What Happens When Firing a Round Without Powder?

[CRNA]

Interesting. I was talking to a guy at the local range back in the winter. We were sharing stories and he told me of a time when he and a friend were shooting handguns. They were both shooting handloads in revolvers. (I bet you already see where this one's going) He was watching his buddy shoot his double action revolver. On one round a very quiet POP sounded. He was thinking fast and yelled at his buddy (who was not as familiar with firearms), and told him to STOP!!! He then carefully took the gun from his friends hand and de cocked it. Opened up the cylinder and took a look down the barrel. The .357 bullet was lodged very firmly in the barrel. Now, just imagine if he would have fired the next round, which was later verified to be loaded with powder. The primer explosion was enough, in that case, so he said, to get the bullet about half way down the barrel. Could have been a very bad day for his friend. Whether that is true or not is anybody's guess. I know that I have become so paranoid with my hand loading that I always immediately seat a bullet in the case right after weighing the powder and charging the case. I never charge a tray of cases at once and then seat all of my bullets. Just a habit that I have learned to do very early on.

 

[nfhjr62]

Haven't done that just FORGOT THE PRIMER full load of powder seated bullet SO in a rapid fire stage well you can guess what happened

 

[lazylabs]

One curious thing.... I have seen bullets travel several inches down the barrel with just primer pressure. Some of you have had the bullets not even leave the case. Some have been in the middle. It seems like a huge swing in pressure between those results. Has anyone seen pressure numbers on just primers? How about S.D.? Do we spend all those hours on getting .1 grains of powder and .001 bearing surface and bla bla bla and the primers vary more than any of it? We all try different brands or lots of primers but who had the actual pressure numbers on them?

 

[BuckSnort]

One curious thing.... I have seen bullets travel several inches down the barrel with just primer pressure. Some of you have had the bullets not even leave the case. Some have been in the middle. It seems like a huge swing in pressure between those results. Has anyone seen pressure numbers on just primers? How about S.D.? Do we spend all those hours on getting .1 grains of powder and .001 bearing surface and bla bla bla and the primers vary more than any of it? We all try different brands or lots of primers but who had the actual pressure numbers on them?

Good point!

 

[msalm]

I've done this ONCE, and that was when I had primed a bunch of cases and needed one to work out seating depth on a 338 Edge. That case with a seated bullet ended up in the box of loaded rounds with a 300gr sierra seated in it. When I shot it, it just sounded like a mis-fire. No pop, or any sound other than the firing pin dropping. I ejected the case with the bullet still seated exactly where it should have been and I thought I had loaded a dud primer. When I pulled the bullet the back end of it was completely black with soot from the primer, so apparently the neck tension with a 338 Sierra is enough to keep it in place with a CCI mag primer behind it.

 

[ZEEK]

Can't speak from experience about rifles, but if you shoot a shotgun with no powder, shot goes about 10 feet out the barrel, but much to my surprise the wad remained--split about 2 inches of the barrel of my dad's 20 gauge with the firing of the next shot. To say he was not please would be an understatement.

 

[Reloader222]

The bullet will lodge tightly in the lands.

Hmmmmm. How do I know that?

The best way to avoid this is to make it standard practice to eye ball your loads in the loading tray with a torch before you seat the bullets!

 

[Coyboy]

Can't speak from experience about rifles, but if you shoot a shotgun with no powder, shot goes about 10 feet out the barrel, but much to my surprise the wad remained--split about 2 inches of the barrel of my dad's 20 gauge with the firing of the next shot. To say he was not please would be an understatement.

I was goose hunting as a boy with a old 11a remington. Watched the shot rainbow out of the barrel about 20 feet up in the air, I cycled the action manually and thought, "wait a minute I didn't see a wad come out."

widled a stick for a pusher and cleared the wad.

 

[ZEEK]

I was goose hunting as a boy with a old 11a remington. Watched the shot rainbow out of the barrel about 20 feet up in the air, I cycled the action manually and thought, "wait a minute I didn't see a wad come out."

widled a stick for a pusher and cleared the wad.

Yeah, in hind sight that's the obvious. It was a break open single shot--would have been so easy to look down the barrel. To tell you how times have changed, a few days later I took the gun to school and my shop teacher (who was a part time gunsmith) removed the damaged end of the barrel and dressed it up nicely, that didn't do much for the gun's choke, but still was deadly on cottontails.

 

[mo]

I just went out in my shop and did 5 times. The bullet never moved. Really didn't even hear a POP!!! 284 win 180 berger

 

[bkondeff]

Well I just got back from shooting and guess what I did. Yep, there is a 110 accubond that traveled about 3/4" in the rifling in my 25-06. No bang, and the primer is bulged but no soot or sign that presser came backwards. I tried to tap the bullet back down the but it isn't budging. I think I may take it to a smith unless anyone hass a good way no to kill myself or harm my rifle.

I'm usually very careful to place a bullet upside down into the filled case, then seat them all at once. I think I will be sure to look down the case each time as I am placing it into the press to seat.

 

[bkondeff]

Well I found a brass extension from an d Outers cleaning kit that fit my cleaning rod and used that to apply a little force and the bullet fell out. The primer burns hot because it burnt the bullet and the case.

Definetely be sure to clear everything and look when you think you have simple misfired primer, because it clearly down't sound like a shot.

Of to scrub my barrel now.

 

[Tyler Kemp]

With a 45-70 and a heavy bullet it barely lodged in the rifling, was easy to push out.

With my 6mm Ackley it lodged tight a bit down the barrel, but a case of powder shot it out.

 

[Bart B]

After reading the posts in this thread, I'm convinced that the bullet will stay in the case if its release force is quite a bit. That aside, if the release force is pretty low and the force required to push the bullet into the rifling is low, then a bullet will go up the bore some amount. After the bullet's engraved by the rifling, lower amounts of force are needed to push it out.

I've talked to some machine gun crews who pulled bullets from misfires and there was no powder in the cases. But then that arsenal ammo had release forced of 60 or more pounds.