I need advice...

[Fobos]

While running some cheap Egyptian 9mm ammo through my Glock 17 last night, my friend hollered at me to come over and take a look at the gun. Being a newbie, I had told him to immediately make me aware of any malfunctions, continue to point the weapon downrange, and not to try to fix or troubleshoot any problems on his own (then I watched him like a hawk anyway). Upon inspecting the Glock, I noted that the trigger was pulled back and the slide was in battery. Thinking that the primer was defective (we had problems with that earlier), I had my friend continue to point the gun downrange until I was sure the round would not surprise us as a slow burner.

After I took the gun, I pulled the slide back a bit to look down into the chamber and noticed a great deal of gunpowder fall out of that area onto the bench. I racked the slide back the rest of the way and watched as an empty shell dropped through the empty magazine well. The first thought to come to my mind was failure to eject, time to slap the mag back in place and allow my friend to continue firing, but two things troubled me:

1. The discovery of unburned gunpowder.

2. The fact that my friend had thought the malfunction was due to a bad primer, meaning that he had not noticed any recoil.

Rather than load the gun and hand it back to my friend, I disassembled the gun and glanced down the barrel only to see the back of a bullet lodged in the barrel just past the chamber.

It turns out that the cartridge was the victim of a partial burn, and the bullet had only enough speed to enter the barrel and become stuck. The slide moved only slightly to the rear when the shot was fired, so thankfully another round was not chambered and then fired. That could have resulted in minor injuries such as lacerations and burns, or it could have killed my friend. Barring injury, the gun would almost certainly have been destroyed anyway. It would have been a terrible conclusion to an awesome day.

Now that the story is out, what I am looking for is advice. I have a Glock barrel with a 9mm FMJ bullet lodged in it. Is there a way that I can remove the bullet, or does my only hope lie in a gunsmith? How can it be done?

[TA]

Boy am I glad nobody tried to fire another round through that barrel.

I have never had a squib, but I would try to tap the bullet out with a piece of wood dowel. Wood will not damage the rifling or barrel crown.

[TBT]

Jesus Fobes ... you dodged a nasty situation.

So it was the fault of the bullet and not the gun. What kind of bullets were you running, WWB?

[TMan]

Brownell's carries "squib rods" for this purpose. If you are going to continue to shoot this ammo, you might want to consider buying one. They are made out of brass and won't mess up the barrel.

www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=1251

My fear in using a wood dowel is that I would want to make sure that it fit the barrel tightly enough. The thing that you don't want to do is drive out the lead bullet and leave the jacket still there.

By the way, squib's are my biggest nightmare and the reason I don't load myself. I'm such a dumba$$ that I probably wouldn't have thought to look down the barrel, and chambered another round - Kaboom.

[TBT]

Yeah ... honestly, I wouldn't have thought to look down the barrel. I'm not a dumbass like TMan though, I'm purely a morron by nature. ;D

["DoubleAction"]

Fobos; If you do not want to wait for the squib rod, and don't trust the wood dowel idea; Try using a jag, wrapped in a patch soaked in break free. My jags are so tight that I sometimes have to gently tap them through the bore when putting them through for the first time.

["DoubleAction"]

Oh yeah; Very good thinking on your part Fobos.

[5ontarget]

bad luck, and good thinking Fobos.

Just heat it up and melt the lead out.

I'm kidding, of course.

I'd be inclined to try a dowel or cleaning rod with a jag(with the crown protected) maybe drip some cleaner/lube down around it just to try to help things out.

[Fobos]

Thanks for the link, TMan. I'll go with the 'squib rods' approach.

Though it makes sense in hindsight, I'm not sure how I got so lucky in my assessment. I've never even heard the term "squib." But I'm pretty happy that no one got hurt and that I didn't lose a near-new handgun in the process.

I might continue to use this ammo until my supply of it runs out, but only during slow fire on the range - and I'd be the one to shoot it so that I don't put anyone else in potential danger. I'm also going to tell Sam (the local gunstore owner who occasionally sells that ammo) that he ought not sell it anymore. With all the primer malfunctions and that squib, he'll definately stop selling it.

BTW, I don't know what kind of ammo it is other than it was 9mm and manufactured in Egypt. The price was so low that I couldn't refuse...

[Fobos]

Couple more questions:

1. Would someone later have been able to determine what had happened if I had simply loaded another magazine into the gun and my friend had experienced a a Kaboom?

