What is bullet setback and is it dangerous?

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Potatohead

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I've been noticing these two words lately (bullet setback) and am just wondering a bit about it.I think i read that it can happen if you keep chambering the same round over and over..? I dont normally keep my gun locked and loaded all day everyday but I'm in the produce business which is an up-real-early in the morning kind of job so i pretty much chamber a round upon leaving for work, and then later in the day i usually unload it and put it back into the clip/magazine. Or i will have to go in at 9 or 10 pm to unload a truck, so i'll chamber one for that and then unload the gun when i get home. I know i could just keep it loaded but i have a 2yr,4yr, and 12yr old at home so i like to keep it unloaded at home,throughout the day... do i need to chill with all the loading/unloading? or what does cause this? What happens if you fire this round? Is it dangerous? Can i look and see that the bullet is actually "set back" etc etc etc Sorry for the long post
 
EDIT: i think title should have been "what is bullet setback and HOW dangerous is it"...im sure its gota be somewhat dangerous
 
The level of danger is going to be different from one cartridge to another.

Bullet setback in a high-pressure rifle cartridge is going to get dangerous MUCH quicker than setback in a .45acp round. Of course, many rifle cartridges can barely be over-charged because a compressed charge will take up every bit of room behind that bullet.
 
Bullet setback is where a bullet is pushed backwards into the casing due to repeat chambering or a misfeed. As for how dangerous it is, that depends on how bad the setback is, the characteristics of the individual round, and the gun it's fired in.

The perfect storm is often considered to be any Glock in .40 S&W. The .40 caliber cartridge is unusually prone to setback, and as little as 1/10 of an inch will double the pressure inside the case. Even worse, older Glocks had a poorly supported case, that was significantly worse than other manufacturers' firearms; this made them more prone to case rupture. As a result, almost every single time you'll hear of a pistol going kaboom, the culprit will be a Glock .40.

I DO consider that pistol and round combination to be dangerous, and DO consider the .40 S&W round to be flawed. That is one caliber I resolve never to buy.
 
colonel kernel,

It can be dangerous, and it is due to chambering a round multiple times. How dangerous, and how many chamberings it takes to become dangerous, depends on many factors

1. The cartridge. Higher pressure cartridges have less room (case volume) to play with. 9mm Luger is relatively high pressure, as is .40S&W. As such, a small amount of setback can quickly become a problem, causing pressures to spike.
2. The brass. Some brass is a hair smaller and holds the bullet tighter, so setback won't occur as easily. This can sometimes be a lot by manufacturer, with the same cartridge.
3. The gun. Some designs chamber smoother than others. The Kahr design for instance, seems to have a very steep feed ramp, so the nose of the bullet is bashing into it every time you chamber a round, and bullet setback will occur faster in such guns.

Basically, if it is a visible setback, it probably isn't safe to fire. To minimize setback, avoid chambering a round every day. If you absolutely must continually chamber and eject rounds, try to rotate the rounds that get chambered, rather than chamber the same one over and over and over.
 
Chamber a round only one time into a semi auto. If you absolutely have to unload and reload every day buy a revolver. Do not rechamber factory carridges more than once. If you want to learn to handload then you can easily build a cartridge that will not set back. I will be glad to tell you how. With factory ammo you're playing Russian roulette if you rechamber it. They do not make any guarantees that their ammo will not setback (or even fire one time).
 
For those who practice trigger discipline on a regular basis with their carry guns, which is a wise move to do, and they carry with a round in the chamber, bullet setback is a very real concern with semi-autos. There are a few pistols which are fine for "riding the slide", but do make sure your pistol will handle this method of chambering a round correctly and that the manufacturer does not recommend against this method.

The Glock design is one of the pistols which will support riding the slide due to two primary reasons. 1) The top cartridge in the seated magazine sits high in gun so the path to the barrel's chamber is more straight, i.e., there is less of an angle and therefore less action with the feed ramp. 2) The extractor comes up under and between the rim and case instead of moving over the rim. By riding the slide with the Glock after performing your trigger discipline, your chambered round has a far less chance to set more deeply in the case.

