Today I was utterly shocked when I had my very first squib. I was sighting in a LPVO scope on my Ruger PC Carbine at AAFG with a friend. Things were going smoothly, but after shooting 9 rounds I had the squib. I had no way of getting the projectile from the barrel, so I figured I would fire off a few rounds with my Sub2K.
Well about 12 rounds later I had my second squib. WTF?!?
I was pissed at myself and for safety reasons I packed up my stuff and shot a few of my friends rifles until the range was called cold.
When I got home, I was able to tap the projectile from the Sub2k with moderate effort. But I was unable to remove the projectile from the PC Carbine and shattered my dowel rod, leaving a large splintered section wedged between the tip of the projectile and the barrel. Not having any way to pound it out from the front with the splintered dowel in the way, I ended up drilling a hole into the projectile from the rear and using a screw extractor attached to a makeshift slide hammer to pull it out from the back.
From the looks of the case, it didn’t expand at all, and the primer just blew across the outside. I’ve never experienced a squib before but it sure looks like there was no charge whatsoever.
When deciding what to pack this morning I grabbed a bucket of 480 9mm rounds I had loaded in June 2020. You know, when cities were burning and primers were selling for .30 ea. I cranked out thousands of rounds over that summer.
This particular batch was made with Unique, I recall at the time I couldn’t find any if my go to Longshot. According to my logs I made 3 boxes of 250 rounds and a few days later 2 buckets of 480. I’ve since used the 3 smaller boxes without incident, I still have the other bucket of 480 in the safe.
These were all loaded on my Hornady auto press. My usual practice is to test every charge for the first 10, on the initial setup. Then one in 25 for the next 100 or if I take a break, 1 per 50 from then on. So I’m a bit surprised that I found 2 squibs in 21 rounds fired earlier today.
Now the question is this: Is there any reasonable way to weigh the loaded cartridges to sort out any other possible uncharged loads? Or do I just suck it up and buy a Dillon to ease the pain of pulling apart close to 1000 rounds?
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Well about 12 rounds later I had my second squib. WTF?!?
I was pissed at myself and for safety reasons I packed up my stuff and shot a few of my friends rifles until the range was called cold.
When I got home, I was able to tap the projectile from the Sub2k with moderate effort. But I was unable to remove the projectile from the PC Carbine and shattered my dowel rod, leaving a large splintered section wedged between the tip of the projectile and the barrel. Not having any way to pound it out from the front with the splintered dowel in the way, I ended up drilling a hole into the projectile from the rear and using a screw extractor attached to a makeshift slide hammer to pull it out from the back.
From the looks of the case, it didn’t expand at all, and the primer just blew across the outside. I’ve never experienced a squib before but it sure looks like there was no charge whatsoever.
When deciding what to pack this morning I grabbed a bucket of 480 9mm rounds I had loaded in June 2020. You know, when cities were burning and primers were selling for .30 ea. I cranked out thousands of rounds over that summer.
This particular batch was made with Unique, I recall at the time I couldn’t find any if my go to Longshot. According to my logs I made 3 boxes of 250 rounds and a few days later 2 buckets of 480. I’ve since used the 3 smaller boxes without incident, I still have the other bucket of 480 in the safe.
These were all loaded on my Hornady auto press. My usual practice is to test every charge for the first 10, on the initial setup. Then one in 25 for the next 100 or if I take a break, 1 per 50 from then on. So I’m a bit surprised that I found 2 squibs in 21 rounds fired earlier today.
Now the question is this: Is there any reasonable way to weigh the loaded cartridges to sort out any other possible uncharged loads? Or do I just suck it up and buy a Dillon to ease the pain of pulling apart close to 1000 rounds?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