2. I took a close look at the gunpowder on the bench after I'd discovered the squib. I remember learning about the evolution of modern ammo, and how the grain was developed to provide adequate oxygen to all of the powder in the case and cause a more instantaneous explosion. The powder from that egyptian ammo looked like miniature cylinders. Is this a common pattern in gunpowder? Could this type of powder, combined with some bad luck, have been responsible for the partial burn? I actually brushed all of the remaining powder into a pile on the edge of the table and easily set it off with the cherry on my cigarette...

[TMan]

Kabooms are what worry me the most about Glocks. As wonderful as polymer plastic is... I hope it is good because my new roof is made out of it.

Yes, from the damage done to the gun, they would have more than likely concluded that it was a squib round that caused it.

I have a couple of other polymer guns too: SP21 and XD-9, and I don't trust them anymore than I do the Glock. Although, I must say that I shoot the XD a heck of a lot better than I do my Glock 34.

A great deal on the price of ammo can end up being very expensive.

Also, although I let a lot of people shoot my guns, I don't let anyone else shoot the polymer ones. Just from a liability standpoint.

[TA]

The biggest problem with Glocks as I see it, they don't have a fully supported chamber. I don't think the polymer frame in itself will cause a gun to have a higher probablility of a Kaboom. I'm not slamming Glocks, becasue let's face it, probably most makes and models have come apart in a shooters hand at one time or another. If the pressure is too high or the material supporting that pressure is too weak, they explode.

[TBT]

Would a steal frame gun be less likely to kaboom? You would think that the polymer wouldn't matter when it came to that. If it was enough to blow apart the barrel, that energy has to go somewhere ...

Maybe I'm missing some basic thing about a kaboom, but I'm confused now.

["DoubleAction"]

I've seen the top three cylinders and top straps blown off on more than a few revolvers, which were loaded with too much powder.
I've seen barrels bulged out to where they actually stretch and and burst open from Squibs on the semi-autos.
With the high pressures of the .40 S&W, 357 sig, 38 Super, and some 9mm +P, I would trust nothing but a fully supported barrel chamber. That is one thing, among many more, why I am fond of the SIG.
Rapid fire and Squibs might not give a person much time to react, and even with a fully supported chamber, it would not make any difference. Having a steel slide might help absorb any fragmentation from the barrel, which many polymer frame pistols have with the .40 S&W and 357 sig.
Having a supported chamber, a steel frame, and reinforced grip panels, will help protect the shooter's hand in the event of a blown case. I've heard of some incidents where some frames become fragments during the explosion on a case.
Lets all be glad that Fobos and his friend are alright today because of his quick thinking, decisiveness, and safety awareness on the range. Most commendable.

[klmhq]

The only Kaboom that was close to me was when my dad had one in his CZ-75 Champion. It was a reload and apparently, the case was weak. The case ruptured straight into the magazine.

If there's one thing you never have to worry about with my dad's loads, it's a squib.

[MLB]

Fobos, glad to hear that everything worked out. Especially since it was not by chance or luck, but by sharp observation. Cheers.

[5ontarget]

I bought some not so inexpensive, but cheap/poor reloads. Out of 100 rounds I had at least 4 missfires. Never had a misfire before, or since that time with that gun. With those reloads, I noticed a lot of unburned powder fouling the gun. It was in various shapes, cylinders, wafers/discs, and a few flakes.

[TMan]

admin said:

I've seen the top three cylinders and top straps blown off on more than a few revolvers, which were loaded with too much powder.

And people just can't understand why I don't load my own. I've lived with me all my life. As I've gotten older I try more and more not to give myself opportunities to screw up.

[Mountaineer]

Fobos, glad you're OK. My cousin had this happen to him one time when we were shooting DA revolvers. We used to like to shoot DA revolvers fast at combat targets and my cousin had a squib, thankfully he stopped pulling the trigger when he noticed the shot didn't sound right. I unloaded his gun and checked the barrel, and sure enough there was a bullet in the barrel. We brought it home and took a wooden dowel rod that fit the barrel pretty close, and drove the bullet right out. We cleaned his barrel and he was ready to go.

[Fobos]

I finally removed the bullet from the barrel a few days ago.

Cleaning the Glock, I couldn't resist the urge to experiment with a cleaning rod. I sprayed excess oil into the barrel, dropped a cleaning rod into place and lightly tapped the end of the rod with a hammer. I was surprised to see that the bullet moved significantly with such a weak effort. Two more taps was all it took to slide the bullet free.