CAUTION: If you do this, be sure to carefully inspect the round you intend to chamber against a fresh round to make sure there is no setback.

I have been doing this for years and have never had any problems. As the round is picked up by the slide and moved into the chamber, there is very little pressure on the bullet's nose. Check this out for yourselves if you carry a Glock.
 
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I DO consider that pistol and round combination to be dangerous, and DO consider the .40 S&W round to be flawed. That is one caliber I resolve never to buy.

It's not just about caliber, though. For instance, a .40 S&W PDX1/Ranger-T is far LESS likely to suffer from bullet setback than a 9mm Gold Dot; you could chamber a round of the former over and over until you're sore with no measurable setback, while the latter may have some visible setback after just a few chamberings.
 
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The reason that bullet setback causes the higher pressure is because when the bullet is seated deeper into the case, the available case volume is reduced. Lower volume than expected with the allotted charge gets you higher pressure.

If you put a round that's been chambered a few times side by side with one that has not been and can visibly see that there is a difference in OAL (over all length), then you should be wary of the shorter ones because they will have a higher pressure. In the pic from the link above, I'd never consider shooting the rounds set back like most of those in the picture.

I do rechamber my carry rounds regularly, so I do pay attention and rotate them regularly.
 
Drail, i do plan on reloading sometime in the future. Thx

Also i hate to hear that about the .40rd, i was thinkin of goin that direction on my next purchase
 
fryerpower, nice pics thanks...it seems like some setback could be hard to notice. were all of the bullets to the right of the first setback? yikes. hopefully its not as dangerous if their is just a bit of setback? or can a little be a lot?
 
southern boy, could you elaborate on "riding the slide"? im a bit green. im pretty sure i know what riding the slide is, but what exactly were you meaning about it?
 
oh oh oh i gotcha now...how do i know if its ok to "ride" on my particular gum (sr9)? manual didnt say anything against it that i remember, and also how do i tell if the bullet has an easy path to the chamber, just look? all guns look the same down there to me in a way
 
.40 S&W PDX1/Ranger-T is far LESS likely to suffer from bullet setback

why? its a shorter cartridge or something? and why would a .40 be less likely than a .45 to setback? keep in mind im not very familiar with many of these rounds
 
Posted by: colonel kernel
southern boy, could you elaborate on "riding the slide"? im a bit green. im pretty sure i know what riding the slide is, but what exactly were you meaning about it?

Sure. Riding the slide is a term that means you hold the slide as you let it move into its battery position (fully forward and locked) from its locked open position instead of letting it go forward on its own. You don't do this slowly but rather in a smooth and constant motion forward. Your hand is "riding the slide". Most semi-automatic pistols do not lend themselves to this practice and those that do not usually can be determined by the resistance they present when doing this. One company specifically informs the owner how the slide is to be put into battery (Kahr) and that is through the use of the slide stop.

The Glock design handles this just fine, causing no undue action to the extractor (it doesn't even move as the cartridge is forced into the chamber, or any other components. And no bullet setback, though once again I caution that if someone does this, they should carefully check their round to be re-chambered before chambering it again.
 
why? its a shorter cartridge or something? and why would a .40 be less likely than a .45 to setback? keep in mind im not very familiar with many of these rounds
Some manufacturers may compensate for this by designing their factory cartridge to prevent setback. Dimpling the case or other methods are sometimes used to prevent the bullet from being pushed in too far. However, it's not a solution you see very often in .40.

The .45 just doesn't really seem to have this problem. I'm not sure why, but it's rarely an issue with both .45 and 9mm. Setback is, for whatever reason, primarily a .40 issue. This, coupled with its high pressure and the fact that virtually all guns chambered in it are polymer, makes for a dangerous combination. The poorly supported chamber in older Glocks adds to make it a recipe for disaster.
 
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