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I was at Front Sight last week doing the four day practical rifle class with my AR 15 - whew was it hot out there! During my four days on range it was easy to spot ammo lying on the gravel that had been dropped by me or another shooter. The Range Masters repeatedly mentioned not to pick up and shoot the ammo...
Of course it was difficult for me to see such a bountiful amount of ammo on the ground so every now and again I would pick up a bullet, inspect it, and then put it into my pocket... What a mistake that turned out to be...
I was shooting and suddenly I had a couple fail-to-fire's in a row - very unusual since it hadn't been an issue up until then. Then, after replacing the magazine thinking I had something wrong with either the magazine or the rounds in the magazine, I found that I couldn't get the bolt to seat all the way.
To his credit, the Range Master stopped me and had me take the rifle back to the bench and do a barrel check. As suspected we found a squib load at the very beginning of the barrel.
I went back to my firing line and found the ammo on the ground that I had been ejecting and I noticed two things:
1. There was a shell with a perfect primer strike but didn't fire.
2. There was a shell with a bullet that had been pushed into the shell casing.
When we pulled the bullet off the shell that failed to fire we noticed there was a little bit of clumpy powder residue in the shell casing "as thick as a prostitutes mascara" (that was the range masters words). The primer may have indeed fired but the powder was in such bad shape that it didn't ignite and the bullet didn't get pushed out of the shell casing. The bullet with the fouled powder was not the same brand ammo as what I had taken to the class - I must have picked it up from the ground and threw it into my pile...
The theory was that a couple of bullets had this fouled powder, one of them failed to fire at all, and another fired with enough force to push the bullet forward but not out of the barrel.
From the relevant facts it looks like I narrowly missed sending a second round down my barrel because the squib load was so close to the front of the barrel that the bolt couldn't seat correct, crushing the bullet into the shell casing...
While shooting I never heard or felt anything unusual that would have lead me to think that my rounds weren't going down range - no pop or anything unusual.
It was plenty scary for me to consider the possibilities of what could have happened had the squib load been a little deeper into the barrel and the bolt had seated correctly.
There are a few lessons I learned from this experience... First, it doesn't pay to pick up ammo found on the ground - you don't know how long the ammo has been there or where it comes from. Second, buying cheap ammo only really makes sense if you can be sure the bullet doesn't result in a squib load and then ruin your barrel and/or your day. Third, when something strange starts happening on the range it's time to step back and evaluate what is happening before you blow your head off...
Of course it was difficult for me to see such a bountiful amount of ammo on the ground so every now and again I would pick up a bullet, inspect it, and then put it into my pocket... What a mistake that turned out to be...
I was shooting and suddenly I had a couple fail-to-fire's in a row - very unusual since it hadn't been an issue up until then. Then, after replacing the magazine thinking I had something wrong with either the magazine or the rounds in the magazine, I found that I couldn't get the bolt to seat all the way.
To his credit, the Range Master stopped me and had me take the rifle back to the bench and do a barrel check. As suspected we found a squib load at the very beginning of the barrel.
I went back to my firing line and found the ammo on the ground that I had been ejecting and I noticed two things:
1. There was a shell with a perfect primer strike but didn't fire.
2. There was a shell with a bullet that had been pushed into the shell casing.
When we pulled the bullet off the shell that failed to fire we noticed there was a little bit of clumpy powder residue in the shell casing "as thick as a prostitutes mascara" (that was the range masters words). The primer may have indeed fired but the powder was in such bad shape that it didn't ignite and the bullet didn't get pushed out of the shell casing. The bullet with the fouled powder was not the same brand ammo as what I had taken to the class - I must have picked it up from the ground and threw it into my pile...
The theory was that a couple of bullets had this fouled powder, one of them failed to fire at all, and another fired with enough force to push the bullet forward but not out of the barrel.
From the relevant facts it looks like I narrowly missed sending a second round down my barrel because the squib load was so close to the front of the barrel that the bolt couldn't seat correct, crushing the bullet into the shell casing...
While shooting I never heard or felt anything unusual that would have lead me to think that my rounds weren't going down range - no pop or anything unusual.
It was plenty scary for me to consider the possibilities of what could have happened had the squib load been a little deeper into the barrel and the bolt had seated correctly.
There are a few lessons I learned from this experience... First, it doesn't pay to pick up ammo found on the ground - you don't know how long the ammo has been there or where it comes from. Second, buying cheap ammo only really makes sense if you can be sure the bullet doesn't result in a squib load and then ruin your barrel and/or your day. Third, when something strange starts happening on the range it's time to step back and evaluate what is happening before you blow your head off...
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