Shooting 9mm through a .40?!

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Fedaykin

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I saw the weirdest thing yesterday, and also a little scary. I took one of my younger brother's friends out shooting on some country property that his family owned, because safe places to shoot around here are somewhat hard to find.

I asked what he was shooting and he said 9mm as he loaded his clip. Then he goes and starts firing off a few rounds. The only thing is that he has to rack the slide between each shot :confused:

I went over and asked what was going on and he just said "Oh it always does this." When he let me check it out, to my disbelief it was a Glock 22 in .40. I checked the mag also and it was the correct mag (said .40 on the side), yet it was loaded with 9mm and was firing them as long as he kept racking the slide. I'm assuming the lack of energy wasn't kicking the slide back far enough to eject the shell.

Anyway I didn't realize 9mm would fire so easily(he never would have known) with a completely incorrect caliber inside. The cause of the mix up was the box the guy sold him the glock in said glock 17(I think) and 9MM Parabellum on the front.

Anyway just thought I'd share. We were just plinking cans but now I know why he was having accuracy issues :)
 
My friend managed to fire a 9mm out of my CS40..i noticed it when the slide didn't cycle by itself. The brass expanded to fill the cylinder, bulged badly on one side. Who knows what accuracy would be like...
They do indeed fill .40 mags just fine. and vice-versa ;)
 
Not such a great idea. I hope your friends are using proper ammo now. Hopefully they haven't "learned" that it's OK to do.

This could be catastrophic should the brass ever fail.
 
I watched a guy shoot .32 outof of his .380 walther at his ccw qualification. He wasn't hitting the human silhouette target at five yards. The fired brass looked like a beer glass.
 
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It's a fairly common accidental occurrence among people who shoot both calibers but I've never seen anyone do it on purpose. At least I don't think so.
 
I shot 223 blanks out of my sks once on accident. The 223 stripper clip got into my sks stripper clips.:eek:
 
Wait till you see what happens when someone mistakenly places a 20 gauge shell into a 12 gauge shotgun, followed by a correct 12 gauge round. I would not want to be nearby.
 
I have a friend that I saw do that at an IDPA match... completely messed up his game for the match. I'm glad that I shoot either .45 or 9mm. There's no confusing those two!
 
If you scrounge for range pickup brass, you will see that it happens every once in a while.

Are people more careless now, or does the Internet just make it easier to hear about such stuff?
 
The cause of the mix up was the box the guy sold him the glock in said glock 17(I think) and 9MM Parabellum on the front.
Click to expand...
With all due respect; The cause of the mix up had nothing to do with the box the gun was sold in. The cause was the gun owner not reading the ".40" marked on the gun and the magazine. He wasn't loading 9mm's into the box, he was loading them into a gun marked .40 caliber. There is a reason the manufacturer marks the cartridge type on the barrel or slide.
It's good that nothing bad happened from the lesson.

Jack
 
Yes I realize that. It could more plainly be said that "the cause of the mix up was due to shooter stupidity". I just thought I'd add part about the wrong box for extra info on the incident. It shows how easily people who know little about guns can be thrown off I suppose. No excuse though.
 
I've seen a friend load a 9mm x 19 with 380 and then wonder why the gun wouldn't cycle.

I've stopped someone from loading the 380 backwards in the mag.

They should know better :fire::fire:

Then I go to a match with my 1911. I go to reload a mag and say: Why aren't those rounds very small!

Yes, - I packed my range bag with 9mm - the boxes look the same except for the label - why read that!

So I have to go buy some 45 at the range house and basically have to spend about $5 a box more. :(

It is not uncommon - one national level shooter I know, racked his 45 to see the 9mm round just fall out of the barrel.
 
I've stopped someone from loading the 380 backwards in the mag.
Click to expand...

heeheehee, at Basic a guy in another platoon inserted his magazine backwards and upside down, so at a cursory downwars glance all appeared well, it had the same geometry it would if done properly. He couldn't figure out why it wouldn't chamber a round though.
 
Yeah, it will work. The thing is, it isn't good for the brass or the pistol. It's bad enough with a revolver, but I wouldn't want to do it in an autoloader unless I was absolutely desperate in a defense situation.

As far as accuracy, the bullet will wobble as it goes down the tube and some of the gas will actually get ahead of the bullet causing it not to cycle properly. Also, the improper expansion of the brass can cause pieces of the casing to break away and get caught up in the action.

This wobble I mentioned was a problem with the old Webley revolvers. They were a real .38 caliber and the ammo wasn't available in the states so people used 38 special which is .357. The characteristic wobble of the bullet caused it to be underpowered, and those slugs recovered when the guns were used in crimes were so uniquely marked that this became known to ballistics experts as the Webley Wobble.

Tell your friend to make sure he only fires what the markings on the gun say it's chambered for.
 
I witnessed an HK USPc in .357 Sig chamber and fire a .380. The extractor couldn't grab the rim to extract it, which is the only reason I had to go over and check the gun out. I kept the brass - .380 at the base, .40 at the mouth!
 
havent seen that one although i did see one of my friends firing cci mini mags out of a lever action 22mag the first time he shot it.
he had gone into the sporting goods and asked for a box of 22 magnum and thats what they gave him.
he couldnt hit anything and it didnt eject them.
 
I saw that happen when the shooter rented a .40 (SIG P229 IIRC) but bought 9mm ammo for it, the range salesperson and the shooter both apparently having failed to notice it. (The range requires their ammo - Magtech - be bought at the time of rental and used in their guns.) I noticed that the slide would fail to cycle, then saw some very badly bulged brass hitting the table. It was swollen up like a balloon for about the first half (at the mouth) then stepped down about halfway back, forming a large step. I didn't look downrange to see his target, but would be willing to bet there were no holes in it. ;) I thought about intervening myself ("Dude, stop shooting that gun!!!:eek:), but a RSO noticed.
 
i was shooting with my friend and he was using a s&w 9mm and i was using a bersa .380 and he accidentally picked up one of my .380 rounds (they were right next to each other on the shooting bench) and proceeded to fire it out of his 9mm. it fired fine, but like your situation, it wasn't able to eject the brass on its own and had to be racked.
 
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