what happened to this round?

[Reefinmike]

When im out pickin range brass at my public range, i'll grab any loaded round that I see, and I find quite a bit. 10-20 each range trip. I do this mainly to fill up a nice big glass jar I keep in my reloading room(almost have a gallons worth!). I also do it to keep people that are unaware of the danger of squibs due to wet powder, excessively hot handloads or even the possibility of an evil reloader leaving behind a double, triple or quadruple charge .

I would pull it but my cheapo lyman puller shell holder no longer holds in a round. Its a winchester 38 special, it has the same oal as all the other winchesters ive found as well as the telltale ring near the top of the bullet that ive seen in every winchester white box factory load ive seen. there IS powder in the casing, the primer is bulged out .022"with what appears to be a burn on the "winchester" from hot primer gases leaking out between the primer and primer pocket. the firing pin of whoevers gun was shooting this also punched a hole in the base of the primer about halfway around. The only thing I could really think of was that there wasnt a flash hole drilled out on this casing. every other winchester case i found in the area was perfectly fine. no pressure signs, no backed out primers etc etc.

should i just send it in to winchester for a free box of ammo

 

[ArchAngelCD]

That round could be a reload and it looks like it had a double charge. That primer is pierced and the primer is flowing. It's more likely to see something like that in a rifle round rather than a handgun round. I wonder if the revolver that fired that round went home in the same condition it went to the range. I doubt it...

If I'm reading you right, there is a bullet in that brass. It seems like the reloader is very poor at what he's doing.

 

[orrwdd]

When im out pickin range brass at my public range, i'll grab any loaded round that I see, and I find quite a bit. 10-20 each range trip. I do this mainly to fill up a nice big glass jar I keep in my reloading room(almost have a gallons worth!). I also do it to keep people that are unaware of the danger of squibs due to wet powder, excessively hot handloads or even the possibility of an evil reloader leaving behind a double, triple or quadruple charge .

I would pull it but my cheapo lyman puller shell holder no longer holds in a round. Its a winchester 38 special, it has the same oal as all the other winchesters ive found as well as the telltale ring near the top of the bullet that ive seen in every winchester white box factory load ive seen. there IS powder in the casing, the primer is bulged out .022"with what appears to be a burn on the "winchester" from hot primer gases leaking out between the primer and primer pocket. the firing pin of whoevers gun was shooting this also punched a hole in the base of the primer about halfway around. The only thing I could really think of was that there wasnt a flash hole drilled out on this casing. every other winchester case i found in the area was perfectly fine. no pressure signs, no backed out primers etc etc.

should i just send it in to winchester for a free box of ammo

This is a badly flowed primer. This is usually caused by overloading the powder charge for the case, probably a reload. I would just throw away the case, there may be other problems with it.

Bill

 

[Cleftwynd]

The cartridge still had the bullet and primer in it. That is what he is referring to.

I also agree that the most likely caused is no flash hole.. good idea about contacting winchester... rounds like that could cause damage to the bolt face!

 

[Reefinmike]

Yes, there is a bullet in the casing, and powder as well. the bullet looks exact like every 38 winchester white box ive seen, flat point, a slight ring of discoloration slightly down the bullet(this is very easy to spot in all winchester 38, 9mm and 45acp factory rounds) and it is tightly crimped. exact same dimensions as all other winchester 38's ive seen.

 

[ArchAngelCD]

In that case try to pop the primer out since there's already a hole in it and see if the case isn't cut with a primer hole.

 

[jim243]

Interesting, primer went off, but the round didn't?

No primer hole would be my guess.

Jim

 

[Reefinmike]

I pulled the primer out with some pliers and elbow grease. There IS a large and clean flash hole! the anvil in the primer appears to be very flattened and there are just three very tiny holes between the "spokes" of the anvil. Im going to have to assume the anvil of the primer was very deformed. Either that or somehow there were brass shavings or something blocking the flash hole before firing and the primer's pressure had nowhere to go so it mashed itself all up. before disassembly I tried loading it into both of my 357's and there was no way in heck the cylinder would easily close. I could only imagine what a bear it would have been to open the gun after firing that.

I dont know how helpful it would be to contact winchester as I didnt fire the round and I dont have the lot number. Im currently dealing with remington CS after buying and loading up 300 of their 55gr 223's. Upon closer inspection their OAl, bullet diameter, cannalure grove etc etc is all over the place and every single uncrimped round will push right into the case! not the case with hornady boolits! I now have $76 worth of high markup local gunstore components locked up 300 cases that took a lot of time in prep work.

