Weighing for squibs

Had malfunction with my powder filler, thought I had separated all the offending, (possible powder-less loads), I was wrong. I have another batch of approx 350 bullets, already had two squibs. Instead of taking them all apart, I'm trying to find the bad ones by weighing. 9mm, 124gr Bayou Bullets LRN. Power Pistol, 5.2gr. I've weighed about 20 so far, most are 193-194gr, several are around 192gr, then I have two that are under 190gr, 1 is 199.5! I'll pull the light ones apart, see if I'm on to something, anyone have any tips, experiences to help out, thanks!

 

Due to variation in weight of the brass and bullet your are going to hard press to find one. Sometime you can hear the powder shift if not a flake powder, provided you have a air gap. And good hearing.

 

I have done this with .45 Colt loads and it works fine. You'll notice different brands of brass weigh differently, but you'll notice trends and a statistical mean. It's a good idea if you have any suspect loads.

 

You can pull the extreme ones, just to see what’s in them, you might catch them and you might not with 5.2 gn charge weight.

One thing is for certain, if you pulled all 350, you’ll look into them from now on or buy a press with a powder check die, maybe both.

 

Already added to the 'process'

 

Only works for pistol cartridges if you are weight sorting bullets and brass, but it does work. For rifle cartridges, it usually works very well.

 

For pistol using mixed brass I've never had much luck weighing to find an uncharged case. In my instance I only had 15-20 rounds done. I pulled them all apart. In your case I would probably do the same. You will remember this for a long time and it will help you refine your process.

Jeff

 

After spending some time weighing loaded rounds, realizing there is no rhyme or reason, I decided to narrow it down by weighing different head stamps, sort it out that way, WRONG! That is all over the place also, even brass with the same head stamp seems to be too inconsistent to figure this out. When brass differs in weight more than the powder charge, there is no way to absolutely know without taking them apart what the deal is. Oh well, at least when I shoot this batch if something doesn't work, I'll know to stop and get some malfunction practice and get some use out of my new brass 'squib rod'!

 

I do this. It works. But you have to sort by headstamp and use headstamps with small weight variance. You also have to use projectiles with small weight variance... a lot of coated or bare lead bullets will be +/- 2 or 3 grains, and that’s too much for it to work.

Obviously, the larger the correct powder charge, the easier it is to detect a no-charge squib.

If you head down this path, I strongly suggest you begin by writing down the weights of 50 or 100 of your completed cartridges with a given component combination. You will quickly get a feel for what the “normal” range is and what is “abnormal.”

And remember - this is a QC check. It is not the quality control itself. This is not a substitute for looking in every case and having sound methods. It’s just a layer of potential safety and peace of mind on the back end.

 

I had the beginning of a bad day at the range, a shooter/reloader locked up his Model 66 S&W with a bullet that locked the cylinder. He could not pull the trigger, he could not rotate the cylinder, he could not pull the hammer back. And I was thankful for that. Another reloader and I removed the bullet by driving the bullet back into the case. As soon as we emptied the pistol he started shoving his reloads into the cylinder. Our thinking? If he had no powder in one case there was a chance he had too much powder in the next case.

I would suggest you weight each component, case, bullet and primer then sort and match. If when weighing after loading any difference can only be caused by the powder.

F. Guffey

 

In theory weighing may work to find uncharged ammo, but I never trusted the method, too many variations. I might try it with larger (15 gr. pistol charges or 40 gr rifle charges) charges.

One hint; there's only one way to eat an elephant, that's one bite at a time. If you decide to pull all 350 you don't have to do them all at one time. I have pulled a bunch of military surplus ammo and I just did what I felt like doing at that time. On a good day I might do 80-100, but I also did only 20 at a time. No big deal, just do as many as you are comfortable doing. Soon the daunting task will be over...

