Another Blown Up Pistol!

Although ammo shortages have eased a bit, ammo prices generally have not and still create challenges for many shooters. As a result, some shooters are turning away from major brands and buying reloaded ammo from smaller ammo manufacturers. While the quality is acceptable for many, sometimes it is not.

In one of my recent matches, I heard a substantially louder report from the bay next to me. Upon investigation, I discovered that a shooter’s revolver had essentially detonated.

I asked him if he was OK and he said yes. He only had some soot spots in several areas on his hands. The round in the firing chamber (the blue arrow in the picture below) had discharged with enough pressure that gas burned through the adjacent cylinder walls (red arrows in picture) and caused those rounds to fire as well. There was no obstruction in the bore; however, one the adjacent rounds struck the revolver’s frame. The shooter’s brand new S&W Performance Center® Model 327 Jerry Miculek World Record Revolver and its associated optic were toast—a $3500.00 ouch.

I asked if he was using factory ammunition and he said he was; however, when I asked what brand he replied that he didn’t know. He said it was a company in San Antonio that manufactured reloaded ammunition, but he didn’t remember the name.

I strongly suspect that the round that detonated was substantially overcharged. As we see in this incident, an overcharge can destroy your firearm and could cause serious injury depending upon the circumstances.

How do we prevent this? The obvious answer is to limit your purchases to major manufacturers and avoid companies that reload ammunition. However, that is not necessarily the best answer as many smaller companies produce excellent ammunition. Additionally, over the past several years I have seen quality control problems with ammunition from several of the major manufacturers as well.

One way to reduce risk would be to purchase a digital reloading scale and weigh every round. Although this is tedious, it would identify any round that weighs markedly less (undercharge) or greater (overcharge) than the average for that box. One caveat, brass from different manufacturers will have different weights so you will need to separate the rounds by brass manufacturer if the box has mixed brass.

As of this writing, a simple digital reloading scale costs less than $50.00. This is quite a bit less than a $3500.00 custom pistol.

If you enjoy reading these articles please subscribe. The link is on the upper right side of the page. All that will happen is that you will receive an e-mail when I post an article. Your information will never be distributed.