My first squib (?)

scatter

scatter

NES Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2010
Messages
2,391
Likes
1,178
Location
Floyd Co. VA
Feedback: 9 / 0 / 0
M&P 9c. Wife's gun. Factory Blazer brass.

We were doing move and shoot drills. She does not recall, and I do not recall, her pulling the trigger and not getting a loud bang. But as she was lining up her next shot, she noticed the gun was slightly out of battery and stopped (thank goodness). I locked the slide open. A spent casing ejected and there was a bullet just barely into the rifling.

Unfortunately we cannot identify which casing was the one that caused the problem.

When we got home I began disassembling the gun, expecting to have to drive the bullet out of the barrel with a dowel. During disassembly, the bullet just fell out of the barrel.

We have never experienced a squib round. We're very aware and afraid of them. But looking at the bullet, I'm not sure this is a normal squib (my definition: no powder or light charge); I think this may be a defective bullet from the factory. The damage is below the neck of the casing. No way the gun could have done that. And like I said, we are both pretty certain that every time she pulled the trigger the gun went bang (big bang, not primer-only bang).

Thoughts?

 
your story certainly sounds like a squib load to me, although odd that it didn't engage the rifling at all and just fell out the barrel? presumably it fell out the back of the barrel on breech side? could be squib or possibly that or the bullet wasn't fully seated and dislodged (less likely). would be worth contacting CCI to notify them. if you have the box of ammo they would probably want the lot into. do you have the brass from the squib? if so was the primer struck?
 
Last edited:
Glad she was OK!! That is a strange squib you had, but lucky it didn't go into battery!

Do you have the numbers off the box of blazer brass?? Where did you get it from? I just had 700 rnds of 9mm blazer brass delivered[thinking]
 
xjma99 said:
Glad she was OK!! That is a strange squib you had, but lucky it didn't go into battery!

Do you have the numbers off the box of blazer brass?? Where did you get it from? I just had 700 rnds of 9mm blazer brass delivered[thinking]
Click to expand...

xjma99 said:
Glad she was OK!! That is a strange squib you had, but lucky it didn't go into battery!

Do you have the numbers off the box of blazer brass?? Where did you get it from? I just had 700 rnds of 9mm blazer brass delivered[thinking]
Click to expand...

Blazer has never been a problem for us, and we have shot many thousands of rounds of it. Unfortunately I don't know which box the squib came from. We were using three different partial boxes at the time. The numbers are:
41585 Rev A MRP 8270243 (2 of the boxes)
40250 Rev B MRP 8270130 (number is worn so I can't say for certain that I'm reading it correctly)

My guess is that we got the older box from Rileys or Shooters before we moved, and the two newer boxes mail order after moving to VA. No idea which company they came from, and I'm not going to list the possibilities here.
 
I agree it looks like damaged during seating process.
Was the primer on that case struck? Was there powder in the action?
I'm guessing a damaged case that looks like there was probably barely any hold on the bullet because the brass was damaged and so was the bullet.
As the round stripped off the mag and chambered the bullet flew off like a kinetic bullet puller and jammed in the chamber... which is why it didn't go into battery.
Or the damaged brass and bullet caused it not to chamber and when the case was extracted the bullet stayed in the chamber.... lack of neck tension and all.

Doesn't appear to be a squib though.
unless the primer was fired, but that would probably be unlikely if the gun were out of battery right?
 
My guess is that it wasn't a squib and that the bullet separated from the case before or as it was being fed, like the bullet creep that some see in 9mm revolvers.
 
Buddy of mine had a squib that looked exactly the same as that when we pushed it out, rifling was not engaged and it only needed a slight push with a dowel to extract it. It was Blazer brass case 9mm as well. The markings were exactly the same on his. We think it was powderless and the primer pushed it till it was just into the barrel.
 
Michael J. Spangler said:
I agree it looks like damaged during seating process.
Was the primer on that case struck? Was there powder in the action?
I'm guessing a damaged case that looks like there was probably barely any hold on the bullet because the brass was damaged and so was the bullet.
As the round stripped off the mag and chambered the bullet flew off like a kinetic bullet puller and jammed in the chamber... which is why it didn't go into battery.
Or the damaged brass and bullet caused it not to chamber and when the case was extracted the bullet stayed in the chamber.... lack of neck tension and all.

Doesn't appear to be a squib though.
unless the primer was fired, but that would probably be unlikely if the gun were out of battery right?
Click to expand...

This is a very plausible theory. As I recall, after I opened the action and ejected the casing, I looked in and thought the gun was damaged because I thought I saw metal particles. But it very well could have been powder. By the time we got home and got the gun disassembled, it was all gone, probably having fallen out through the mag well.

I found a perfectly clean (inside and out) casing with an unstruck primer in our collected brass. That's got to be it. Thanks!
 
Awareness of squibs is very important. I'm glad it turned out okay for you.

On a slightly different subject (as you were using factory), I was shooting my M1 at the range last weekend and had a failure to fire. When I ejected the round (which I had reloaded), it was missing a primer. Obviously not as dangerous as a squib, but it caused me to pause. You can never take reloading for granted and let it become too routine. You always need to have your head in the game.
 
