Squib

[Noz]

I found a warm day 2 weekends ago. I took my 1866 out to see if all of the changes I have made to it affected it's ability to fire my ammunition. My major concern was a reduced power main spring not hitting hard enough to ignite the primer.
No worries, it worked fine, but I had a squib. The bullet lodged at the rifling and would not allow the next round to be loaded. This (squib) is very hard for me to rationalize in that I have my press set in such a fashion that a light shines into each case and I can see the powder level.
I got around to de-priming the cases today and found the squib case.
It had a hardened powder residue stuck to the walls of the case with a 1/8" diameter hole blown through the middle of it.
I scraped the powder out and lit it off with a match. It burned fine. The only thing I can come up with is that I got a damp case into the loading line. This is difficult to imagine as well as I work in batches. De-prime all. Tumble all. Dry all, generally over several days. Prime all. Then and only then begin the charging and bullet seating.
Anybody have a clue?

 

[J-Bar]

Maxwell's demons...

 

[Fingers McGee]

There wasn't a guy named Murphy in the shop that day was there?

 

[Noz]

I dunno! I'm really puzzled. It looked like a .17 cal round had been fired up the middle of the powder charge. This makes the Boatride barrel bulge more interesting.

 

[J-Bar]

Do you throw those powder charges with a dipper or do you use some mechanical contraption?

 

[45-70 Ranger]

You did not give the type of powder used or if you were using lubed cast projectiles or what. Please advise this information and also if you had any rounds go off that "felt" under-powered in your time on the range. Squibs are sometimes the result of lube getting into the powder. Primer failure (crushed anvil or not seated deep enough). Reduced loads of slower burning powder and light ignition. Many things can cause them. So please describe your loads and we'll try to seek a solution.

Wade

 

[Noz]

Cast 200gr Big Lube bullet over FFg. Single incident.

 

[45-70 Ranger]

Noz,

The only thing that comes to mind here is powder contamination from the lube. The caking of the powder and sticking to the case walls all point to that problem.

I had a squib some years back with an old '78 TD carbine. The primer poped. The round did exit the bore and was about 5 feet from the bench on the ground. had powder stuck to the base of it. When the round went off, it sounded like a drip in a large bucket. Weird to say the least. The lube had seeped into the case and the powder was all but gomed up with it looking like the caking you mentioned.

Hope you never have this happen again. It can really mess up your day!
Wade

 

[Noz]

Ranger, the thing that bothers me about the contaminated powder idea is that I removed the powder from the case and it fired brightly and quickly when lit with a match.
Also the only part of the lube that would possibly migrate would be vegetable shortening and I would think that would leave a gooey residue.

Still puzzled but thinks for your input.

 

[TheRodDoc]

It is possible that the powder was over compressed. If you were compressing them all with a loading press to start with, and maybe almost to the max, that if one case had slightly more powder in it was to much compression. Using a loading press you wouldn't notice the difference in compression. (or a case with less capacity then the others for some reason. or a bullet seated a little deeper in one case.)