Tripple squib?

[Will Carry]

I went to the indoor shootin' range today. The range officer was rather irrate. A fellow was shooting a Smith and Wesson snubby and had a squib round get stuck in the barrel. The shooter then proceded to fire two more rounds! All three bullets were stuck in the barrel. When the range officer came out to investigate the shooter swept him with his revolver (This guy hates that!). I have never heard of a tripple squib before but it is a testimate to how well this revolver was made that it did not KB. If that shooter had fired one more shot I think the gun would have blown up. The owner of the pistol asked how he was supposed to get the three bullets out of the barrel. He was told that he needed to take the gun to a gunsmith.

[Guest A10thunderbolt]

Wow, prob would have been easier to remove one rather than three. must not have liked his hands or face.

[kwe45919]

Some peoples kids need beaten with an cane switch......

[Dolomite_supafly]

I have stuck bullets in barrels during my subsonic load development. I have even stuck mutiples. I will say that knocking a single bullet out of the bore is pretty easy. Normally it is about as hard as a jag with a patch.

The only time I stuck more than one bullet, actually 3, it took me hours to get those out. I had to use an extended drill bit to drill the centers out then push the jackets out.

The guy needs to take a serious look at his reloading. I bet the entire box is full of squib loads.

Dolomite

[Guest Lester Weevils]

If one kept firing squibs weak enough not to blow up a snubbie-- Then after the first few would they get pushed out the end of the barrel one-by-one, because the barrel would get too full to hold any more bullets?

[SonnyCrockett]

I only range shoot during the week because there is lots less traffic.

People on weekends make me scared to be next to them and a guy who did that to his

snubby would be someone that should reconsider his hobby LOL

[wjh2657]

Why woud you want to shoot squib loads from a snubbie? I carry a snubbie and fire with practice rounds that are as close to my carry rounds as possible. It is strictly a SD gun and you want practice to mimic real life as much as possible.

[DaveTN]

Why woud you want to shoot squib loads from a snubbie? I carry a snubbie and fire with practice rounds that are as close to my carry rounds as possible. It is strictly a SD gun and you want practice to mimic real life as much as possible.

I don’t think anyone intentionally uses “Squib loads†in anything.

I shoot a lot of different guns at the range. Those include 2†J-frames and 2 ½â€ K-frames plus small semi-autos that certainly aren’t target guns. But I certainly can’t afford to shoot hundreds of rounds of SD ammo at the range; you are lucky to be so rich.

The first round was a squib. He was lucky that the two after that weren’t high power loads; he would have probably got hurt. I’d bet he bulged the barrel anyway.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Just thinking out loud--

Assuming that shots # 2 and 3 were in fact normal loaded rounds, then maybe these were .38's (or lower caliber)? Just seems that with normal-loaded .357 Mag (or higher caliber) in the two shots behind a squib, then the revolver may have been almost certain to explode?

Given any caliber, maybe the best odds of the gun not exploding would be if all three rounds were very weak? A bunch of defective ammo rather than just one bad round?

I'm not advocating that it would ever be advisable to try to shoot a squib out of a barrel rather than driving it out with a dowel or whatever. I would never try that. Am only curious why, if some fellow did fire a normal-power round behind a squib, and if he was lucky enough that it didn't blow up the gun, then why it wouldn't push both bullets out? There may be some valid principle of physics or mechanics that would get em both stuck in there. Just curious what the explanation would be?

In the revolver the gasses would leak out between the cylinder and forcing cone if the gun didn't splode? Assuming that the bullet made it all the way out of the cylinder and into the barrel? Maybe that would be part of the explanation? In a locked-breech semi-auto the pressure wouldn't leak out so quickly?

Edited February 25, 2012 by Lester Weevils

[TMF]

I've seen this happen with AKs on many of my Iraq deployments. Many of the Iraqis would have old unreliable ammo which would burn just enough powder to stick a bullet a few inches down the barrel. I could always tell from the sound it made when they fired, and would book it down the firing line to prevent them from sending another one behind it. I'd knock the bullet back into the chamber using an AK rod and AK MAG as a hammer. Would pop out pretty easily. I've done this a few dozen times over the years and haven't seen a barrel blow up, and I'd have to believe there's been a few stuck bullets I've missed. Not to say it couldn't blow the barrel up but I never saw it happen.

[wjh2657]

I don’t think anyone intentionally uses “Squib loads†in anything.

I shoot a lot of different guns at the range. Those include 2†J-frames and 2 ½â€ K-frames plus small semi-autos that certainly aren’t target guns. But I certainly can’t afford to shoot hundreds of rounds of SD ammo at the range; you are lucky to be so rich.

The first round was a squib. He was lucky that the two after that weren’t high power loads; he would have probably got hurt. I’d bet he bulged the barrel anyway.

I don't shoot high end SD ammo all of the time. I normally shoot WWB 130 gr FMJ from WALMART, which is inexpensive and matches my SD ammo (Hornady 130 gr XTP/JHP) in ballistics and recoil.

I misunderstood your definition of squib load. As a long time handloader, a squib load to me meant an intentional light load for practice.

Question. Am I the only person that QAs his ammo? I weigh and measure OAL in all of my ammo, even the WWB cheap stuff. Anything over 2 Standard Deviations for the batch gets tossed. A habit again from the old days when I loaded my own. I find quite a few unacceptable rounds in commercial ammo. The stability of loads was a big factor in my selection of the WWB and Hornady ammo. Both show very reliable figures on testing.

Edited February 26, 2012 by wjh2657

[Jonnin]

I don't shoot high end SD ammo all of the time. I normally shoot WWB 130 gr FMJ from WALMART, which is inexpensive and matches my SD ammo (Hornady 130 gr XTP/JHP) in ballistics and recoil.

I misunderstood your definition of squib load. As a long time handloader, a squib load to me meant an intentional light load for practice.

Question. Am I the only person that QAs his ammo? I weigh and measure OAL in all of my ammo, even the WWB cheap stuff. Anything over 2 Standard Deviations for the batch gets tossed. A habit again from the old days when I loaded my own. I find quite a few unacceptable rounds in commercial ammo. The stability of loads was a big factor in my selection of the WWB and Hornady ammo. Both show very reliable figures on testing.

I weigh my .22s and a few batches of my own handloads for precision shooting but by and large, no, its too much trouble. If I weighed every round I shot, I would be sitting there checking ammo 5 hours a day.