 

I once did a run of about 200 9mm and when done found an issue that COULD have resulted in a squib. Realizing that brass weights differ, sometimes wildly, I separated the run by headstamp to weigh them. Not all of each headstamp are the same, so I separated by any variation in the printing or extractor rim. The result was around 10 groups that had a very small variance in weight within the group, something like 2gr. My load was 4.5gr so I culled any rounds that fell more than 2gr below the average for each group. I pulled those and didn't find any squibs. The rest were kept separate from my normal ammo and shot with extra caution. Still no squibs, so I guess I didn't have a problem after all. The range from lowest to highest average group weight was over 1.5x my charge weight.

The point of this post being that you have to eliminate the variable of brass weight and that sorting by headstamp is a close, but not perfect way to do it.

I also verified that my bullets were consistent before starting.

 

I pulled 450 rounds of 40S&W because I could not find the squibs in a lot of mixed head stamps. If it was all brass from the same manufacture's batch then it might work but I would not trust that method on a mixed head stamps batch.

 

Trying to weigh them is an effort in futility. If you are SURE they are "only"squibs and not double charges ,you could just shoot them. In a semi auto the worst is slide will not function and a stuck bullet. If there are double charges then that could be a BAD day.

The best practice correct answer is always (C)

Pull Them all and recite I will always double check powder charge 350 times!

 

The issue came from a Lee autodrum, the bottom seemed to spread to the point that one of the 'legs' climbed up on the thumb screw adjustment ring, cocking the mechanism leaving it all the way up not allowing it to come back down and charge the next case so until I realized what had happened, (and it probably happened a couple of times), a certain number of cases went through with no powder. I got complacent and didn't check for powder in every load. I have since changed my ways.

 

If I had questionable loads I would pull the bullets on all of them and reload. I do not like squibs.

 

I agree with Rule 3. PULL THEM ALL! Yes, it's a PITA. Betcha never have to do it again, it makes you paranoid about such things, and you will be a better reloader for it.

 

I agree with this....better safe then sorry.

 

In my reloading, I have had one squib. It scared me so badly I took the entire rest of the 100 rounds that I loaded and put them aside to be pulled at a later time.
Ever since, I ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS look in the case. Every single round. I have moved up to a LNL AP that I am learning the in's and out's of and have added a powder cop on top of looking in every case.
Squibs= BAD
I have tried sorting by head stamp and case length. I am in complete agreement with Dudedog I commonly see 5.0 grain differences in empty case weights. Makes measuring completed rounds impossible to tell if the charge is correct.
BTW that box of remaining rounds that I put aside, I threw away and considered it my punishment for being so careless. It made me angry every time I looked at it.
The way I look at it, if one got by me and had little to no powder, a double charge could have just as easily. Or if I hadn't caught the squib and fired the next chambered round???? I am not willing to take that chance.
Put the 350 aside and do not shoot them. Yes it is probably a waste, but what if it is not?
I load in 100 round increments.(Or less) I separate those and keep loading. Each 100 is labeled and identified in a spread sheet. If something were to happen, I know which 100 to check and exactly what they are. I did have a 30 cal ammo can that I loaded with 1,300 rounds of 9mm just lose. I was glad to get through that can. Nothing happened but what if? Ya know?
Be safe.Have fun.

 

If you use a powder that fills the case, a chance of a double charge is very unlikely. For there will be powder all over the place giving you a heads up. A Squib is still possible though.

 

Further comment: Squibs in slow-fire are not good and a big hassle, but not catastrophic. Even if all you do with the suspiciously-light ones is mark them for slow-fire use only, then you will have reduced the chances of some disaster. Same approach I use with rounds that fail a tight case gauge - they become slow-fire practice ammo. As I noted above, though, you do have to have components with fairly tight weight windows to keep the noise from swamping the signal.

 

I once pulled 480 rounds of 45acp looking for a possible squib and never found one. I have this fear that I’ll be concentrating on my shooting and somehow won’t recognize a squib until it’s too late.