Problem with 9mm reload. A little help please...

[Major Kong]

Hey guys and gals, I was loading some 125gr lead bullets this morning. It's the first time I've loaded 9mm and the first time I've loaded lead. My intention was to shoot them through a Glock 19 with a brand new Lone Wolf barrel.

 

After I got the first round finished I went out to test it. I'm not sure it matters but I used a Tulammo primer, 4.6 grains of Bullseye and an OAL of 1.15". I loaded the round, racked the slide forward and pulled the trigger. I got a good trigger pull but no bang.

 

I looked down and noticed that the gun was about 1/8" out of battery. Two things here: first, it was stupid of me to not insure the slide was all the second forward. Second, I was under the impression that a Glock would not fire out of battery. I disassembled the pistol, removed the barrel and found the situation pictured. The round is thoroughly stuck in the barrel and there is a striker dimple on the primer.

 

Any suggestions on how to safely remove this round? For what it's worth I took a half dozen other rounds from the same batch and ran them through my EMP without a hiccup.

 

[bikertrash2001]

Did it go bang at all? If the primer fired, but no powder burn, the bullet may be lodged. It looks like that you had a headspace problem and the case didn't seat all the way or the case diameter was too large at some point. A headspace gauge like one from Lyman is a big help for checking rounds. If you have calipers, make sure the diameter of the brass is no larger than .380" at the mouth of the brass.

 

I was also shooting some reloads out of my 17 yesterday and a little bit of junk got in the chamber and was making my rounds fit a little snug.

 

I haven't ever used Bullseye before, but isn't that a little hot for a lead bullet?

Edited March 28, 2013 by bikertrash2001

[Major Kong]

Nope, no bang at all. The chamber was clean and the barrel was brand new.

 

Any ideas on how to remove the round?

[PoofNoEyeBrows]

I'll start off and say your lucky the round did not go off out of battery. Two things i notice from the picture. First is it looks like the OAL of the round might be a tad long, and second the dimple in the primer where the firing pin struck looks a little close to the edge of the primer to me. I would start by measuring the length of your round and then matching that against a round that the pistol does like. I would also tear the round down and see if there is any powder in it.

[PoofNoEyeBrows]

Remove: wood dowel and give it a tap.

[Major Kong]

I'll start off and say your lucky the round did not go off out of battery. Two things i notice from the picture. First is it looks like the OAL of the round might be a tad long, and second the dimple in the primer where the firing pin struck looks a little close to the edge of the primer to me. I would start by measuring the length of your round and then matching that against a round that the pistol does like. I would also tear the round down and see if there is any powder in it.

I agree that I'm lucky it didn't go off. I did measure the round with a digital caliper before loading. It came in at 1.15, which is right where the Alliant loading data said it should be for this bullet. I did also measure it against a factory 115gr FMJ round and it was the exact same length.

[Guest kj4gxu]

I'm not sure if the aftermarket barrel has the same chamber size as the factory glock barrel but I had a similar problem with rounds jamming in my Ruger p95.  After asking on here I was told it was due to a bulge in the cases.  My reloading method at the time was not fully resizing the cases and cases that had been fired from a Glock or similar pistol tend to have a slight bulge to them.  Fail to fully resize it and put it into a gun with a smaller chamber and you get that jam.  I switched from the lee loader hand banging kit to a Lee reloader press with a set of Lyman dies and even using some brass that I know had been bulged I've had no issues since.

 

[Guest kj4gxu]

Looks like someone else has had a similar problem and according to what they found it was due to a smaller chamber size on the Lone Wolf barrels

 

http://rhk111.com/2012/04/11/the-truth-about-lone-wolf-barrels-for-glock/

[PoofNoEyeBrows]

I would check your seating die. Perhaps it is a tad too low and causing a bulge in the brass, or perhaps as already suggested the brass is too long. Is the bullet shape different? A longer bullet could engage the rifling sooner then say a shorter one. I have had this issue with .45 cap before. What I did was load a dummy round (no primer or powder) and set its length on the long side then let the slide ram it into place. It gave me a starting index for what the gun actually liked for that type of round (Hornady XTP).

[Major Kong]

Hmm, I tapped the round out of the barrel with no problem. I took another reloaded round with the same OAL and chambered it. The Glock went fully into battery and fired with no problem. Maybe it was a bulged case. I'll pick up some case gauges next time I have the chance to hopefully prevent this problem in the future.

[Major Kong]

Looks like someone else has had a similar problem and according to what they found it was due to a smaller chamber size on the Lone Wolf barrels

 

http://rhk111.com/2012/04/11/the-truth-about-lone-wolf-barrels-for-glock/

Yep, that sounds exactly like what happened to me.

[gregintenn]

Is the length of the case in spec? I've had a few rounds of 9x21 and 9x23 somehow make their way into my 9mm brass. :shrug: The 380s aren't so hard to weed out, but you have to keep an eye out for these buggers if you are buying range brass.

[RED333]

I reload for my Glock 22, Lone Wolf barrel.

Did you debluge the case?

If not that "might" be the problem.

How ever I think the bullets sholder is sticking to far out of the case.

The Lone Wolf barrel is a tighter chamber than a factory barrel.

How a pic of that round from the side?

[Jonnin]

I have had several brands of LRN commercial cast bullets in 9mm specifically jam up in the rifling when loaded to the correct depth, and this continued past the min depth and into the danger zone.   My solution was to buy shorter 380 bullets instead of true 9mm bullets and that cured my issue 100% and produces an excellent target round. 

 

I was unable to find any solution to the issue for the 9mm bullets that I had bought.   The only solutions are to try other bullet shapes until you find one that works or to run the bullets thru some sort of squeezer/shaver to knock off the excessive diameter that is causing the issue.  

 

Some guns will shoot these bullets fine --- this is a gun specific issue, really a chamber/barrel specific issue.  A smith may be able to modify your barrel to take the rounds (basically extend the chamber about 1 mm).  ????   My less "exacting" ruger p89 will shoot them, as will my 92, but my cz and witness will not.

[Major Kong]

Red I'll try to find that piece of brass but I put it in my EMP and it chambered and fired with no problem. The brass was a mix of reclaimed range brass, mostly mine but not all. I did resize the case so I wouldn't think that the bulge would still be there.

 

I measured a sample of the brass to make sure it was good but I'm typically not as anal about that with straight walled cases.

 

Thanks everyone for the tips and thoughts. It's great to have the collective reloading experience around here to draw from.

 

As an aside, I'm liking the lead boolits so far. I figure it's costing about 11 cents a round to load these. That cost will come down the next time as I'll buy the boolits in bulk to save a little more.

[Patton]

It is most likely do to your new, tight chambered LW barrel. You can get the barrel reamed by sending it back to LW.

[Raoul]

When you bell the mouth of a 9mm case to be able to fit the bullet into it you must be certain that your seating die take that bell out when seating the bullet. Otherwise the round cannot seat properly in the barrel and what happened to you is what happens.

[Guest K7Sparky]

Had / have the same problem intermittently in a Fire Dragon barrel 10mm Glock 29. 

Tight chamber, some cases have slight bulge from firing in a Glock barrel that is lower on the case head than a  sizer (carbide or other wise) sizes.

Lee Bulge Buster

Note: Lee Bulge Busters say not for Glocks.  Probably leagleze for Glock policy says "no reloads for Glocks."

I wanted 1 barrel that the manufacturer actually said lead OK.

Also maybe 1 out of 2 or 3 thousand in a Glock 17 / Glock Barrel / caused by my inattention during reloading.