MarkT said:
Awareness of squibs is very important. I'm glad it turned out okay for you.

On a slightly different subject (as you were using factory), I was shooting my M1 at the range last weekend and had a failure to fire. When I ejected the round (which I had reloaded), it was missing a primer. Obviously not as dangerous as a squib, but it caused me to pause. You can never take reloading for granted and let it become too routine. You always need to have your head in the game.
Click to expand...

Yep. I've done that too. Realized I was charging a case with no primer when I saw powder in my lap.
 
Guy at the range in the lane next to me had an interesting squib yesterday. He was shooting .22LR; crappy Remington bulk bucket stuff. It blew the whole back off of the case. Bullet stuck in the barrel and what was left of the case stuck in the chamber.
 
briz said:
My guess is that it wasn't a squib and that the bullet separated from the case before or as it was being fed, like the bullet creep that some see in 9mm revolvers.
Click to expand...
I had the same thing with fed aluminum on my 9c, no bang, shell ejected, bullet rattled around. Definitely manufacturers seating issue, especially with aluminum
 
Michael J. Spangler said:
I agree it looks like damaged during seating process.
Was the primer on that case struck? Was there powder in the action?
I'm guessing a damaged case that looks like there was probably barely any hold on the bullet because the brass was damaged and so was the bullet.
As the round stripped off the mag and chambered the bullet flew off like a kinetic bullet puller and jammed in the chamber... which is why it didn't go into battery.
Or the damaged brass and bullet caused it not to chamber and when the case was extracted the bullet stayed in the chamber.... lack of neck tension and all.

Doesn't appear to be a squib though.
unless the primer was fired, but that would probably be unlikely if the gun were out of battery right?
Click to expand...


This is more than likely what happened. If it was a "squib" the primer would go off and lodge the bullet into the barrel a little. The primer has plenty of power to "seat"a bullet into the barrel enough to need a little help freeing it.

The case which you didn't find probably was still full of powder and an unused primer.
 
Related story - back in the day, a buddy of mine and I were at the range practicing some CAS. Both had 45LC Vaqueros. He squibs one with a reload. Bullet stuck in bbl. Obviously the cylinder won't turn and be removed. It took us some careful work to get it all un-stuck. (Nothing more disturbing than having to hammer a cleaning rod into a bbl with live rounds in the other chambers.)

So we get it unstuck and he decides "I'm gonna take a break. Your turn to shoot."

So I load up my reloads. First shot. F'ing SQUIB! What were the odds?
 
This has happened to me multiple times on my Gen4 Glock 19 and M&P9 FS. I was using Blazer Brass as well. Same exact problem. I noticed the slide not fully into battery, so I racked the slide and the bullet was actually stuck in the barrel and the gun powder all spilled out into my gun while the case was ejected. I had to push the bullet out of the barrel from the muzzle end. Its the ammo. I think Blazer has had a bad run of oversized rounds/not properly seated or something. The bullets I saved have the same exact mark on it.
 
Last edited:
On Jan 18, 2017, at 6:47 PM, Experts, BlazerAmmo <[email protected]> wrote:

Mark,
Please ship the ammo back to us following the shipping instructions above. These instructions need to be followed as they have been taken from the UPS website.
I'm pretty sure of the issue from your explanation and it has been an issue that has been addressed. Once I receive your ammo I will confirm my suspicions and replace our ammo and cover with additional ammo for your shipping charges.
Thanks,
Duane V.
Technical Services Rep
Alliant/Blazer/CCI/Speer
2299 Snake River Ave
Lewiston, ID 83501
1-800-379-1732
 
Blazer has confirmed that they had a manufacturing problem on certain lot numbers which has been fixed. They are sending me a box of ammo.

I posted the MSRP numbers from the bar code earlier which apparently doesn't help; they needed the lot number. The actual lot number is H20X46, which is printed on the inside flap of the box.
 
Never had a squib with factory ammo. Had one once with my reloads. .45acp through one of my colts, and the slug made it about 20% down the barrel. Thankfully I realized what the tiny "pop" noise was and stopped. Had to get it home to clear the slug out. As I was reassembling the gun, pissed at myself for loading an empty round, I remembered that while I was cooking up that particular batch, my wife had come into my man cave and was distracting me with questions about laundry detergent or some shit. She's not allowed in my man cave when I'm reloading now. Haha.
 
Are these 115 or 124 blazer brass?? I have a bunch of blazer brass just hanging out, hope I don't have any of the effected rounds!

Definitely looks like a manufacturing defect of some sorts. Glad they're making good on the problem, hope nobody gets hurt because of it though.
 

Similar threads

Juniors First Glock
Replies
10
Views
384
MisterHappy
MisterHappy
My first gunbroker purchase....HELP!
2 3
Replies
85
Views
3K
whacko
whacko
Georgia on my mind
2 3 4
Replies
104
Views
2K
StevieP
StevieP
Just saw my first Gatling Gun..
Replies
9
Views
486
Rob Boudrie
Rob Boudrie
Boys' first range trip
Replies
14
Views
445
Matt_SERE
Matt_SERE
Back
Top Bottom