 

[Curator]

Winchester "white-box" primer seated on angle so the primer side covered the flash hole in the case. The primer was squashed into the primer pocket far enough to allow the cartridge to be loaded by someone who should be more observant. I have had several "white-box" squibs with similarly seated primers.

 

[NeuseRvrRat]

and folks warn us about shooting reloaded ammo

 

[Reefinmike]

Winchester "white-box" primer seated on angle so the primer side covered the flash hole in the case. The primer was squashed into the primer pocket far enough to allow the cartridge to be loaded by someone who should be more observant. I have had several "white-box" squibs with similarly seated primers.

No- the primer was seated normally, this was not a reloaded round, factory ammo. Unless the primer was squashed sideways, then upon firing, it managed to a 90* flip and reworked itself perfectly circular with even height primer walls and a screwy looking anvil even with the bottom of the primer.

Primer was seated normally, there was a flash hole, and this is not a reload. Factory ammo

 

[kingmt]

I'd like to see a picture of the anvil. Would you post one?

 

[Certaindeaf]

I know if you use a very light charge it'll back the primer out and not reseat it, often tying up the gun. That primer is backed so far out it looks like it was fired in a loose lever action. Never really seen one like that though, especially with powder still in it.

 

[Reefinmike]

left is the smashed out primer, right is a normal spent primer. I almost want to say there are two anvils in the bad primer, it looks that way

 

[KeithET]

Wow.
That looks like there was more then just a primer in that pocket. It may be a extra primer cup or other material. That's way to much stuff to be crammed into a primer pocket and have it work properly.
Perhaps two anvils offset just the right amount?

KeithET

 

[grumpy66]

Yep, definately two anvils in that one.

 

[NeuseRvrRat]

the 3 "wings" of the anvil were aligned perfectly with the 3 wings of the other anvil. the spark and gases from the primer didn't have a way to get through the flash hole and to the powder, so it came back towards the breechface.

 

[ny32182]

I don't know, but I had a reloaded 9mm do something similar one day. It was my reload, so I know for certain there was a flash hole: I never buy new brass, so this case had been fired and deprimed at least once before.

I got a pop and fizzle. The primer blew out the back of the case slightly (not as bad as the one pictured) and I had to give the slide a FIRM tug to get it extracted. I had some leakage just like that pictured. Bullet and powder were still exactly where they were when the hammer dropped.

I was shooting with a professional gunsmith and competition shooter at the time who also shoots 10s of thousands rounds a year; he took a quick look at it and was equally stumped.

This is the first time I've heard of the idea of two anvils in a primer. Interesting for sure. I still don't see how it would keep the powder charge from lighting unless the extra anvil had been enough to totally clog the flashole. Seems unlikely but obviously something happened.

That definitely looks nothing like a high pressure event. I was going to say extra-low-pressure event of some sort before reading the whole post.

 

[NeuseRvrRat]

I still don't see how it would keep the powder charge from lighting unless the extra anvil had been enough to totally clog the flashole.

normally, the flash travels through those 3 gaps in the anvil. those 3 gaps were filled with the wings (no idea what the proper term is) of the second anvil.

 

[Reefinmike]

well, I managed to pull the anvil(s) out of the cup and there were certainly two anvils . I held the anvil pileup to a light and you couldnt see anything through it so thats obviously what caused the primer to mash out without ignition of the powder. I wonder what would have happened if the powder managed to spark as well as this excessive pressure in the primer? maybe it would have sent hot primer bits flying and lodged the bullet in the barrel.

 

[NeuseRvrRat]

wouldn't have been much different than any other pierced or blown primer

 

[mdi]

Yep, prolly no flash hole. Mass produced stuff occationally comes out "half-assed".

 

[EMC45]

More reasons for me to carry reload in my SD guns. What would have happened if this round was fired in self defense? It looks like it could've bound up the gun it was fired in.

 

[kingmt]

Considering the chance that you will ever need to use a round in self defence top stay with. Then one round out of how is built like that? I would say the chance of getting ran over by a Elephant .

I'll carry ether.

 

[BaltimoreBoy]

Some folks are missing the point.

This is a defective primer - it had more than one anvil installed as shown in the pictures and in comments from the original poster:

"Primer was seated normally, there was a flash hole, and this is not a reload. Factory ammo"

It is not even a defectively assembled round. It is a defectively assembled primer.

Unless you fabricate your own primers this could have just as easily been anybody's reload.

That said, I don't think one sees a lot of defective primers (at least of this kind of defect).