gun inoperable after the round discharged. During the ignition process, I was hit in the face with some a gritty substance and the gun stopped working afterwords. It was sent back for warranty/repair.

The picture and post are just a reminder that we must be careful.

Best


45R
 
I've seen far more squibs from people shootiong reloads than anything. Where's the proscriptions against reloading to get cheap ammo?

Can't say I've ever actually seen a squib with any factory or surplus ammo, a few didn't feel right after the shot so I checked the barrel -- I always do after any jam or malfunction. Only blocked bores I've encountered was my father-in-laws reloads -- he reloaded a couple of years past the point where his eyesight and attension span failed enough to make it a problem -- a disaster waiting to happen, but fortunately he was a safe shooter and always stopped after a shot that didn't feel right.


I've had my share of duds wtih surplus ammo and the older lacquer coated Wolf. Haven't had a dud yet with the new polymer coated Wolf and I'm getting close to 5000 rounds of the stuff in various calibers.

Only commercial or surplus ammo I've ever thrown away instead of shot was some Remington UMC .223 that that my friend bought for his AR15, musta not been crimped -- severe bullet setback on feeding. Fortunatly the first round jammed so when he cleared it and chambered another round, I made him eject it without firing -- came out ~1/4" shorter than it started! We threw away the rest of it.

--wally.
 
Just because ammo is inexpensive does not mean that it is necessarily cheap. There is some good commercial ammo out there that isn't expensive and it works just fine.

Price does not necessarily equate wth quality.
 
I buy 1000 rds of Winchester/UMC 9mm at dicks for $107 out the door.

It's hard to get even com-bloc ammo for that cheap.
 
COMMIE AMMO FOR COMMIE GUNS, WESTERN AMMO FOR WESTERN GUNS!!!!"
Click to expand...

Well, the pistol shown in the Pics is a PA-63, which is a "commie gun" that was designed to use the crappy commie ammo. Most likely it was chambered in 9x18 makarov, though possibly some of these guns were imported in 9mm Kurtz (.380). I have encountered a few PA-63s with tight chambers, which is especially problematic when you try to feed it wolf or other steel-cased, com-bloc produced ammunition.

This incident best illustrates why commie guns are cheap and why it doesn't pay to customize them heavily. They're designed to shoot a type of ammo that often puts considerable wear on the weapon and they are intended to be disposable. While Winchester and S&B both produce commercial grade brass-cased 9x18 makarov ammo, it's much more difficult to come by than the steel cased Russian stuff. The PA-63 is an alloy framed mil-spec weapon that was intended to be carried a lot and shot little. They're very inexpensive. Throw it away and buy a new one with a case of wolf ammo for <$300.

Undercharged loads can blow up a gun just a badly if not worse than overcharged loads. In an undercharged load where there is less powder in the case than in normal, the empty space in the case allows more power to ignite simultaneously which generates pressure that exceeds the machine's tolerances.

Wait a minute: do I spy a box of S&B ammo sneaking out of the right side of the first picture?
 
It's hard to get even com-bloc ammo for that cheap.
Click to expand...

It's impossible to buy 9x18 makarov ammo as cheaply WWB 9mm from Wally World or Dicks, unless you find Brown Bear or LVE (both steel cased) on closeout sale somewhere. If you have to have it shipped, then forget it.
 
9mm Mak squib

Hi guys. I'm the shooter of that squib load.

The load was 95-grain Barnaul JHP in 9mm Makarov. The gun was a Feg PA-63, essentially an aluminum-framed Walther PP copy in 9mm Mak. Prior to this event, I had purchased about 500 rounds of the same ammo and discovered that it was very inconsistent in its sizing in that about 2/3 of the rounds were too fat to feed smoothly into the chamber. I discovered that when an oversized cartridge completely tied the gun up and I had to force the cartridge out of the chamber at home. I then checked the rest of the ammo and rejected everything which would not fit smoothly into the chamber of the field-stripped pistol.

Despite all that crap, I still ended up with a squib load. Although the case ejected correctly and the next round in the magazine was fed into the chamber, the gun smacked my hand pretty hard and it was very clear something was wrong. I cleared the gun and field stripped it and discovered the bullet lodged firmly in the barrel. I am thankful indeed that it was apparent from the "feel" of the shot and from the report that something was off and it was time to stop.....had I not done so and touched off the next round, I think the gun would have grenaded and it would have been ugly indeed.

That gun runs brass-cased good quality ammo such as Fiocchi and S&B, etc. with no problems at all...lesson, FOR ME AT LEAST, is NO MORE CHEAP RUSSIAN CRAP AMMO. It may be inexpensive in the short term but very expensive in the long term.

Glad 45R posted the photo for you guys and gave you the rundown...

Bob
 
Hmm... I have roughly 1500 rounds of Barnaul JHP through my Mak. I've had one failure to extract in that time but nothing with the ammo itself. No one on the Mak board seems to have had a problem with it either (except the stench it makes lol). Maybe you just got a bad batch that missed QC?
 
About ten months ago I was at my local range and a guy had two boxes of Sellier & Belloit .38 special FMJ that he was having problems with. At first we thought that the primers were just hard. Every other loaded cylinder turned up one or two rounds that would not fire no matter how many times hit them with the firing pin. After going through the first box and half of the second he brought out some .38 cci blazer and had no failures.

I buy a lot of fiocchi ammo and I prefer it to WWB. While I haven't had any problms with the Fiocchi in .45, other members at my range have had problems with their 9mm and .40 and .38spl.

I guess even "quality" manufacturers of range-grade ammo can have qc problems every now and then.

I've shot about five cases of Barnaul FMJ and HP in my Makarov and I've never had a problem. It's communist ammo for a communist gun, after all.
 
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